For Herrera, it was the Lameness in Longview.

I'd heard that Jaime came across utterly clueless at the Longview forum, much like she had at the WTP vetting on Tuesday... but I hadn't seen any credible source that wasn't a Herrera kool aid drinker comment or write about either the vetting or the Longview forum.

Herrera was awful at the vetting. She lied about her support of the SEIU bill and lied about her support of democrat efforts to strip out the last remaining $229,000,000 from the emergency fund while she was babbling at Harney.

While I have briefly commented on that, I'll let the video do the talking when it comes up.

Meanwhile, another source has commented on Ridgefield Barbie's poor performance at the Longview forum. The comments?

Denny Heck and Dennis[sic] Castillo, representing different parties and differing views of government, sat next to each other and dominated the first candidate forum in wide open 3rd Congressional District race.

"Dominated." As we knew Heck and Castillo would.

Heck's main competition on the d-side is a fringe left whack job named Craig Pridemore. The fringe left has no chance in this race, so I won't waste my time even discussing him.

That leaves the top two Republicans in the 3rd CD, Castillo and Herrera.

Castillo, of course, is superior in every way to Herrera. He has superior education (He has a Master's Degree, she a Bachelors) Castillo has private sector experience (Herrera has precisely zero) in addition to experience as a legislative staffer and chief of staff, besides stints as a deputy assistant secretary in Veterans Affairs; Intergovernmental Affairs Officer at Labor, Director of the Homeland Security Information Network and is a veteran of the Navy.

Herrera.... doesn't. She's not a Veteran (although she rather stupidly looked me in the eye while she told me that her work as a low-level staffer and career intern was the same thing as "being in the military") she's never worked in the private sector; she's done a few week stints as intern here and there, and she was a low-level staffer for Cathy McMorris Rogers... and she can't even tell the truth about that.

But he (Castillo) was by far the most articulate and engaging of GOP candidates on stage Thursday night. Specifically, Castillo repeatedly articulated a less-government philosophy.

Castillo, of course, has a clue. Herrera, the local version of the Teleprompter in Chief, never had an original thought in her life.

Castillo described the country as being run by "a cabal of big government leftists who are more concerned with power than the American people," and said of one signature Obama program: "The only thing the Stimulus did was to stimulate the imagination of bureaucrats who think they know better."

All true, of course.

And even though some morons in DC see Herrera as all that and a bag of chips,

...the young legislator came across as super-serious, self-possessed and somewhat scripted. She brought to mind memories of Tracy Flick, the student body politician played by Reese Witherspoon in the movie "Election."

"Somewhat scripted" being the understatement of the decade.

Herrera used the word "prioritize" several times, talked vaguely about "changing directions", and used such timeless Republican bromides as: "An effective jobs program is not going to come from Washington, D.C.

Intelligence, vision and grasp of the issues are not strong suits for the frequently-absent-from-the-floor-for-fund-raising-while-someone-else-voted-for-her representative from Washington, DC.

She must know that this kind of dullard performance simply won't do.

And unfortunately for her, it was the best she could do... and her best was as pathetic in Longview as it was at Harney Elementary.

Castillo took out after the Obama administration's plan to curb Wall Street excesses. "We do not need a consumer protection agency as another layer of bureaucracy," he said.

True enough. What about doing a good job with the laws we have?

Herrera seemed to say that Congress should be Wall Street's watchdog. "I think there is a difference between congressional oversight and regulation," she added. "The answer is not more regulation and handing off authority to a non-elected body like the Fed."

Idiocy.

Congress is not an enforcement arm, and someone who hung around there for a day or two should have known that.

Castillo said the next Congress should "repeal, reform and replace" the health care reform bill just signed into law.

Herrera, on the other hand, again lacking an original thought, babbled: "We have to start over."

While these quotes and observations are the product of a democrat columnist, they dovetail completely with the available information about the candidates. Quotes are quotes, regardless of who records them.

Clearly, Herrera is outclassed, out-experienced and this August, out the door.