OR-Sen: Smith Freaks Out

Gordon Smith had a problem last week. Jeff Merkley's campaign released an internal poll showing him with a small lead, and there was a stirring controversy over his frozen foods plant hiring illegal workers. So, he decided to charge that his opponent is soft on rape.

In Smith's despicable ad, he enlists Tiffany Edens, a well-known rape victim in Oregon, "to appear in an emotional TV ad" that falsely accuses Merkley of "failing to crack down on serious sex offenders."

Here is the ad Gordon Smith approves:

Tiffany Edens is seen speaking on camera: "I was just 13 when he broke into our house, attacked and raped me. Later he confessed to raping eight others. But Oregon's time limits for prosecuting the rapes ran out. Jeff Merkley voted against changing that law. That's why I'm speaking out. Jeff Merkley, you should have voted to protect women, not rapists."

You won't be surprised to learn that the charge is false. But often, this kind of campaigning works.

The facts: Edens and Smith campaign officials acknowledge that Merkley's vote on the bill in 2005 had no impact on the Gillmore case, which was prosecuted many years before. The ad could leave voters believing it could affect the Gillmore case. Edens said she hoped toughening the law would help protect potential future victims.

Merkley spokesman Matt Canter says Merkley supported lengthening the statute of limitations for rape and several other serious crimes, and he pointed to his vote in favor of another bill -- House Bill 2015 -- that would have done exactly that. Canter said Merkley voted against the measure cited in the Smith ad -- HB 2316 -- as a protest against the "backroom deals" made by legislative leaders at the end of the session to determine which bills would go forward. At the time, Merkley headed the Democratic caucus, which was in the minority, and he was excluded from the negotiations. Canter says Merkley voted against the bill knowing it had enough votes to pass.

Merkley's returned fire with an ad calling out the lies, but of course, he's not a trusted source.

There's not much difference between political election season and Somalia. No rules, no laws, no arbiters.

Senate Campaign Report

Let's see what's happening in the races to move into that august body.

• VA - Mark Warner, who's all but assured of beating Jim Gilmore to become the next Senator from Virginia, will be the keynote speaker at the Democratic National Convention in two weeks. There are two virtual locks for pickups on the Democratic side this year - Warner, a centrist, and Tom Udall, a progressive from New Mexico. Picking the former to deliver the keynote isn't exactly surprising, but it's a little depressing.

• MN - I really liked this YouTube debate - a real YouTube debate, where the questions and answers come from Web video - between Al Franken and Norm Coleman. I thought Franken made some excellent points and the issues were handled with an appropriate amount of seriousness. But this election in Minnesota has been more about silliness than seriousness, with allegations of improper payments of taxes and untoward language in jokes among the smears being lobbed at Franken. Now Coleman is getting a taste of this, as his sweetheart lease at a lobbyist friend's house in DC is being questioned.

Sen. Norm Coleman didn't have a lease for the first year he rented a garden-level bedroom in an upper-bracket Capitol Hill row house owned by a longtime friend and Republican operative.

In addition, Coleman didn't make a payment for utilities for the living space until last month, under a verbal agreement he had with his landlord -- St. Paul businessman Jeff Larson -- to settle up after a year in residence, Coleman campaign manager Cullen Sheehan said.

Coleman's Washington living arrangements, first reported in a National Journal article in June, have been a target of criticism by DFL officials and DFL election opponent Al Franken.

I'd rather stay on the issues in a perfect world, but when you're slimed like this you have to fight back. Good for Al Franken.

• AK - You know things are going bad for Ted Stevens when the governore who appointed him to the seat thinks his career is over.

• OR - Gordon Smith, in his time-honored tradition of painting himself as a moderate despite voting strongly with Republicans for the last six years, has dropped his state co-chairmanship for John McCain's election campaign. Very convenient, coming at a time when Smith is featuring Barack Obama and John Kerry in TV ads.

By the way, I've been remiss in mentioning that I had the chance to meet Jeff Merkley, Smith's opponent in Oregon, at an event last week. Merkley's an impressive guy - a former exchange student in the poorest parts of Ghana, a nuclear freeze activist who eventually worked in the Defense Department, the Democratic leader in the Oregon House who led them back into the majority and worked hard to pass a solid progressive agenda. Merkley and his family will have no health care after January - his wife went part-time during the election campaign and lost her coverage, and Merkley's coverage with the state will run out after he is replaced in the state House. This is someone who's really running for health care, and I found him to be intelligent, engaging and progressive on the issues. Oregon is really the tipping point - it will make the difference between a potential 5-seat Democratic pickup and something much larger.

• NC - The DSCC is pouring money into this race, attacking Elizabeth Dole in her battle against State Sen. Kay Hagan. I confess to not being Hagan's biggest fan, but Dole is a rubber stamp and a terrible legislator.

• NJ - The Republicans are bugging out of this race, pitting Sen. Frank Lautenberg against Dick Zimmer. Practically every year, Republicans pour money into New Jersey and come out with nothing. They appear to have learned their lesson. Republicans literally have only one pickup opportunity this cycle, in Louisiana.

...Senate Guru is always the best source for Senate campaign news.

Priceless

OK, so check this out. Arnold signs the executive order slashing state employee salaries to $6.55 an hour, the federal minimum wage.

At the same time, he's agreed to host a fundraiser in three weeks with Oregon Senator Gordon Smith (R). Here's the invite, courtesy his Democratic opponent Jeff Merkley:



The bottom of the invite says "Host and Photo Opportunities at $10,000 give/raise."

The annual salary for a state worker under the federal, based on a 40-hour work week and a 50-week year, is $13,100.

So Arnold thinks the cost of getting a picture with him is roughly equivalent to the cost of working for an entire year running his state government.

Priceless.

And the Denounce and Reject Game Begins...

Good to see Democratic challengers jumping on this Ted Stevens thing today. He's been around 50 years and has distributed a lot of cash to his fellow Senators over that time. Now, by the rules of politics, that money is tainted. And so Jeff Merkley has begun by asking his opponent Gordon Smith to return that money or donate it to charity. In a pre-emptive strike, Elizabeth Dole has already dumped the money.

Campaign spokesman Hogan Gidley just told Election Central that the campaign has written a $10,000 check -- the amount Dole has received this cycle from Stevens' leadership PAC -- to the Society of St. Andrew.

Stevens' PAC has donated to every incumbent GOP Senator seeking re-election this year. That's one down. Will others follow?

It's one of those great little moves to put your opponent on the defensive. Go Democratic challengers!

...meanwhile, Stevens has resigned from his leadership positions on two committees.

...ooh, Norm Coleman took Veco money. Get on it, Al Franken!

...Mark Begich has released a statement.

"The indictment of Senator Ted Stevens is a sad day for Alaska and for the senator after his 40 years of service to our state. The people of Alaska are resilient and strong.

I have great faith in our state and our people, and we will continue to move forward."

...And now John Sununu has dumped Hulk-Smash's money.

...Andrew Rice is calling on James Inhofe to return Stevens' money, too.

OR-Sen, AK-Sen: Glimmers of Hope

I mentioned Oregon Senate candidate Jeff Merkley in the last post, and I have a very good feeling about him. Not just from the standpoint of him being possibly one of the few reliable progressives we can elect to the Senate (Tom Allen and Tom Udall and maybe Mark Begich being the others, IMO) - but Gordon Smith, the fake moderate Republican who every election year tries to wipe away the memory of his past far-right votes, is clearly frightened enough about his chances that he's running ads tying himself to Barack Obama.



It's pretty clear how popular Obama is in Oregon once you see that ad - no wonder they're not really competing up there for now. Obama, for his part, responded in this fashion.

"Barack Obama has a long record of bipartisan accomplishment and we appreciate that it is respected by his Democratic and Republican colleagues in the Senate. But in this race, Oregonians should know that Barack Obama supports Jeff Merkley for Senate. Merkley will help Obama bring about the fundamental change we need in Washington," said Obama campaign spokesman Bill Burton.

I am not particularly happy with Obama for his FISA el foldo, but he is paying attention to electing Democrats across the country, which gives us an opportunity to try and change the balance between reactionaries, conservatives and actual progressives in the Congress.

As for the aforementioned Mark Begich, I thought this was a strong statement in the wake of the Supreme Court stepping in (activist judges!) to limit the damage awards to Exxon in the Valdez spill:

“The thousands of Alaskans whose lives were devastated by this disaster are hurt, once again, by this ruling," Begich said. "What we’re seeing today is another example of how Washington is out of touch with real people. The justices have sided with corporate America rather than with Alaska families who have suffered for nearly 20 years.”

Begich added that while the livelihoods of thousands of Alaska fishermen and others were destroyed by the spill, Sen. Ted Stevens has continued to work to serve the interests of big business, rather than put pressure on Exxon to settle the lawsuit or drop its appeals.

“Sen. Stevens continues to show he works hard for special interests, but where has he been when it comes to doing what’s right for Alaskans?” Begich said.

This is yet another shitty day for the country, but there are a few candidates with integrity and a commitment to serve the people. You just have to search for them.

Prospects in the Senate

Eric Kleefeld did a nice analysis of the state of play in the Senate, where 23 Republican seats will be up for grabs in November, as opposed to just 12 Democratic seats. Of those 12, really only one of them, Mary Landrieu's seat in Louisiana, is seriously challenged, whereas as many as a dozen or even more Republican seats could be in play. Here's the initial list that Kleefeld references:

State GOP Candidate Dem Candidate Outlook
Alaska Ted Stevens Mark Begich Leans GOP
Colorado Bob Schaffer Mark Udall Tossup
Louisiana John Kennedy Mary Landrieu Tossup
Maine Susan Collins Tom Allen Leans GOP
Minnesota Norm Coleman Al Franken Tossup
Mississippi Roger Wicker Ronnie Musgrove Likely GOP
New Hampshire John Sununu Jeanne Shaheen Leans Dem
New Mexico TBD Tom Udall Leans Dem
Oregon Gordon Smith TBD Leans GOP
Virginia Jim Gilmore Mark Warner Likely Dem

In a follow-up post, Chuck Schumer maintains that we have leads in five seats currently, in Virginia, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Colorado and Alaska, where Senator "Series of Tubes" Ted Stevens is in legitimate trouble against Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich. Schumer also says we have a shot in Oregon, Minnesota and Maine. But there are other states where Republicans will at least have to spend a little money. Rick Noriega will make John Cornyn work in Texas, for example. We have good candidates like Greg Fischer in Kentucky, Scott Kleeb in Nebraska, Andrew Rice in Oklahoma, Ronnie Musgrove in Mississippi, Larry LaRocco in Idaho, Jim Neal in North Carolina and even Jim Slattery in Kansas. Schumer is claiming that we'll have good candidates in 17 of those 23 races, and Schumer's idea of a "good candidate" is one that is worth spending DSCC money on. That means that the field is very spread out, and Republicans will have a lot to defend.

I don't think people have a sense of just how dire it is for Republicans here. I think you saw a piece of it in many Republicans' combative stances in the Petraeus/Crocker hearings. Iraq is an anvil, and their attempts to spin themselves as independent voices is simply at odds with the reality of them being reliable rubber stamps. Even Oregon's Gordon Smith, who has voted in favor of withdrawal on more than one occasion, is twisting himself in knots trying to appeal both antiwar independents and hardcore Republicans, claiming that he practically authored the Responsible Plan to End the War while being unable to endorse it and turn his back on the base. I fully expect most of these Democratic Senate candidates to use Iraq as a vice and constrict their opponents inside their own rhetoric and spin.

Senate Guru has the best day-to-day information on these races.

A Fairly Awesome Ad

I like Steve Novick and Jeff Merkley. Either of them are going to slaughter Gordon Smith in November.

But the take-away here is that you have to do more than just messaging in your ads. Be daring. Be funny. Pop out.

Not just Smith - Republicans AOK with segregationists now

I always thought that the 2002 purge of Trent Lott from his Majority Leader position had a strangeness to it. I was fond of telling a joke at the time that Lott was condemned for praising Strom Thurmond, but Thurmond was not condemned for BEING Strom Thurmond. There was this sense that the demotion somehow proved that we as a nation were understanding our past troubles with race, and we're moving on in a spirit of unity and tolerance, no longer condoning that kind of bigotry.

Five years later, the story has completlely changed.

Today Gordon Smith defended Lott's notorious comments, flip-flopping from his earlier condemnation back in 2002. Everyone's having a field day with that. But Orrin Hatch said essentially the same thing.



So did Arlen Specter.



These are some of the old lions of the Senate, claiming that Lott's comments were blown out of proportion, that the media sharks circled and attacked, that it was a travesty to do such a thing to such a good man.

Now, there are a lot of Villagers in Washington out there providing elegies for Trent Lott. But these three Senators are taking direct aim at one of his lowest moments, when he let his bigoted slip show and blurted out that the country would have been a lot better off with an open racist in the White House. Part of this is just the Senate protecting one of its own. But this wouldn't have been possible in 2002. And I think it's an example of the retrenchment of the Republican Party. As recently as 2002 it would have been radioactive to associate oneself with the remarks of a racist. By 2007 it's perfectly fine.

So, to sum up, Republicans are perfectly fine with segregationists. Maybe they could dig up some of these posters for next year:


The Republican Party has made a more open appeal to a Southern, "social conservative" base in recent years, one that dovetails very nicely with a culture of bigotry. Though these defenders come from around the country, they understand that their base is marginalized and regionalized. And so they prefer to sweep the genuine disgust with Lott's remarks under the rug, to appeal to this base.

Kids Who Need Health Care or Pathetic Little Whiners?

Maybe if the President made his little statement in an ad in the New York Times, the Congress would rise up in near-unanimity to condemn it.

“In just 10 days the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, known as S-CHIP, is set to expire. This important program helps children whose families cannot afford private health insurance, but do not qualify for Medicaid to get coverage they need.

“I have strongly supported S-CHIP as a governor, and I have done so as President. My 2008 budget proposed to increase S-CHIP funding by $5 billion over five years. It’s a 20 percent increase over current levels of funding. Unfortunately, instead of working with the administration to enact this funding increase for children’s health, Democrats in Congress have decided to pass a bill they know that will be vetoed. One of their leaders has even said such a veto would be, ‘a political victory.’ […]

“In other words, members of Congress are putting health coverage for poor children at risk so they can score political points in Washington. The legislation would raise taxes on working people, and would raise spending by between $35 billion and $50 billion. Their proposal would result in taking a program meant to help poor children and turning it into one that covers children in households with incomes of up to $83,000 a year.”

This is maybe the most dishonest statement that Bush has ever made. The entire point is that he's threatening to veto a health insurance bill for children because it provides too much health insurance, despite it having the backing of over 2/3 of Republicans in the Senate and likely the same in the House, if they know what's good for them. Yet it's apparently the Congress' fault for wanting to fund a successful plan and let states decide how to use it.

Republicans are pretty pissed off.

"I'm disappointed by the president's comments," said Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa), who urged Bush, in an early-morning telephone conversation yesterday, to support the emerging bipartisan compromise. "Drawing lines in the sand at this stage isn't constructive. . . . I wish he would engage Congress in a bill that he could sign instead of threatening a veto."

"I'm very, very disappointed," said Sen. Gordon Smith (R-Ore.). "I'm going to be voting for it."

(Sen, Orrin) Hatch, who helped negotiate the compromise, said it is flatly untrue that the bill would cover children in households with incomes of as much as $83,000. A recent Urban Institute analysis found that 70 percent of the children who would gain or retain coverage under the Senate bill, which resembles the compromise, are in households with incomes below twice the poverty level, or $41,300 for a family of four.

“We’re talking about kids who basically don’t have coverage,” Hatch said. “I think the president’s had some pretty bad advice on this.”

Asked whether he would vote to override a veto, Orrin Hatch, a staunch conservative, said, “You bet your sweet bippy I will.”

The President is turning this into an ideological battle against health care, basically, instead of pragmatically looking to expand a popular and successful program. It fits with Ezra Klein's formulation of how the two parties look at health care:

The Republican vision is for a world in which the sick and dying get to deduct some of the cost of health insurance that they don't have -- and can't get -- on their taxes. The Democratic vision is for every American to have health insurance. We clear?

In a country where almost 90 million people lacked health insurance at one point or entirely in the past two years, that's a formulation we should all commit to memory. I think I know what side the American people are on.

CA-02: Wally Herger and the Klamath Fish Kill

TJ at Loaded Orygun has been doing some great work gettig to the bottom of the 2002 Klamath River fish kill, an incident that recently gained more prominence when a recent Washington Post article detailed the influence of Vice President Fourthbranch in the decisionmaking process.

TJ has been filing Freedom of Information Act requests to determine what the level of involvement was for political officials in the region. Most of his findings concern Senator Gordon Smith (R-OR) and his inserting himself into the scientific debate over whether to hold water for river salmon and attempting to influence it on the behalf of self-interested farmers who wanted that water for irrigation.

But a California congressman also figured into this issue: Rep. Wally Herger of CA-02. The "pages" in the blockquoted text that proceeds refer to TJ's FOIA page request.

The last item on page one is a two-fer with Greg Walden to a "Science Advisor" in 2002, recommending "immediate review of study known as Hardy Study re Klamath River." The Hardy Phase II report was a set of flow measurement models that formed the basis of the federal biologists' opinion protecting the fish. Here you have two Members of Congress attempting to impugn the best available science, because they don't like what it says [...]

On page two we see the precursor to the last item on page one--a complaint from Smith, Walden and Wally Herger (R-CA2) sharing their "concern" about the Hardy study, amazingly all the way back to February 7, 2001. The summary isn't shy about the topic of the conversation. The authors

"question its science, credibility and the fact that our constituents (ie water users) have been excluded. Ask for an immediate suspension of the Hardy Study pending a complete review, audit by the IG, and scientific peer review."

This is an ongoing investigation on the citizen journalism model. I'm anxious to see just how involved Herger has been in this environmental, ecological and economic disaster.

And Gordon and Dana Make Three

Senator Smith and Rep. Rohrbacher (really?) become the latest to say it's time for my main man Abu G. to go, and Rohrbacher's statement makes a lot of sense (really?!?!?):

“Even for Republicans this is a warning sign … saying there needs to be a change,” said Rohrbacher. “Maybe the president should have an attorney general who is less a personal friend and more professional in his approach.”

I've no complimented Jonah Goldberg and Dana Rohrbacher in one week.

I will now plunge needles through my eyes.

There's another mini-scandal related to the Prosecutor Purge scandal, incidentally, and that is that many of the emails between the White House and the Justice Department were not using White House email addresses, which actually is a no-no:

One email, sent to Justice Department Chief of Staff D. Kyle Sampson from J. Scott Jennings, White House Deputy Political Director, uses an email account, SJennings@gwb43.com, on a server owned by the Republican National Committee. This raises serious questions about whether the White House was trying to deliberately evade its responsibilities under the PRA, which directs the president to take all necessary steps to maintain presidential records to provide a full accounting of all activities during his tenure.

A number of other emails from Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove’s former assistant Susan Ralston to convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff document Ms. Ralston’s use of three outside domains: rnchq.com (used for the headquarters of the Republican National Committee), georgebush.com and aol.com. In many of these emails Ms. Ralston is communicating inside White House information to Mr. Abramoff in response to Mr. Abramoff’s efforts to broker deals for his clients and place specified individuals in positions within the administration.

CREW has learned that to fulfill its statutory obligations under the PRA, the White House email system automatically copies all messages created by staff and sends them to the White House Office of Records Management for archiving. It appears that the White House deliberately bypassed the automatic archiving function of its own email system that was designed to ensure compliance with the PRA.

If it's the Bush Administration, nothing can be done completely legally, so cut 'em some slack, jack!

Prepare for a Filibuster-Proof Majority

If the Republicans want to keep talking like they want to end the war but block even the debate about stopping it, they're doomed to the minority for a long, long time. People like John Warner and Chuck Hagel, who filibustered THEIR OWN resolution, are simply terrified of offending their Dear Leader of a President. Think Progress has the list of names of those who talk the talk but refuse to walk the walk.

– Sen. John Warner (R-VA): “Sen. John Warner (R-VA) will introduce a resolution today ‘making clear that he does not support the President on increasing the troop levels in Iraq’ and calling escalation ‘a mistake,’.”

– Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-NE): “It’s Alice in Wonderland. … I’m absolutely opposed to sending any more troops to Iraq. It is folly.” (Cosponsored Warner resolution.)

– Sen. Gordon Smith (R-OR): “This is the president’s Hail Mary pass. … We are extending an ineffective tactic to further the status quo.” (Cosponsored Warner resolution.)

– Sen. John Sununu (R-NH): “Sen. John Sununu told CNN Tuesday he will not support President Bush’s plan to send an additional 21,000 U.S. troops to Iraq, although he hasn’t yet decided whether to back a Democratic resolution opposing the move.”

– Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-ME): “We should not place more American servicemen and women in harm’s way to instill a peace that the Iraqis are not willing to seek for themselves.” (Cosponsored Warner resolution.)

– Sen. Sam Brownback (R-KS): “I do not believe that sending more troops to Iraq is the answer. … Iraq requires a political rather than a military solution.”

– Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA): “We’re all looking for a plan that will work. … The current plan is not working, and 21,500 additional troops — it’s a snowball in July. It’s not going to work.“

There's going to be a debate on Iraq, no question about it. These hypocrites are only delaying the inevitable. But in the process, they've told the whole country that they support the President's plan for Iraq. They can SAY whatever they want, but ultimately that's what this comes down to. They are in favor of this President having a completely free hand in determining military matters, without even so much as questioning from the legislative branch.

This is the exact opposite of what the American people want. They want the Congress to stop this quagmire. Not only that, the troops themselves have no belief in this escalation and think it will fail.

"To be honest, it's going to be like this for a long time to come, no matter what we do," said Hardy, 25, of Atlanta. "I think some people in America don't want to know about all this violence, about all the killings. The people back home are shielded from it; they get it sugar-coated."

While senior military officials and the Bush administration say the president's decision to send more American troops to pacify Baghdad will succeed, many of the soldiers who're already there say it's a lost cause.

"What is victory supposed to look like? Every time we turn around and go in a new area there's somebody new waiting to kill us," said Sgt. 1st Class Herbert Gill, 29, of Pulaski, Tenn., as his Humvee rumbled down a dark Baghdad highway one evening last week. "Sunnis and Shiites have been fighting for thousands of years, and we're not going to change that overnight."

"Once more raids start happening, they'll (insurgents) melt away," said Gill, who serves with the 1st Infantry Division in east Baghdad. "And then two or three months later, when we leave and say it was a success, they'll come back."

We're running a counterinsurgency strategy against a civil war, meaning we have to take up sides in the conflict and consider the other side the insurgents. This is exactly why the Mahdi army is sitting it out and waiting for the US troops to do their dirty work for them.

The U.S. military drive to train and equip Iraq's security forces has unwittingly strengthened anti-American Shiite Muslim cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army militia, which has been battling to take over much of the capital city as American forces are trying to secure it.

U.S. Army commanders and enlisted men who are patrolling east Baghdad, which is home to more than half the city's population and the front line of al-Sadr's campaign to drive rival Sunni Muslims from their homes and neighborhoods, said al-Sadr's militias had heavily infiltrated the Iraqi police and army units that they've trained and armed.

"Half of them are JAM. They'll wave at us during the day and shoot at us during the night," said 1st Lt. Dan Quinn, a platoon leader in the Army's 1st Infantry Division, using the initials of the militia's Arabic name, Jaish al Mahdi. "People (in America) think it's bad, but that we control the city. That's not the way it is. They control it, and they let us drive around. It's hostile territory."

(by the way, both of those stories are from the great Tom Lasseter, one of the best journalists working in Iraq today)

But of course, there's no reasoning with Senators who know these arguments, who EMPLOY these arguments, and who then vote in the exact opposite fashion. There's only one thing to do, and that's to make sure that everyone knows about the dishonesty of these men and women, every day until they're up for re-election. They will not survive being yoked to Mr. 32%, and they will certainly not survive while giving up their Constitutional responsibility to act as a co-equal branch of government. Their actions yesterday tell the country that they are not necessary. The voters will tell them the same son enough.