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Here's yet another sign that the current political environment is helping Republicans with their recruitment efforts: One of the GOP's leading House recruits from the 2000 election is making a comeback.
Snohomish County Councilman John Koster, one of the few Republicans to ever seriously challenge Rep. Rick Larsen (D-Wash.), announced that he's running against Larsen again this year.
"Rick Larsen offers Washingtonians a failed socialist ideology that punishes prosperity and produces mediocrity. It has failed millions of people every time it has been tried - government cannot spend us into prosperity," Koster said in a statement.
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Republican Snohomish County Councilman John Koster announced today that he will challenge U.S. Rep. Rick Larsen, a Democrat from Everett, for the 2nd Congressional District seat.
Koster, who ran for the same seat unsuccessfully in 2000, served three terms in the state House and has served on the Snohomish County Council since 2001.
In a statement announcing his candidacy, Koster attacked Larsen’s “socialist agenda” and labeled the five-term congressman a “puppet of the Peolsi-Reid Congress.”
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I am very pleased to report that Snohomish County Councilman John Koster is running for U.S. Congress in Washington's Second Congressional District against current representative Rick Larsen.
Koster's a conservative's conservative. He lost to Larsen in 2000 by a thin margin -- the only time he's ever lost a general election -- but this time, combining Larsen's many missteps with John's record and the voter mood, if Koster can get his message out, he will win.
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EVERETT – Snohomish County Councilman John Koster announced today that he will challenge Democratic U.S. Rep. Rick Larsen this fall to represent Washington's 2nd Congressional District.
In a release this morning, the Arlington Republican said he offers a steady conservative political approach to that of the "‘progressive' socialist agenda” of the incumbent.
Koster, 58, is fresh from winning his third term on the County Council in November.
Koster and Larsen dueled for the same congressional seat in 2000 in one of the closest races in the area in years. It also was a contest in which the Democratic and Republican national parties poured in people and resources.
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Snohomish County Councilman John Koster on Wednesday announced that he would challenge Rep. Rick Larsen, D-Wash., who beat Koster 10 years ago.
 Koster
A former dairy farmer, Koster was an outspoken conservative and property rights advocate in the Washington Legislature. He is currently the lone Republican on the Snohomish County Council.
Larsen has established a solid hold on the 2nd Congressional District, which stretches from Mukilteo to the Canadian border. But the 2nd is designed to be a swing district.
The district elected Democratic congressmen from 1964 to 1994. A Republican, Jack Metcalf, won the seat in the 1994 GOP landslide. Metcalf held it, with fundraising visits from then-House Speaker Newt Gingrich, until obeying a self-imposed limit of three terms and retiring in 2000.
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Snohomish County Councilman John Koster is looking for a rematch against U.S. Rep. Rick Larsen, D-Everett.
The 58-year-old Republican announced Wednesday, Jan. 13, he'll challenge Larsen after hearing from hundreds of people by phone, e-mail and through an Internet petition asking him to run.
Koster, a former business consultant and dairy farmer, lost to Larsen in 2000 when they were both vying for the vacated seat of retiring GOP Rep. Jack Metcalf.
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Posted by Kyung Song
WASHINGTON -- Snohomish County Councilman John Koster today officially entered the race for the 2nd Congressional district seat, setting up a rematch with Rep. Rick Larsen.
Koster, a former Republican state legislator, is a dairy farmer who ran for the same seat in the U.S. House of Representatives in 2000. Larsen, D-Lake Stevens, won that election and became a freshman congressman.
Koster is positioning himself as an ideological opposite of Larsen, whom Koster criticized for supporting the federal bailout of financial and auto industries and stimulus spending in response to the recession. Koster also opposes the current health-care reform bills, contending that "Congress is on a course to destroy the finest health-care system in the world."
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