I live in Oregon, and Smith is vulnerable. Not just on the war but on his general support for the Bush agenda. It will not be easy, however, Smith is very skilled at portraying himself as a moderate, in the tradition of Hatfield and Packwood, inspite of his generally conservative voting record. He is handsome, telegenic, well-spoken, and loaded. In addition to his campaign war-chest, he has lots of personal money from his successful agribusiness company and lots of extended family money. It is going to take a strong effort to knock him off.

Smith's move cuts both ways. On one hand, it helps him with the moderate voters he needs to win the general next year, on the other hand, he has really opened himself up to a charge of "opportunism." This is particularly important here in Oregon, where voters really care about integrity and honesty. As a group we are probably a bit less cynical than folks on the east coast.

Smith has carefully cultivated an image as a nice guy, "he might be a bit conservative but people think he is sincere and decent." A skilled Dem candidate could use his flip-flop on the war, and an early flop on ANWAR, to undermine this central image.

It is alos being reported that he came out against Gonzales over the USA scandal. But his actual words were very mild:

"For the Justice Department to be effective before the U.S. Senate, it would be helpful (for Gozales to quit)."

Don't Tread on Me

John Kitzhaber would have the job if he wants it. He is the one that could make smith realize that wasting money trying to compete with him would be absurd. Smith has wasted all credibility with us by now, he will have a very hard time with his record of rubber stamping

I'm another relatively recent (two and a half years) migrant to Oregon. Oregon certainly is very mixed politically, but then, many states are, including Blue California. (Spend some time in Fresno and you'll see.) While the state is and will remain mixed and independent minded, I think there's a certain disgust among what I would call the "old-style" Republicans for the Bushies and all they stand for. I know several people in Eugene who have left the Republican Party over what it's become on a national level. I suspect Smith is doing his own brand of triangulating. He can't hope to win if he tows the Bush line; he'll lose the independents and a share of the moderate repubs to whoever the dems nominate. His only hope is to distance himself from the national party enough to keep the state voters.

I'm from Oregon, and I'd love to see our state go prominently Independent. Why, you ask? Well, frankly, because the only way to really flush the GOP/DNC self-perpetuating 'toilet' of patronage, old-boy-ism, and god knows what else goes on in the name of the People, is to replace both parties with a third independent party from time to time, hence the name Independents. Since the Constitution's in the news these days, it's fitting to take a few minutes and talk about it,
and the historical circumstances that brought it into being. The then-british colonies, the 13 original colonies, which then became our first states, declared themselves independent of Great Britain and then-king George. Ironically, we now have our OWN king George, who's not real hip on
listening to the People, either. There's something 'fundamentally' wrong with that, and you hear a lot of fundamentalism being invoked, but none practiced. So, let's talk about some:
Debt. "Neither a lender, nor a borrower be." That was Ben Franklin. Our country's 9 trillion in debt. I couldn't even begin to guess how far our state's in debt, but it's a chronic sad story that they can't maintain their books properly. The state budget has ballooned and ballooned, for this that and the other program, mainly amounting to a lot of welfare checks for both private citizens and businesses, lots of de-facto wealth redistribution, there, I think, not just in our state but also nationwide, too many people with an entitlement mentality and bills they can't afford to pay, and I think that's partly by design. Nothing wrong with running on a cash basis, actually helps to keep things more honest. Ah, yes, honesty, public transparency, that whole business. Sunshine laws give politicians and bureaucrats less places to run and hide and perpetrate their subterfuge and incompetence. This is a Good Thing, in my view, and I say by all means: LET THE SUN SHINE IN!!!
It'll be like Sesame Street, but without the puppets...I think Mr. Smith means well, for the most part, but the measure of that will be how much he listens to the voters, and how much to special interests etc. I think Oregon should strive to become a national leader in terms of green energy initiatives, not so much in terms of passing bales worth of unenforceable laws, but rather in encouraging schools, citizens, and businesses to develop that Better Mousetrap, promote 'green oregon', get volunteers out planting trees and so forth, generally making the most of our state without in-filling it with california-style tract homes and all the suburban wonderfulness that that's given birth to over the years in some areas. Hopefully, Mr. Smith will continue to help keep mercenarial developers out of our state, and continue his opposition to the continuance of the Iraq war, as well as support debt reduction initiatives.
There's no reason on God's green earth that our state, or any state, has to run 'in the red' to stay open for business, other than that it hasn't seen fit to take issue with the greed and mismanagement that've put paid to the economic viability of more than one state in the Union.

Just as an FYI... on the Election Central site, when the writers talk about a specific senator, state, or district; they'll place the info in the Tags section of the post.

That's why the bottom of the post has the tag "OR-SEN".

Although, yeah, I agree it's probably more journalistically correct to do the whole "GOP Senator Gordon Smith (R-OR)" when first listing.

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