Wanna get a close-up look at a Cowardly Lion? Who better than the titular head of the national Republican Party, Michael Steele, who recently showed off his glass cojones by criticizing--and then almost immediately apologizing to--the de facto head of the party, Pill-Poppinfresh himself, Rush Limbaugh?
That's right--if you're a fan of trainwrecks and have $40 in (very) disposable income, you can shuffle on down to the Portland Hilton and catch wind of Steele's plan to "renew and rebuild" the GOP {pdf}. And what better place to talk about it, than one of the states where the party has very nearly hit rock bottom? There will be a statewide elected Republican official at the event, 2nd CD Congressman Greg Walden. Of course, I didn't need to tell you that, since he's the ONLY statewide elected official the GOP has in Oregon.
To fill out the schedule I guess, they're also recycling former Senator Gordon Smith, who also keynoted the annual Dorchester Conference on the coast last week. Formers Bob Smith and Vic Atiyeh will also attend, as will the Minority Leaders of the Legislature and state chair Bob Tiernan. Think of it as a Who's Who of Hacks and Has-Beens.
But Michael Steele--he's a star! The invite itself calls his ascension to the GOP throne "historic," as opposed to say, a craven gesture of tokenism designed to bleed off a little of the good vibe from the Obama election. You have to wonder how many of the attendeees will be hoping for a little revisionist history on that front, given the outcry from bedrock conservatives about the Chair's terrible (momentary) dissing of a convicted drug addict and entertainer who merely said that he hopes the US economy fails under the new administration. Like everywhere, the reduction of Republican registrations has left Oregon with a GOP shed of moderates and full of those bedrockers. Will Steele be booed? Will some sit on their hands? Oh, the palpable tension!
The bill has passed! Yay! So has the Ensign Amendment, which basically repeals DC's tough gun control laws. Boooo. The Democrats basically sold out DC on that one in order to get them a House Member. One imagines they will try to have it removed in conference when it passes the House, but that's the GOP's one lever left before any court challenges...and with so many Dems on board, it may take the new House Member him/herself to get it fixed in 2011...
The call has gone out for contacting Senators regarding a particularly virulent poison pill by archconservative John Ensign, regarding gun control in DC, always a rallying topic for Republicans. Note that both our Senators are likely to vote down the amendment, but a call couldn't hurt--and if you'd like to try advocating to other Senators, not a bad idea either:
Senator John Ensign (R-NV) has added a gun amendment to the DC House Voting Rights Act (S.160). The amendment is flawed, dangerous and unnecessary. One minute of your time could make the critical difference between a "yes" and "no" vote on the Senate floor!
Call toll-free 1.888.999.6775 TODAY, Thursday, February 26
You will be transferred to your senators' offices. Tell them you are a constituent who wants the senator to vote NO on the gun amendment DC House Voting Rights Act (S. 160).
----
About a year or so ago, the young and energetic folks at DC Vote dropped me an email and asked to meet with me. "Huh?" I thought. First, why is DC Vote coming to Oregon, and secondly why are they calling me? Sure I lived in the shadow of DC for over 20 years and the whole taxation-without-representation thing has been a burr in my saddle of political morality for a long time...but what did LO and Oregon have to do with it?
The answer: Gordon Smith. Along with 40+ of his Republican Senate friends, he had consistently blocked passage of any bill to give DC residents Congressional representation. The current effort plans to give DC one House Member, balanced with one extra seat in Utah--which strongly believed it got jobbed out of an extra electoral vote (and thus House seat) in the 2000 apportionment. Note that this clever balancing act got the powerful Orrin Hatch on board, but it wasn't enough--and even if it had passed, would President Bush have signed it?
So DC Vote was coming to me to highlight yet another issue where Smith was not exactly supporting the efforts of greater democracy and fairness. They were pretty close, just a few votes away--and defeating people like Smith was the best path to victory. I liked their approach, definitely agreed with their thesis--so I did them the solid and wrote it up as one more reason to get rid of Gordon.
Fast forward to the 111th Congress, now newly decorated with additional Democrats--including Jeff Merkley, replacement for the aforementioned obstructionist Smith. And the results for the District? The bill is on the floor this week, working its way through various poison-pill amendments, and appears scheduled for a cloture vote today. It's already passed one such vote with 62 Senators, so prospects look optimistic.
One of those 62 votes, you may correctly guess, was cast by Junior Senator Merkley (one of the others was cast by Wyden, a consistent supporter of the bill). As his office told me:
For far too long, the residents of the District of Columbia have not had full representation in our government. The Senate took a huge step today towards rectifying that situation and I’m honored to have played a small part in bringing equal treatment to DC.
The DC Vote people had their own thanks and kudos:
We really appreciate SenatorMerkley’s support for the DC House Voting Rights Act. He and his colleagues in the new 111th Congress have really stepped up to the plate on this issue. Thanks to their “yes” votes on cloture, we’re a huge step closer towards full democracy for DC residents. Sen. Merkley voiced his support for the issue when DC Vote staffers were out in Oregon last spring and we’re thankful to him for his continued support now that he’s a member of the Senate.
Elections matter. No really, they do. Congratulations to both Oregon Senators for championing representation for ALL American citizens.
Think Joe Lieberman's direct attacks on Democrats and the Democratic Party were specifically limited to President-Elect Obama? Well, we know there were also kind things said about Republican Senators Norm Coleman and Susan Collins, but now via WaPo comes more info about who ELSE Joe was working to get elected in 2008. And there's another layer of quotes and reportage indicating that despite all this (although WaPo reports Merkley was unaware of the donation to Smith at the time), Oregon's newest Senator actually voted to reward Lieberman. Here's how it went:
Having ridden the wave of support for President-elect Barack Obama, Udall and Merkley spoke out in favor of the spirit of reconciliation and moving on from the campaign, in which Lieberman was one of the highest profile supporters of the Republican presidential ticket.
But no one in the room knew, as Merkley spoke, that Lieberman had supported Merkley's opponent, Sen. Gordon Smith (R-Ore.). Lieberman, through his Reuniting Our Country PAC, gave Smith's reelection bid $5,000 on Oct. 10, according to reports filed with the Federal Election Commission.
...not even Merkley knew of Lieberman's backing of Smith in their critical Senate race, until Capitol Briefing alerted his staff today.
"We were surprised to hear this news, but it's time to put the election behind us. Jeff Merkley is looking forward to working with all his new colleagues on an agenda that will put our nation back on track," said Julie Edwards, spokeswoman for Merkley.
As WaPo points out, Smith maintained a money edge throughout the election campaign, and lost by over 50,000 votes--so that wasn't exactly money well spent. (And you have to wonder, how many people or groups who contributed to Joe's Wallet for Weasels would appreciate the idea that their money was going to people like Smith and NY's even more odious Rep. Peter Kin?)
But it illuminates the situation perfectly: if Lieberman had his way, there would have been one fewer Senator (at least) deciding his fate in caucus last week. Beyond the implications for the the Party, the senior Congressional circuit and in fact the country, Oregonians now must mull over the idea that Holy Joe actively sought to saddle us with Gordon Smith for another six years. Ready to kick him in the jewels yet?
Apparently Merkley still isn't, as the quote above implies--but another quote offered by spokeswoman Julia Edwards hints yet again at the likelihood that after all the outrage and bluster expended in his speech, he went ahead and voted to retain Holy Joe anyway:
Edwards...has said that Merkley also expressed how much Lieberman's actions in the presidential race angered him. He did not encourage other Democrats to vote one way or the other, but did talk about moving on from the bitter fights of the campaign. [emph mine]
It seems awfully disingenuous to suggest that talk of "moving on" isn't some form of encouragement to the other Senators to allow Lieberman to retain his chair, but it also constitutes a confirmation that indeed during the caucus--not just afterwards, but before the decision had been made--Merkley in the end essentially spoke in favor of retaining him. As you may recall, both AP and Politico asserted that Merkley did not oppose him, with AP explicitly correcting the record to state it, with Politico claiming he spoke in favor but then removing his name from a group of other Lieberman supporters who spoke on his behalf.
And so despite attempts by supporters to claim that Merkley was speaking of moving on after the caucus, or that he was simply quoting Harry Reid's desire to do so, his office explicitly confirms that Merkley indeed did offer statements within caucus that should be construed as positive regarding Lieberman's fate.
As a final aside, late last week Sen Brown of Ohio revealed that he is the fourth known Senator to vote against retaining Lieberman. joining Sens. Sanders, Leahy and Boxer. While there may have been some pledge agreement uttered in caucus, it's clearly broken now, and no real rationale exists for Merkley to keep his vote private from the rest of us--unless he voted to keep him and doesn't want to blow the impression that he actually voted against.
OK, he didn't literally stop Gordon Smith, the voters did--and if you wanted to catalog all the people that had a hand in creating an environment that would allow Smith to be stopped, the list of names might get rather long. Kari Chisholm extends on Jeff Mapes' analysis of how Merkley managed to beat an incumbent Republican in a wave election, including the online outreach and info clearinghouse efforts:
Jim Ross did a whole heckuva lot more than "set up a Web site". At the beginning, he built the entire Stop Gordon Smith effort. Working with the DPO's Trent Lutz, they set up a communications operation to hold Smith accountable, including a Web site (which I built), a press secretary, and regular outreach to lots of organizations around the state. The DPO's 36-county grassroots organizing campaign, funded in part by Howard Dean's 50-state strategy, was also a key early capacity-building effort.
I met Jim during the Kulongoski campaign, late in the game after he had come in and rescued a moribund plod to November with some sharp attacks on Ron Saxton's flank, and a smart media approach. I knew there was major DPO effort behind the Stop Gordon Smith site, but what I did not know is that Ross--apparrently mostly from his Bay Area base--was the architect of the project. But he got his props from Kari. So too Trent Lutz.
That's not what made StS go and kept it up for months on end through the election, though. What got it done, what made the goals and the plans and the money worth it, was the highly active outreach to state and national media regarding the race and particularly Smith's record. For a contest where the incumbent was working overtime to obscure and obfuscate his record, it was crucial to have the facts ready to throw back in his face. Ross, Kardon, Lutz--to their credit, they knew he'd do it from the start, but someone had to do the grunt work of pushing the info out there at the right times, countering quickly and keeping things active overall.
And THAT guy was Marc Siegel of DPO. From the day it went live, Marc worked both in concert with Chair Meredith Wood Smith and on his own, pushing Gordon's record, hypocrisy and behavior on the opinion makers in state media. Of course the goal wasn't for DPO to release a statement, it was to make sure that the "she said" of any he said/she said story a reporter was putting together, included the facts that made a weasel out of Smith.
Obviously I don't know what his relationship and utility were to various members of the professional media, but it was a forward looking sign to see Siegel so engaged with the netroots. If I didn't mention anything on LO about something he'd sent, more often as not I'd get another pitch for it. It was always my decision, he never got mad or even snarky about me letting several items go by, he just kept trying.
And a lot of the stuff I used, because it was effective. It answered Gordo's bullshit, exposed his foibles, and made the usually timely case to get rid of the guy.
The worst part of Siegel's job had to be the shit he allowed me to give him about the various things I didn't like that DPO was doing. I still don't know what the point was of sending a letter to county clerks essentially smacking Novick's pee pee in the primary on the eve of the big debate, but Marc went dutifully back and forth with me under stern questioning. As another example, I think some were a bit put off by the exclusive-feeling celebratory party, in a number of ways that felt out of step with the joyous, open celebrations right in the middles of streets. We chatted about that beforehand, as well. But he remained a reliable conduit to the state office, and kept doing his job in a professional way.
So hats off to Marc Siegel for making Stop Gordon Smith part of the team effort to bring down a roadblock Senator--one whose legacy will carry the stink of Bush when history checks back in with him down the road. He--Siegel, not Smith!--deserves to be mentioned, deserves to be thanked, and deserves to sip some of that sweet Senate champagne.
Near as I can tell, the Oregonian called this race for Merkley at 5:50pm local time. There's no article as of yet, but the big red check mark and the phrase "Jeff Merkley Wins Senate Seat" are there, so I'll assume they've made the call. :)
In a little speculative folly to flesh this diary out, once you're done looking at the Senate tabulations, click over to the President tab. Notice (first of all) how much Obama outperformed Merkley in several counties, winning some outright that Merkley could not. One of those is Jackson County, usually bright red (and where Smith is currently up by 7 points). But Obama narrowly won Jackson, and is all of 300 votes behind McCain in Deschutes County, home of the Transplanted California Republican. Two percent of the ballots are still outstanding there.
Could Obama win Deschutes? He probably doesn't have enough votes left, actually--but I still find it notable how close he came. Obama is also within 225 in Polk County, the more conservative sister of Benton County. Two percent remain there as well. And in Coos County, he's only down about a thousand with four percent remaining. All other counties look to stay the way they are now. In Oregon, as elsewhere, Obama successfully stretched the map. Merkley's failure to reproduce the feat is why we had to wait until now for the call.
But it's been made, Smith is gone. HOORAY! Now I can take that "Stop Gordon Smith" link down, eh? Congrats Senator-elect Merkley!
Slowly inching up, and really quite a strong turnout--just not up to 2004's levels. Simply put, in 2004 both sides were as fired up as could be. This time, only one side was, and it's hard to set a record that way.
The big thing left to resolve in Oregon is the Senate race, and as of this writing Jeff Merkley is just about 6,000 votes behind according to KGW's tracker. However, the 30% of ballots that are left to count are [mostly] from Merkley's best counties, primarily Multnomah. Here's my back of the envelope comment from a worried diary at DailyKos:
The statewide turnout as of 8AM was listed as 1.83 million. Call it roughly 1.2 million cast in the Senate race at the time you looked (it was a little less, but we can correct for possible undervotes in the Senate race compared to Pres), so that means about 600,000 left. Nearly 250,000 About 170,000 [I mistook total reg for expected turnout, sorry] of those are in Multnomah County. Based on current margins in Multno, that would be about a 90,000 vote NET GAIN for Merkley (67% of 250K being 163K, give or take). Lane County has about 100,000 votes to count. At current margins, that's another 20,000 votes or so NET GAIN for Merkley. There are outstandings in some redder counties, but in no way shape or form are there 110,000 votes for Smith to pick up somewhere. This race will NOT be close, as in "a few thousand votes difference." I projected a 2-4% Merkley win, and right now 3% looks pretty solid.
As I said, those are rough counts, but when you're talking about those kind of totals, a few thousand here or there won't make much difference. The diarist has now corrected their estimate, by the way, and agrees with my analysis to the tune of a Merkley 80,000-vote margin when all is said and done.
Several other races at the legislative level are slow in coming, although there are already some delicious wins: Toby Forsberg, Brent Barton, Van Orman in Hood River, Stiegler in Bend, Nick Kahl...and there are likely to be at least one or two others. If I had to pick one hard-luck, dirt-kicking loss it'd be Jim Gilbert coming up just short AGAIN. And congrats to Jenni Simonis on a well run race for Gresham Council against the establishment choice, but it looks like she fell well short on her first go-round. She assures us she'll be back...yay!
Finally, we're hoping that the Multno/Lane surge will topple Measure 64's current precarious lead, and that's the only one of the "bad" measures that has a chance of passing. (I think M57 was actually a "bad" measure too, and M61 technically may pass, but it has no chance of beating 57, which was "less bad." The closeness of 61 suggests that we did NOT have to endure 57, we could have run a stronger NO on 61 campaign--and that pisses me off. The polling the Leg did back in the spring that showed such a big win for 61 was what caused 57's nascence, but it turns out either it was a lousy poll or the mood of the electorate simply changed in a big way. Either way, now we have an anti-crime bill we probably could have gotten away without passing. Damn.
Are you STILL, somehow, undecided on what to do with our Senate race? Are you STILL considering that maybe Gordon Smith's experience and seniority are what we need, and anyway he's one of our nation's most moderate Republicans? Or are you so weakly committed to Jeff Merkley (I know the feeling) that you're thinking maybe Smith's not so great an evil after all?
Wash those thoughts right out of your hair and head on over to Stop Gordon Smith, the compendium of facts and analyses that make it abundantly clear that Smith needs to go on Tuesday.
And if you need a 30-second distillation, here's my favorite anti-Smith ad of the cycle, aptly produced by the DSCC:
In what is at least the penultimate Survey USA look at Oregon's Senate race, both the toplines and the trendlines for Jeff Merkley are bright indeed as the balloting heads into the final week. The Portland guy who wants you to think he's rural leads the conservative guy who wants you to think he's moderate, 49-42. That's a slight improvement from the previous poll, at 46-41, although it looks like undecideds coming home. The cross tabs are here; surely KATU has video of a Portland political science perfesser explaining the results that you can seek out if you want the punditry version. Swing State Project also has a little analysis and commentariat.
The thing that several people seem to be keying on in the blogosphere is the composition of the poll as having half already voted. This is something I recall from the primary as well, where SUSA was showing "voted" percentages well in excess of what the Elections Division was getting back from the counties. Now, there is a definite lag between "voting" and having the mail get it, take it to the county office, have it processed and recorded and show up in the county totals the next day--but let's assume there's a two-three day lag. As of the 26th, which was the last day available at this writing, 18% of registered voters had turned in a ballot and had it recorded.
So give that 18% a couple of days to percolate. Either we're going to see a 2004 model, in which case turnout will be quite high, or a 2000 model which would simply be pretty high. Right now one would have to lean towards 2000 in any analysis, although it's certainly early. But even using an optimistic model like 2004, it would still be another four days for 50% of ballots to be in. Is there really a four day lag between "voting" and recording, or do people conflate "decided" with "voted?"
All of which doesn't really do any harm to Merkley's prospects as the candidate named more often by those who've voted. Whether the true percentage is 50% or 30% or even 20%, if Merkley's ahead then those votes are banked and the GOTV can focus on an ever-narrowing group of potential voters. But it does call into question the reality that half of these voters have really voted, and thus are truly "banked." Because the percentage turned in, is so out of whack even for likely voters--given that LVs are over 90% of the base registered voter sample--the main value that the stat might have is unknown, because you can't safely say "Smith now needs X% of the remainder in order to win."
That quibble aside, let's look inside the crosstabs and see who appears to be driving this race going into the final stretch.
They've poked at it, worked at making the case, tied it in to other criticisms, used it as a lever--Jeff Merkley and the DSCC have done plenty so far to tie Gordon Smith to George Bush and the policies that Smith explicitly enabled through his votes. But this is the best try yet, one that puts it in the starkest and most direct possible terms:
Tonight on Washington Week, PBS's Gwen Ifill and guests John Dickerson (Slate), Jeanne Cummings (Politico), Shailagh Murray (The Washington Post) and Michael Viqueira (NBC News) discussed Oregon's U.S. Senate race and Barack Obama's coattails.
Obama's recently cut ad for Merkley got their attention, as did Gordon Smith's party-identification avoidance. But mostly it was Obama's coattails.
OK, I've given Team Merkley plenty of (IMO deserved) shit this campaign, but they are rightly ALL OVER this developing story involving not only Gordon Smith but John McCain. From Huffington Post a while ago:
Oregon's Gordon Smith has become the fourth Republican Senator to disavow John McCain's robocalls linking Barack Obama to Bill Ayers.
In a statement to the Huffington Post, Smith for Senate press secretary Lindsay Gilbride said: "They [the Ayers calls] are not taking place in Oregon and Senator Smith does not condone these sort of calls. Negative robocalls are not appropriate and have no place in campaigns."
OK, fair enough. It's a pretty far walk from being McCain's Oregon Chair (a job since shunted off to former Goob Vic Atiyeh) to repudiating McCain for his nasty tactics, but in the end Gordo is doing the right thing. However, Merkley isn't about to let him get away with it, in an update to the HP story:
Jeff Merkley's campaign responds to Sen. Smith's new position, describing it as hypocritical in a statement:
"Gordon Smith is a complete hypocrite. Just like John McCain, Gordon Smith and Karl Rove are using robocalls to attack Jeff Merkley. On top of that, Smith and the Oregon Republican Party are paying this company (FLS) thousands of dollars for undisclosed services. Smith should immediately fire this group of Bush-Rove hacks and demand that Freedom's Watch get out of Oregon."
The Merkley campaign cites FEC reports showing that FLS-Connect, the company in charge of McCain's robocalls, has been paid nearly $100,000 by Smith's campaign in the last year.
Duhhh....Gordo should have kept his mouth shut. But in his zeal to distance himself from every single living Republican on the planet as a way to rescue his slipping chances at re-election, he left his flank wide open--and Merkley shanked him but good. Well done.
New poll over in the sidebar--how will our Senate race turn out? Who will win, and by what margin of victory? And as long as you're in a predictive mood, why not head over to the DPO's "November Madness" game? For a measly $5 contribution to the state party, you get the chance to guess at Obama's electoral college total on the 4th, as well as his popular vote percentage in all 50 states. It's unclear what, if anything, you can win other than bragging rights, but DPO could use the money and it's always fun to predict and then see how you did on Election Night. You can enter multiple times, so try different strategies and hedge your bets. I'll even give you a little hint: start with 300 EV for Obama as a floor, and go upward from there. :)
[Arthur Stamoulis, Director of the Oregon Fair Trade Campaign, sent this out to recap the very interesting forum held on how sometimes esoteric trade policy affects you where you live. (It's also notable who did NOT show up; see the bottom.) Since he did such a nice job formatting the email with pictures and quotations of the speakers, I'm going to reproduce it as it was, crediting him (obviously) with the story... ]
The Future of Trade
A Public Forum on the Local Impacts of Free Trade Agreements -- and Opportunities for Change
On October 14, 2008, the Oregon Fair Trade Campaign hosted a forum in Portland on "The Future of Trade." Co-sponsored by the First Unitarian Church's Economic Justice Action Group, the forum featured a panel discussion, testimonials from displaced workers and a response from political candidates. Here is video from the event.
Rev. Kate Lore (8:52) Social Justice Minister, First Unitarian Church Opening remarks on the future of trade
It’s important to acknowledge just how far we’ve come [since the 1999 WTO protests]. Ten years ago, most people had never even heard of the WTO. Today, it is the subject of a Hollywood movie. Ten years ago, many people were still ambivalent about the concept of free trade. Today, the pollsters at the Pew Research Center report, “There is now broad agreement that free trade negatively affects wages, jobs and economic growth in the United States.”
Tom Chamberlain(8:46) President, Oregon AFL-CIO On job loss and wage stagnation due to existing trade pacts
What we do with these trade agreements is look for the lowest common denominator -- the poorest nations to exploit. Then we turn American workers against them, saying those countries are taking our jobs away. Well, they’re not taking our jobs away. The rich and the powerful are taking our jobs away.
If you haven't been over to fivethirtyeight.com and are at all interested in polling science and electoral predictions, you are truly missing out. One of the stat geniuses at Baseball Prospectus, Nate Silver, has turned his attention and nose for probability measurement into hands down the hottest political site this election cycle.
His place is called FiveThirtyEight.com, a reference to the number of Congressional Districts plus 100 Senators. Their featured product is a daily electoral college prediction, based on a wide variety of historical, numerical and probabilistic variables and run through a simulator 10,000 times. (Currently they have Obama winning over 95% of those simulations, with a near-200 point advantage in the electoral college, but that's beside the point for this story).
Besides that, they do Senate predictions and have put together a truly great series of reports from the ground, visiting both campaigns' offices across the Midwestern chunk of the country. And somewhat in that vein as well, they are trying to profile every state, demographically and sociopolitically.
Yesterday was--like our primary--finally our turn after many other states. Let's start with the great table of factors they reviewed:
I frankly think they're still behind the curve a bit, given the spate of recent polling showing Merkley slightly on top, but Congressional Quarterly has finally rescinded its analysis that Gordon Smith was nominally favored, and labeled the tight race with its most competitive category, No Clear Favorite:
Despite attempts to link himself with high-profile Democrats, Republican Gordon H. Smith is facing an increasingly difficult battle for votes in the highly competitive Oregon Senate race.
Due to Smith’s perceived challenges, continued Democratic growth in the state of Oregon and Smith’s failure to gain a strong lead in recent polls, CQ Politics is changing the rating of the race from Leans Republican to No Clear Favorite, our most competitive category.
“It’s really a toss up right now,” political scientist Robert Eisinger of Lewis & Clark College in Portland told CQ Politics.
The latest assist from Chuck Schumer to Jeff Merkley is a pretty good one, called "Party." It subtly portrays Smith as someone partying while the country suffers for their avarice. Maybe it's a good thing that DSCC needed to come in and boost the Dem candidate; their ads have been somewhat better, although both theirs and Merkley's are infused with that mainstream, 20th century ad approach.
I wanted to watch the debate between Jeff Merkley and Gordon Smith last night, and came home intending to, but was called away from the house until after it was over. If you missed it at as well, you may find it helpful to use these links to watch it for yourself: They are KGW videos, and I don't see any way to embed them, so you'll have to follow the links, sorry.
What analysis do I have of the performances? I will admit upfront that I could only stand to watch part one, and I must say that both men were excreable. Gordon Smith was creepy-looking, in a way I can't really define. Something about him just looked dark and sinister. His voice was even and didn't really show tension, but it still sounded like verbal teeth clenching. And oh yeah, there's the small matter of nearly everything coming out of his mouth being a total fabrication or smear. At one point Smith even asserted that because he'd participated in revenue hikes in the Leg, that ipso facto meant Merkley was a dead lock to do so in the Senate--"He's gonna raise your taxes, folks."
Jeff Merkley's performance may have been very good on paper--literally, read rather than seen or heard. By and large his policy poisitions are the right ones, and he definitely gets credit from me for being against a bailout bill many Democrats backed. On the issues, I have no doubt that a majority of Oregonians would vote to boot Smith, and I think there's a fairly decent chance they will.
But from the get-go, Merkley was jumpy and hyperkinetic, swinging his hands and fists around, and seemingly bouncing on the balls of his feet. He was the opposite of Smith in that his speech was erratically enunciated, somewhat slurred and with one word tumbling out after another, the next one riding the back of the previous. He had been improving, but last night he was like Roger Clemens waiting to face the Red Sox at Fenway in the playoffs--way too tight, way too pumped, and firing fastballs over everyone's heads.
Nobody helped themselves in this debate that I saw, IMO--although if someone wants to point out an especially effective segment for either man that's in the final two parts, I'm happy to check it out and revise if necessary. If both men hurt themselves equally, Smith by being creepy and Merkley by pounding too many Red Bulls beforehand, that's a net win for Smith, unfortunately. Jeff had all the momentum the last month or so; let's hope this debate doesn't kill it.
(good stuff! Check out the whole report...any other issue advocacy groups want to lay out their own bottom line on why Gordo's got to go? - promoted by torridjoe)
The Bottom Line Time and again, Sen. Gordon Smith has sided with Big Oil against the interests of Oregon residents. Sen. Smith:
Voted against clean energy policies that could reduce our dependence on oil. In 2007, the top five oil companies earned nearly as much in profits as all Oregon families earn in a year.
Voted to allow drilling off the coast of Florida in 2001 and in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, despite the risk of environmental harm. Hurricanes Katrina and Rita destroyed 113 drilling platforms in the Gulf of Mexico which released more than 9 million gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico.
Took $32,350 in campaign contributions from the oil industry during the 2007 to 2008 Congress.
In this edition of my irregular series on Oregon political news, I discuss another set of interesting stories that have popped up. These include Sen. Wyden's (D-OR) new ad for Merkley as well as the Bill Sizemore's admission that he was using private foundation funds for his own purposes.
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Tonight on 
On October 14, 2008, the Oregon Fair Trade Campaign hosted a forum in Portland on "The Future of Trade." Co-sponsored by the First Unitarian Church's Economic Justice Action Group, the forum featured a panel discussion, testimonials from displaced workers and a response from political candidates. Here is video from the event.
