[crossposted at Loaded Orygun, Oregon's progressive community and a proud member of the 50 State Blog Network...]
One of the more interesting aspects about Steve Novick's campaign is the way the various local media have handled him, particularly those who are outside of the Portland area and thus less familiar with his story and his ways. As I've said all along, Novick has an advantage over Merkley as an unknown candidate; his mere presence draws curiosity, fully apart from his candidacy. And that ability to command an immediate platform of attention just because people are already looking at you, studying you--almost regardless of why it happens, when it does happen you are at an advantage, because you have the floor.

And when Steve takes the floor and tells about who he is, where he's come from and what he's done along the way, it's hard not to find it compelling, even in the somewhat glib and self-effacing way that he tells it. Jeff Merkley's not boring necessarily, but political reporters across the state have seen earnest Portland politicians come through town looking for votes again and again, and as inspiring as Merkley's story might be, it's no hook-boy-becomes-Harvard-lawyer tale.

Of course you don't have to take my word for it that news editors around the state find Steve's story interesting; on Friday the Roseburg Newsreview published perhaps the best overall biography and mission statement on Novick by state media so far in his campaign, quoting him at length and covering a number of topics:

It took Steve Novick only a few seconds to dispense with the niceties Thursday evening in Roseburg and tell a Democratic audience why he jumped into the primary race to oppose U.S. Sen. Gordon Smith.

“I’m running for the United States Senate, because, as I think you’ve heard before, this country is going to hell in a hen basket and somebody’s got to do something about it,” Novick said, during a speech before the Douglas County Democratic Party.

One of those hen baskets Novick said, was the war in Iraq. He said the United States military should never have gone there in the first place and that we should pull out as soon as possible.
“We don’t need to leave a residual force to be a target and a provocation and a recruiting tool for Al-Qaida,” [Novick said.]

{"hen basket," haw! more below}

Bumped from the diaries -- Jonathan... I've asked TJ from Loaded Orygun to make some sense of the latest polling out of the Oregon Senate race. Great analysis as always.

Wow, the new Survey USA polling is out, and Gordon Smith has dropped to 46% approval--the lowest in 28 months! But wait...how do I know if I can trust that? My non-political friends tell me all polls are garbage, and anyway it's too early to get anything out of them. Are they right?

Few Senate races lined up as a potential horserace from the outset like Gordon Smith's 2nd re-election campaign for junior Senator of Oregon. Already situated as a non-wingnut Republican trying to win in a slightly Democratic state under storm conditions for his party, Smith has found himself under the national spotlight in unexpected ways: first, in an apparently impromptu speech from the floor of the Senate in which he called the Iraq war "absurd, almost criminal" and then spent months twisting back and forth around that position; and secondly exposed as the benificiary of Karl Rove and Dick Cheney's machinations to overturn the Endangered Species Act, winning votes for Smith's first re-election in the process. (Smith actually turned out to be heavily involved himself, but more on that later).

So there have been an unusual number of potentially poll-changing events in a short time for Smith, especially so early in the race. In order to most accurately frame the state of things 15 months before the election, not only does the polling need to be stable and repetitive, but should also stick to polling realities instead of hypotheticals as much as possible. There's been a spate of polling on the race in Oregon, from a variety of sources, and it may help to weed out the good from the bad and the bad from the clueless.

Greetings--over the past two days, Loaded Orygun has published two
additional columns in its series, illuminating Senator Gordon Smith's
involvement and cooperation in the politicial decisionmaking from the
White House that led to large-scale salmon kills. Federal biologists
were overruled after Sen. Smith personally requested the President's
intervention, and Vice President Dick Cheney and top Bush aide Karl
Rove became involved in the controversy over water rights in the
Klamath Basin.

{more}

Bumped from the diaries -- Jonathan... Gordon Smith's numbers are down to 47/45, according to the latest SurveyUSA polling. It looks like we may have a pretty darn good race in the Beaver State this cycle.

[crossposted at Loaded Orygun, the journal of Oregon politics and culture...]    

These days Gordon Smith resembles nothing so much as a crab in a slowly warming pot--clearly getting uncomfortable, but with no good ideas on how to get himself out of the situation. And today's news brings word that the water temperature is rising.

First, a splash of background. As you may have seen via BlueO yesterday, over the weekend Smith enlisted the help of columnist George Will to re-burnish his moderate bona fides, with another attempt to make it seem like Smith is against the war. Will updated Smith's desperate meme on ABC's Sunday talk by declaring him the vanguard leader of disaffected Republicans:
{jump!}

[Crossposted at Loaded Orygun, the Oregon journal of politics and culture...]

From the delighfully archaic Rep. Dennis Richardson (HD04), file his latest constituent newsletter under Most Shameless Use of Whiny Hyperbole Ever in History, In Any Universe:

A Tragic Week in Review
This past week has been like no other. On Monday the world witnessed the tragedy at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Virginia. On Tuesday Oregon witnessed the passage of Domestic Benefits for same-sex couples (HB 2007) and Civil Rights based on sexual orientation.

!!!!
{jump if you're done retching...}

Now happening on the floor.

So far the notable votes are Gordon Smith No, Specter Aye (that I've heard).