At a time when many Republicans are distancing themselves from their party, Mr. Smith is a study in the extreme. He is not just saying nice things about Democrats; he has run television commercials suggesting that he, Mr. Obama and Senators John Kerry and Edward M. Kennedy, both of Massachusetts, are of like minds on a variety of issues, including alternative energy and hate crimes.... "Everybody's an independent in an election year, but he's not merely emphasizing his independence," Stuart Rothenberg, a political analyst who tracks Congressional races, said of Mr. Smith. "He's trying to link himself with Obama in front of voters.".... Mr. Smith, seeking his third term, has emphasized his sharp criticism of the Iraq war in recent years, his support for environmental issues, like increasing mileage standards for cars, and his efforts to pass measures extending hate crimes protection to gay men and lesbians. He frequently notes that he is rated one of the most moderate Republicans in the Senate by nonpartisan Congressional publications.
This might be amusing if it wasn't so true. You've got to know that your ideology is thoroughly bankrupt when the only hope you have of winning an election is completely camouflaging the fact that you're a Republican. Sen. Gordon Smith (R-OR), who initially won his seat by portraying himself as a Conservative, pro-business, anti-choice alternative to what much of rural Oregon sees as the Liberal excesses of Portland, is now running as a Democrat in all but name. I'd be laughing maniacally if Smith wasn't running such an underhanded, reprehensible campaign heavily rooted in rumor, innuendo, and character assassination.
In Smith's defense, Jeff Merkley is preferable to me for only two reasons: one, he's a Democrat, and two, he's certainly the lesser of two evils. Merkley, who hasn't exactly run a stellar campaign himself, hasn't worked to position himself as a reasonable alternative to Smith. Instead, he's relied on surrogates like the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee to impugn Smith's character and record. Less than three weeks before Election Day, and I still don't know who Jeff Merkley is...and it's not because I haven't been paying attention. It's because Merkley hasn't bothered to make a convincing case for himself. If the Republican brand wasn't so toxic this year, Merkley would be getting his ass handed to him by Smith- and deservedly so.
Even worse then Merkley's lazy campaign is Smith's rush to the center while sweeping the "R" behind his name under the rug. Smith once proudly campaigned on his Conservative bona findes, yet is now treating the words "Conservative" and "Republican" as if they were radioactive. Smith, who wouldn't even go the the Republican National Convention last month to avoid being associated with the Republican brand, is busily trying to hoodwink Oregon voters into thinking he's some sort of middle-of-the-road populist. By invoking Ron Wyden and Barack Obama, Smith is hoping to confuse enough voters into thinking that he's now some sort of centrist, when in fact he's nothing of the sort.
Rising Democrat registration in several Oregon counties, particularly heavily-populated Multnomah and Clackamas, have made this race much closer than Jeff Merkley (or for that matter, Gordon Smith) deserves. Smith deserves to lose for being an inveterate liar whose run a campaign almost as reprehensible as John McCain's. Merkley deserves to lose for running such a lazy, uninspiring campaign, and for dipping his toes in the pool of negative campaigning far too often. This really has become a race to the bottom in a campaign of competing evils. The key, I suppose, will be choosing the lesser of those two evils. For me, that means Jeff Merkley, because Gordon Smith, though you'll never hear this word cross his lips, is still a Republican.
Game. Set. Match.
