It's not the pre-election flip, it's the post-election flop.
Kari Chisholm
Yesterday's smackdown of the Oregonian at the hands of the Daily Astorian was a thing of beauty, to be sure:
To summon a phrase from college days, the men and women who write editorials at The Oregonian are a cheap date when it comes to Sen. Gordon Smith. All that Oregon's junior U.S. senator had to do was proclaim that global warming was real and the O's editorial writers blushed and gushed approval of their favorite prodigal son.
Now, Oregon voters would be excused for breathing a sigh of relief - as the Oregonian did. He gets it, he finally gets it. Phew. Now I can vote for the well-dressed nice-hair guy with a clean conscience...
But here's the thing: once Gordon Smith flips on an issue, we can't count on him to stay flipped. As soon as the election is over, he's going flop right back. He's not becoming a moderate -- he's pretending to be a moderate.
Remember 2002? He didn't just say that he opposed drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. He actually ran millions in TV commercials promising Oregonians that he would stand up to the Bush Administration on drilling in the Wildlife Refuge.
But once he was re-elected, what did he do? He flopped the other way and did exactly what Big Oil and Dubya wanted him to do. In 2005, he voted to drill for oil in the Wildlife Refuge - and in 2006, he voted again to drill in the Wildlife Refuge.
I don't know what it is about the Oregonian and Gordon Smith. Especially on the environment. When he gives a little head-fake toward the environment, they gush all over him - and completely ignore the historical context.
But when he backpedals and votes against the environment - against Oregon's voters - they're strangely silent.
As I wrote back in 2006:
Once again, the Oregonian has been silent when Gordon Smith voted FOR oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge -- after saying repeatedly during his 2002 campaign that he would not. ...When will the Oregonian hold Gordon Smith to account for saying one thing and doing another? ...
It's like a bad nightmare. Gordon Smith says X. Gordon Smith does Y. The Big O prints nothing.
Now, we've been shouting the truth about Gordon Smith from the rooftops here at BlueOregon. But that's not going to be enough.
If we're going to defeat Gordon Smith this fall, every single one of us is going to have to make sure that our friends, family, colleagues, and neighbors all know the games that Gordon plays.
Fortunately, the Merkley for Oregon campaign is making it easy. They're started rolling out "Flip Flop Alerts" everytime Gordon Smith looks like he's going to pull a fast one on Oregon voters.
Head over to JeffMerkley.com and sign up for the Alerts - and then be sure to send 'em to your friends and family, especially to folks that aren't paying as close attention as you are.
I'm serious. Do it now. It's up to you to defeat Gordon Smith. Jeff Merkley can't do it alone.
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2:09 a.m.
Jun 10, '08
Full disclosure: My firm built JeffMerkley.com, but I speak only for myself.
Jun 10, '08
I would have voted for DeFazio over Smith, but I won't vote for Merkely. Gordon has totally pissed off the far right and the far left, but he'll easily win another term by staying comfortably in the middle. It will be tougher for him to go up against Merkely than it would have been against Novick, but he will still keep the seat.
8:53 a.m.
Jun 10, '08
Hey MR... When you see Gordon at the staff meeting today, say hi for us!
Jun 10, '08
Kari:
Did you use your powers as blog editor/host to discover that Moderate Republiclan was posting from Sen. Smith's office? You may very well be right, but how could you tell?
I'm not criticizing; I'm genuinely curious.
10:02 a.m.
Jun 10, '08
No, just surmising. It's a classic concern-troll post.
10:05 a.m.
Jun 10, '08
That Oregonian article was utterly dismaying. You'd think a team of professional journalists would have better "pandar" (radar to detect pandering politicians!)
All constituencies that use any natural resources for recreation, paying jobs, or even, you know, for FOOD, should back Democrats. Smith has the typical Republican attitude of maximizing narrowly defined short-term gain at the expense of long-term yield and sustainability. A perfect example is Smith's and Cheney's joint intervention in the Klamath Basin water dispute. Their direct intervention in overturning rational water policies was doubtlessly a contributing factor to this year's total closure of the coastal salmon fisheries. Remember those 77,000 dead salmon in 2002? They didn't get to spawn. Now fast forward to 2008...hey, how come there aren't any fish???? The collapse of the Klamath fishery is only a small part of a larger problem, but the larger problem is the Republican's refusal to implement environmental policies based on science and long-term economic stability. And Smith is part of that problem.
Before being led down the garden path this week, the Big O. did get it right in their 2007 piece Smith back Cheney, farmers in fish-kill debate. To quote:
"Sen. Gordon Smith argues there is no evidence a massive fish kill on the Klamath River in 2002 was caused by water diversions to farmers...Generating fresh controversy over a key Oregon environmental issue, the Republican senator also defends the role Vice President Dick Cheney played in intervening with federal officials to help farmers in the Klamath Basin...[But] the debate over the Klamath fish kill comes as Smith is gearing up for what could be a tough re-election race next year. His staunch defense of the farmers gives him a chance to cement ties with rural voters who are a key part of his political base. But if he's seen as insensitive to environmental issues, it also could undermine his attempts to seek the political middle in Oregon."
There it is. His strategy in a nut-shell: dupe us again.
Jun 10, '08
No one should be surprised at or expect rational behavior from any newspaper that would hire David Reinhard as a conservative mouthpiece. The real problem, however, is not so much the Oregonian, Reinhard, Limbaugh, O'LIElly, Coulter and their ilk as it is the swarms of mindless voters who follow their direction.
12:36 p.m.
Jun 10, '08
Let's not forget, this isn't even a genuine vote; it was a vote to cut off a fillibuster. Mitch McConnell (R-Coal Mines) only needed FORTY votes to stifle this bill. He had more than half a dozen to spare. So he goes to up-for-election Senators in states like Minnesota and Oregon and lets them off the hook. Gordo has his environmental vote knowing that the bill is doomed. Is he committed to Warner-Leiberman NEXT year? Of course not. He'll find some small, insignificant new provision and say that makes it something he can't support.
Jun 10, '08
The default position for The Oregonian is stuck on Republican. It was founded as a Republican newspaper, and it rarely strays from its founding principles. When it finds a Republican it can endorse without being laughed out of the state, it will endorse him or her. Its presidential endorsement history is particularly amusing. Sometimes Stickel would intervene to insist that an editorial board that had been railing regularly against a Republican endorse him. It was humiliating for the paper.
What's needed is for The O to get rid of its hopeless editor of the editorial page. But who's going to do it?
Jun 10, '08
Kari, You're funny. I'm so far from being a Smith supporter, let alone a staffer, you'd be amazed.
I'll make you a deal.
I'll give you two to one odds on a one hundred dollar bet that Smith keeps the seat. The day after the election you put up a post and I will reveal who I really am. And the loser makes good on the bet.
Deal?
Jun 10, '08
Full disclosure: My firm built JeffMerkley.com, but I speak only for myself.
Didn't you also build an anti-Democrat Web site a few weeks ago, too?
Jun 10, '08
Democratic Congressman Dennis Kucinich of Ohio yesterday did what over half of all Americans want to see--introduce articles of impeachment against President Bush, a sitting President with approval levels of less than 30%.
Nothing from Blue Oregon. Rawstory reports as a banner headline the astonishing silence of the mainstream media in response to this historic event. The blogosphere and internet news sites are a-buzz about it. Nothing from Blue Oregon. The release of a Senate Intelligence Investigation report that has been stonewalled for years leaves no doubt that George W. Bush and his administration manipulated intelligence to lie the nation into a war that has killed over 4,000 (actually more), maimed 25,000 more solidiers, resulted in over 30,000 cases of PTSD, killed more than 1 million innocent Iraqis, and cost the U.S. somewhere between 1 and 3 trillion dollars... Oh, and is responsible for the US dollar losing 50% of its value against the Euro since 2003, which directly feeds $4.15/gal gasoline prices that are destroying middle class families.
Silence from Blue Oregon.
Let's talk about the Gordon Smith flip flop alert instead. Just leave words like "progressive" and "constitutional" out of it. Instead say things like "Pelositutional."
11:17 p.m.
Jun 10, '08
The blogosphere and internet news sites are a-buzz about it. Nothing from Blue Oregon.
I can't speak for my fellow contributors, but I can tell you this: I learned about the Kucinich bill about five minutes ago while watching Olbermann on my DVR.
1:23 p.m.
Jun 11, '08
Ted,
It's quite interesting, there was a prior related thread on Ron Wyden's response to the SIC report & it quickly degenerated into a discussion attacking or defending Wyden for being late, grandstanding, failing to bring things out earlier etc., etc. -- the folks who might be expected to take up the "this is an argument for impeachment" angle decided not to do so, for whatever reason.
Your own comment also reflects the parochialism you critique. By going meta you turn the issue toward BlueOregon & away from impeachment.
Where's the "actionable intelligence"? How about links to some of those other sites, for starters? Better still, is there a local group that is promoting impeachment, if someone wanted to follow up? Is anyone organizing anything to call on our reps to support Kucinich? How would interested persons contact them?
<h2>Whatever your dissatisfactions with the "front-end" posts, which are quite decentralized, comments count too. Blogs are a DIY medium. If you want a discussion about something, start it. If you start by criticizing absence of a discussion, we'll end up discussing the absence, not the actual subject.</h2>