With David Postman off for a couple of days, staff reporter Emily Heffter, who is covering the 8th Congressional District race, filed this post:

Democratic Congressional candidate Darcy Burner's campaign launched its first TV ad today, a one-minute spot introducing Burner to voters by talking about her family and experiences. You can watch it here.

The ad seems to play up Burner's middle-class roots, a theme of her campaign this year, and something I wrote about last month. The ad also mentions Burner's July 1 house fire, which destroyed her family's Ames Lake home. The camera shows images the charred remains of her house, and her voiceover says: "When we lost our house to fire, thanks to this community, which has helped my family in so many ways, we've been able to focus on all that we still have."

Campaign spokesman Sandeep Kaushik won't say how much the campaign spent on the ad, except to say it was "well into the six figures." It will run for at least a week on broadcast and cable television, he said, starting today.

Burner is challenging U.S. Rep. Dave Reichert, R-Auburn. She lost to him by 2 percentage points in 2006. So far, Reichert has not run any television ads.