Wise words from the closing of Steve's blog:

"So the bottom line is: Branding matters. Humor helps. Not every consumer responds to the same message"

Those of you who were such vocal "how could anyone not think Steve is the greatest candidate ever?" bloggers, pay attention to that last line. Steve understands target audience!

He was very appealing to his target audience, but that audience was not the majority of registered Democrats.

Not everyone thought his beer ad was funny. Not everyone thought acerbic language was the most important characteristic in a US Senate candidate. Some thought that if his website design had put different topics on the front page, or if he had run the Kitzhaber ad before the beer and pull the plug ads, he might have made a better impression with downstate voters.

Yes, Steve is a bright guy. But as adults are continually saying to kids they deal with (parents, teachers, child care workers, etc.) there is a fine line between wonderfully outspoken and a loudmouth people don't want to associate with.

Steve is a bright guy. He should run for an office where the district is partly/mostly Mult. County and he might win.

Too many on his campaign were apparently of the opinion that if Mult. Co. political activists liked the Novick approach, the rest of the state would too. According to the election results, that is now how it worked out.

http://www.oregonlive.com/special/index.ssf/2008/05/senate.html

Another Westlund no surprise: He also received the endorsement of the Working Families Party over the weekend.

While no one likes paying politicians more, the low salaries in Oregon guarantee that the legislators will have to be - a. Independently wealthy; b. A wholly owned subsidiary of their contributors; or c. So dedicated that they'll burn out. I mean, look at Pete Sorenson - he quit a promising legislative career to become a county commissioner, just b/c it paid like a full time job.

Also, what kind of constituent services can we expect from someone paid this little? Sure, they have a budget for staff, but it's not enough to hire anyone other than a close relative to do the job, as we've seen. California's legislature may not be a sterling example of success, but at least they pay them a decent wage and they can afford constituent services!

Landrieu/Kennedy (LA)

Too bad we can't do better than Landrieu, who often votes with the R's and today announced that she is NOT sponsoring an Obama fundraiser and wanted her name taken off(source TPM). So Landrieu runs from Obama while Smith pretends they are BFF's. UGH.

steve thanks for running and for all you do you did a helluva job

Yes, Stacey is right. But what frustrated some of us about the Novick campaign is that there are some things he could have done which would have cost little or no money.

For instance: 1) Why on earth was that wonderful poverty video never on the front page of the website, but "flammable pants" was there for a long time? Someone's idea of humor?

2) If Steve had spent half his time, energy, resources talking about the sorry state of veterans treatment as he did trying to convince us that Merkley was unfit to have the nomination because of a vote on an obscure 2003 resolution (Was Steve publicly angry about the vote in 2003, or did he wait until he needed a campaign issue?), he would have done better with some of the folks who didn't vote for him.

3) Did Steve not know, or not care, that certain bloggers were, shall we say, rather heated? Everyone THEY knew was supporting Novick, and there must be something wrong with anyone who thought otherwise. Anyone who even said "I know both gentlemen, but on this topic I think Merkley makes sense when he says...." got jumped on. Bloggers calling me "a Merkleyite" were going to get my vote for Novick? I would have voted for Neville had Merkley not been in the race because I refuse to be bullied.

4) As the saying goes, word of mouth can be both the least expensive and most effective form of advertising. No campaign can control the personal phone calls where one person expresses an opinion to another. An old, old friend of mine (yes, some of us are old enough to remember when Wayne Morse was alive and not everyone thought Novick was another Morse) called me up after reading BO and the aforementioned bloggers. "They don't understand how statewide campaigns are won in this state!", he said. He was wrong on the percentage, but right about the narrowness of the geographic appeal. He'd grown up in Linn County and saw things differently from Portlanders.

Also, in Salem, there are political people who had known Steve a long time. "Yes, we go way back, but I refuse to associate myself with some of his more acerbic remarks" was a theme echoed by some of those folks. Not just on the campaign, but remarks made in conversation long before blogs ever existed. Enough money to run targeted ads every hour on the hour wouldn't change the minds of those folks, diplomatic language might have had an effect.

There were some civil conversations in these parts among people who supported both Novick and Merkley, and in some cases the Merkley supporter would say to the Novick supporter, "I'd have been more willing to support him if it hadn't been for...". Targeted TV ads (with nothing else different about the campaign) wouldn't have solved those problems.

Perhaps talking about substance abuse programs to make up for the non-beer-drinkers and others who didn't think the beer commercial was appropriate and Left Hook Lager was just a gimmick might have been a wiser campaign tactic.

5) Some of us who have worked on campaigns where the Democrat ousted an incumbent Republican know it isn't always the "exciting" candidate who wins, but the candidate who gains support from people who vote Republican most of the time. Kitzhaber for Gov. was a great example of that.

6) The Obama factor. People who were excited at an inspiring, cool, diplomatically speaking presidential nominee were going to vote for the acerbic Senate candidate?

7) The You Have The Power factor: In the end, no matter how many ads and other forms of campaigning have been inflicted on voters, it is often an individual decision. On a train trip recently I ran into an old friend who had once been very active in politics. He liked Novick but had voted for Merkley because he was one of us who had decided in the end to vote for the legislator running against the non-legislator (Merkley and Macpherson over Novick and Kroger).

I understand what it is like to lose a hotly contested primary--I was a Lonsdale recount observer. But I also know that many people outside the Portland area who knew anything about the US Senate campaign were not overly thrilled by the Novick campaign. For instance, "Gee, I never really understood what opening a beer bottle had to do with running for the US Senate" said the woman who cuts my hair.

If Steve had spent more time among people who don't think consultants know everything about politics and grass roots volunteers know little or nothing (a battle which has been going on for over a decade) maybe he would have made wiser decisions. And getting the things right which don't cost money (not having put the line about the 2003 resolution into the Sunriver speech, not understanding that the AuCoin endorsement wouldn't impress the half of the electorate who had supported Lonsdale, the bloggers who didn't see how any good Democrat could support anyone but Novick, etc.) might have led to more contributions to his campaign.

But what do I know, I've only been involved in Oregon politics since the 1970s, was involved in the successful ouster of Denny Smith by Mike Kopetski, former member of State Central Comm. among other things.

Let's give it a rest.

Thank you, Kari. Thank you!

Maybe LT can focus her senility on some other race for a change.

THe YOung Turks is a great show. They also stream live at their own website at www.theyoungturks.com

LT, if you weren't so stupid and clueless, I'd have to hate you. Instead, I just feel sorry for you. STFU.

"The Novick campaign did an amazing job. They fell short, but that doesn't mean they did everything wrong. In fact, they did most things right. They were fast, innovative, and gutsy."

So...will Jeff adopt some of these 'fast, innovative, abd gutsy' things to try to defeat Smith? There are still some people out there who are still not that willfully excited about Merkley and maybe some Novickian tactics could win them over for a more enthusiastical vote. Or is the Dem Committee script for Jeff too unflexable?

"I think Merkley really ought to steal that beer idea from Steve, too."

Interesting, but what would he call it?

"Interesting, but what would he call it?"

Milquetoast Malt?