Darcy Burner this morning offers a new theory for why she narrowly lost to Republican Dave Reichert in the 8th Congressional District race: her gender.

In an email to Seattle Times reporter Jonathan Martin, who covered the race, Burner listed 20 Democratic challengers in U.S. House races around the country who had raised at least $1 million as of June.

Of the seven who lost (or are trailing), six are women. Among the 13 winners, only one is a woman, according to Burner's tally. Burner ended her email with this statement:

"Notice a pattern? You asked me why I thought I didn't win. Some answers I am not allowed to give."

While it is true that women historically have had a hard time penetrating the good old boys club of Congress, Burner's theory ignores some facts.

First, Washington State, including the 8th District, has had little problem electing women. Does anyone remember Jennifer Dunn? Senators Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell? Gov. Christine Gregoire?

Second, Burner's list of six women who lost includes two who lost, or were trailing in the latest vote counts, to other women (Democrat Patricia Madrid is trailing Republican Heather Wilson in New Mexico's 1st District and Democrat Mary Jo Kilroy trails Republican Deborah Pryce in Ohio's 15th.)

The Washington Post reports last week's election resulted in a net gain in the number of women in Congress.

I asked Burner to clarify her point. She responded with another email:

There has been a lot of talk about this year's Democratic wave, but it was clearly a wave that helped men more than women. A reasonable hypothesis would be that the wave was related to voter feeling about the war, and that voters responded by preferring Democratic male challengers to Republican incumbents (of either gender), but did not apply that same preference to Democratic female challengers. (The one exception on the list, Gillibrand, ran her entire campaign on a corruption theme - a noticible difference from everyone else.). Why would the issue of the war help men but not women? I'll leave that to you. But I think if we're going to talk about the wave and the macro environment, it's important to recognize such a striking pattern.

(Gillibrand refers to Kirsten Gillibrand, the Democrat who beat Republican John Sweeney in New York's 20th District. Sweeney self-destructed with reports of inappropriate ski trips with lobbyists, photos of him partying at a fraternity house, and allegations of spousal abuse.)

So I guess Burner is arguing last week's Blue Wave was actually a Blue Male Iraq War (Unless You Were A Woman Talking About Corruption) Wave.