I get the feeling he thinks he's capitalizing on a tea party zeitgeist of which he would be a natural leader, and he must seize the moment personal circumstances be damned--but this is really not a good way to announce your candidacy for governor:
Sizemore filed Monday to seek the Republican nomination for governor, to the surprise of GOP political insiders. Sizemore didn't return a call for comment, but he did release a statement to NW Republican saying he was willing to challenge a court order enjoining him from raising or spending money in politics. [emph mine]
"And I promise I will fight this scurrilous double murder charge, AND keep an honest and positive outlook on my race for all Oregonians." You have to go back to Olmert in Israel, with the "If I am indicted, I will resign" line--but hell, Sizemore's gone waaaay beyond simply being indicted. In any case, the line is surely an announcement and epitaph in one, for half the production cost. Carry on.
Senator Atkinson will primarily focus on the health and well-being of his family in the coming weeks and will make an announcement when the time is appropriate.
"Stephanie and I have recently been confronted with some serious health concerns that need to be addressed before I undertake such a massive task as running for Governor of our great state. We ask for your thoughts and prayers as well as your patience as we wade through this difficult time. I am not going away, but need time with my family. We greatly appreciate your strong support and kind words."
As Mapes notes, Atkinson and his family have been cursed with health issues of late, from his accidental shooting to his wife's apparently returning cancer. We certainly wish Jason and his wife good health and full recovery, and it's refreshing to see a politician quit something "to spend more time with their family"---and actually have it be true.
Atkinson leaves the door ajar for a return, but we have to consider the timing here. It's late October, and Atkinson cites "coming weeks" as a rough timeline. That takes us into the holiday season, obviously both a bad time for campaigning and to be away from the family you're trying to save.
So the earliest we might expect Atkinson to return to the Republican primary would be early 2010, which in a number of states would still be enough time to get ramped up before the election--but in Oregon we hold them in May, and people can start filling out ballots in late April. Maybe an incumbent with an existing war chest could pull off something like that, but a generally unknown state legislator who has built almost none of the required campaign apparatus?
Put it this way: Steve Novick started out better known and with a more memorable persona than Atkinson could ever manage, started his race for Senate a full year before the primary--and still struggled to gain recognition by a large majority of the state by May 2008. Maybe if he were a howler/crier like Glenn Beck he could earn the requisite attention (bad or good), but he's more like a Republican version of Ron Wyden--personable, smooth, generally low key.
So let's hypothesize that this is it for Jason in 2010. Who's that leave? Right now, Allen Alley and John Lim. As it stands, the Dem primary is looking like Yankees-Angels...with the Pittsburgh Republican Pirates waiting to face the winner in November. (And if you don't know your baseball, the Halos and Yanks are two of the top four teams in the game, while the Pirates have been cellar dwellers since the late 70s). Not to get too far ahead of ourselves, but I'd take the Democrats and the points on this one.
Oregon attorney general candidate John Kroger got some high-profile national publicity this week from The Nation magazine's Associate Publisher Peter Rothberg, who featured Kroger's campaign on his Act Now! blog.
What this blog will attempt to do over the coming months is to feature worthy candidates you may not have heard about who are animated by a commitment to social and economic justice and who have a real chance to win a state race.
Up first is John Kroger, running hard in the Oregon Democratic primaries, in a contest that will determine the next state Attorney General.
...I'm convinced that he's someone most Nation readers would find well worth supporting.
From everything I've read in the local press and blogs, the Oregon AG's office has not been an aggressive or effective force for law enforcement under previous administrations. In fact, the office seems to have functioned as much as the corporate counsel for the State as an independent office that can bring lawsuits on behalf of the state's people to accomplish important social ends. Kroger's opponent, Greg McPherson, is squarely within this business-as-usual tradition. Kroger says he will bring the full weight of the office to bear on real things that matter to real people and will never be the tool of the local business class.
As the dust settles from this past weekend's lefty blogosphere hi-jinks and hysterics in the Oregon Democratic U.S. Senate primary, it's important to remember we're all in this together. The video post on Loaded Orygun from the DPO titled "Why I'm a Democrat" reminds us all of the liberal values we share, the foundations the party is built on.
Maybe it's time to take a second and pick up on what the Sister Sledge are laying down!
The mainstream media has taken notice of U.S. Senate candidate Jeff Merkley's evolving position on the federal No Child Left Behind Act. Register-Guard reporter David Steves points out that Merkley's open letter last week calling for the "full-scale overhaul" of NCLB -- and his charge at the University of Oregon that the law "needs to be thrown out" -- are different from the position he articulated just days before.
That seems to be a less kind and less gentle approach than the one Merkley took on Jan. 8, when he vowed in a press release to "Improve No Child Left Behind."
That same day, his chief Democratic rival, Steve Novick, called for the repeal of NCLB.
It's apparent that the Merkley camp figured out fairly quickly that Novick's bolder call to abolish the bad law was resonating better with voters than did Merkley's watered-down call for a fix. So give Merkley credit for understanding the old maxim that if you can't beat 'em, join 'em (or at least co-opt their policy).
On a side note: I find this incident of Merkley "borrowing" Novick's rhetoric especially ironic, given the recent embarrassingly botched attempt by blogger Senate Guru 2008 to paint Novick as a campaign copycat. Seems it's Merkley who's the more deserving target of the Guru's "plagiarism" scrutiny.
(Also fixed the link to the Steves story...Pat lays it out there for discussion; no sense in me rewriting it. - promoted by torridjoe)
Fourth-quarter fund-raising news for Oregon's U.S. Senate race is in, and as expected, Republican incumbent Gordon Smith pulled further away from his potential Democratic opponents, reporting in with a whopping $900,000 for the last quarter. Smith has raised $7 million so far in the campaign and has $4.5 million cash on hand.
Old-guard Democratic establishment candidate Jeff Merkley raised $619,000 from October through December. That brings his campaign total to $913,000, with $528,000 cash on hand.
Underdog wunderkind Steve Novick raised $219,000 in the last quarter. His campaign has raised $541,000 since entering the race and has $292,000 cash on hand.
As per the usual, Register-Guard reporter David Steves chimes in on his blog with some of the best coverage, including reactions from all the campaigns.
Steves' report puts more focus on the Democrats in the contested primary fight, and he does a pretty good job of putting into proper perspective the Merkley camp's "record-breaking" claims:
Merkley’s campaign says its fourth-quarter figure, combined with its third-quarter numbers, push him to a record start in raising cash in an Oregon Senate challenger’s first two quarters. That’s a stat that even a baseball stat freak would struggle to love - from the mid-60s to the 1990s, Oregon’s two senators didn’t draw serious opposition. And since Gordon Smith and Ron Wyden entered the Senate in 1996, only once had either faced a full-fledged challenger. That was Secretary of State Bill Bradbury, who lost to Smith in 2002. Bradbury raised $562,000 in his first two quarters. Hence the claim of a record.
What will the winner do if Smith goes on the attack with a big-dollar advertising campaign just weeks after the primary? That's just what the senator did six years ago with a series of ads that dismembered Secretary of State Bill Bradbury, who didn't have the money to respond.
It's just getting interesting, folks. Looks like it's gonna be a wild ride.
(just caught this--amazing how quickly things gelled. :) - promoted by torridjoe)
The Register-Guard's David Steves reported Friday that the Democratic candidates for U.S. Senate have agreed on four debates. Steves lists them as Jan. 22 at Pendleton, March 7 at Eugene, April 5 at Newport and another on April 15, with the location to be announced.
Steve Novick, Jeff Merkley, Candy Neville and David Loera will attend the Jan. 22 and March 7 debates. The hosts of the two confirmed debates in April will determe who to invite. The April 5 event is sponsored by the League of Women voters. The April 15 debate is sponosred by KGW and The Oregonian.
The campaigns are still discussing the possiblity of more debates, according to Steves.
This morning, a legion of Oregon progressives stood up for Steve Novick. Led by former Congressman Les AuCoin, these nabobs for Novick laid out why Steve is the strongest, most progressive, most dynamic choice for U.S. Senate.
(Hubbird catches Chris Cillizza's monthly look at the Senate, highlighting Oregon's position... - promoted by torridjoe)
Over at The Fix, the Washington Post's politics blog, Chris Cillizza runs down the 10 most competitive senate races in the country. He has this to say about Oregon:
5. Oregon (R): State Rep. Jeff Merkley (D) formally announced against Sen. Gordon Smith (R) this week with much of the Democratic political establishment backing him. While it's clear that the state and national party prefers Merkley as their nominee, Steve Novick, who has built something of a following in the netroots, has shown no signs of dropping his candidacy. It's hard to imagine Novick beating Merkley in a primary but he could force the state legislator to spend some money and answer some tough questions -- including why he voted for a 2003 resolution expressing support for the war in Iraq and President Bush. An independent poll conducted last month showed Smith at 38 percent, double Merkley's 19 percent, while independent candidate John Frohmayer [sic] took 7 percent. That's a whole lot of undecideds -- never a good thing for a two-term incumbent. (Previous ranking: 5)
The rankings are in terms of "most likely to change parties in 2008", so coming in #5 is pretty good. It means Oregon is more competitive, in Cillizza's eyes, than Maine, Minnesota, or Nebraska.
I still don't understand why, lacking any polling data, politicos can blindly assert things like, "It's hard to imagine Novick beating Merkley in a primary." Considering that a previous poll showed Novick a point or two ahead for name recognition, and that the fundraising landscape won't really be clear until after the 30th, it seems a little early to call much of anything "hard to imagine."
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