Vice President Joe Biden makes a stop in Seattle Friday morning to help raise money for Sen. Patty Murray's re-election campaign.

Normally Spin Control wouldn't care because a) it's closed to the press except for a pool reporter which ain't us; 2) it's in Seattle, which is a bit of a schlep to see folks going in for breakfast; and thirdly we kinda already knew Murray was running for re-election.

Then Republicans called with notice of a special phone-in press conference Thursday in which Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers was going to discuss Biden's visit to Seattle for Murray. That was a phone call, rather than a schlep, so Spin Control dialed in...

...And heard state GOP Chairman Luke Esser reveal the startling news that Murray pretty much supports all of Barack Obama and Biden's policies.

Wow. WOW.

Really? Absolutely, said Esser, who believes that's a great thing for whichever Republican emerges from the seven-candidate (at last count, anyway) field in the primary.

"We are eager at the state party to have Patty Murray not only affiliated but tied at the  hip to the Obama administration," he said.

The GOP doesn't have a favorite in the field, which Esser noted is wide open without a front-runner who is well-known statewide. The feeling was that they would let the candidates fight it out so that the winner would emerge, Scott Brown-like, after the August primary and surprise Murray and the political experts much the way Brown did in Massachusetts.

And what did McMorris Rodgers, who disagrees with Murray on many issues but has worked pretty closely with her on things like veterans topics, say about Biden visiting Seattle?

Nothing, as it turned out. The combination of a busy congressional schedule and the snow in D.C. apparently kept her from dialing in to the telephonic press conference.

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