And the race is called for Merkley. Excellent. Meanwhile, the No on Prop 8 forces are beginning to create protest groups. As leshrac55 notes in Quick Hits, the ideological makeup of the electorate didn't change, and with Rahm Emanuel as Chief of Staff, I think we can safely bet that Blue Dogs will have a friend in the White House.
Progressive groups are beginning to mobilize around some of the losses, especially the segregationist loss in California. My guess is that this is going to be a far more difficult time for progressives than many of us expect, so it's good to see movement now.
Hi. Been a crazy night. Things are actually looking pretty good for us right now. There are still 180,000 ballots that have not been counted in Multnomah County. Merkley is leading by 66-29% in Multnomah County, so if the trend stays the same, we should be able to pull out a win. And, Lane County still has to count nearly 100,000 ballots. Both Mult. and Lane counties are the bluest in the state.
Ok, so the big dollar donor match I announced earlier happened with the first $5k, and that money is being moved to candidates as we speak. Congrats, you guys unlocked a bunch of money to great Democratic women. But there's still some money left on the table, since we haven't yet hit $15k that the donors promised to match. This money will be useful for the campaigns; there are last minute cable and TV buys happening and field programs, so if you can put something in, your donations will be doubled.
You can give here. Nearly every woman on the list is in a tough fight, a close fight, and your bit of cash could possibly tip the scales.
Reichert just switched up his ad traffic, substituting this ad for his earlier Harvard Hoax ads. His Harvard Hoax ads were a clear attack on Burner's trustworthiness as a candidate, but this ad, titled 'Denise', is entirely different. It's a female union leader named Denise Spencer saying that she's scared of Darcy Burner and only slightly alluding to the Harvard hoax line of criticism. It is, in short, a change of message three days before the election and after a good number of ballots have come in.
Well, it looks like Republican Senator Gordon Smith was just caught passing a 'please bailout my friend' note to Hank Paulson on behalf of a campaign contributor running a shady business, Sunwest Management, Inc. I'll dig into this more tomorrow, but I think Smith's toast regardless.
In the meantime, if you're considering doing trick or vote and you're a guy, go when it's light out or go with a group. People don't like it when you're out at night canvassing, even on Halloween, unless you are with kids or women. But if you're a kid or an eighth grader or have a group of friends (both guys and girls) that like to dress up, it's a total blast.
Down between five and seven points in the polls to Jeff Merkley in a state beset by the Obama tsunami, Republican Gordon Smith is resorting to... attacking his third party rival Dave Brownlow.
I am an historian of workers' compensation. Your story on Oregon's Sen. Smith really caught my attention. That number of amputations for a frozen food factory is what you might expect if we were back in 1910. Really. Leather drive belts for the equipment etc. It is really extraordinary.
Sincerely,
Robert Asher
Professor of History Emeritus
University of Connecticut
It's not just that his employees are regularly amputated. Food expert Jill Richardson at La Vida Locavore filled in some details about what it means for Smith to irrigate his crops with partially treated sewage, ie toxic chemicals mixed with 'poop and pee'.
That dot is a green oozing substance you can see from space in one of Smith Frozen Food's ponds.
I just got a Sierra Club press release with some very gross information about Gordon Smith's company, Smith Frozen Foods. Apparently, Smith Frozen Foods started storing partially treated sewage from the town of Weston into his company's wastewater pond in the 1980s, when Smith was directly controlling the company. That's fine, it's what companies do when they have lots of land and the ability to handle partially treated sewage. Here's what's not fine.
I'm doing a bunch of research on Republican Gordon Smith, seeing as I'm in the Northwest these days. I've been through his financial disclosure forms, and there are some oddities there I'll get into shortly. Smith owns a frozen food company called 'Smith Frozen Foods', and it appears he's taken out a mortgage of unspecified amount from that company for land worth $10. It's very odd. I'll have more on Smith's company soon, but note that it has a terrible record of safety violations.
623 Workers' Compensation Claims were filed against Smith's companies, with 11 of the accepted workers' compensation claims being "amputations." It's a disgusting place which consistently exposes employees to dangerous chemicals and an overall toxic environment. And the company is completely interwoven with Smith's personal finances.
Gordon Smith - has a problem. He has hired and profited from the work of illegal immigrants at his food processing business, Smith Foods.
Research shows that for decades, Smith repeatedly hired undocumented workers, or workers with fake documents, or refused to photocopy workers documents in order to confound immigration officials trying to investigate him.
Smith is therefore profiting from the exploitation of illegal immigrants, but he is also engaged in a defacto denial of those jobs to Americans or legal immigrants, for that matter.
To defend his ability to hire illegal immigrants, Smith has voted against:
1. Tougher penalties for employers who hire illegal immigrants
2. Tougher employment protection for undocumented workers- so they cannot be exploited by employers like Gordon Smith
3. Voted against increased funding for Employer enforcement.
Gordon Smith - purposefully undermining our immigration laws.
Gordon Smith, Ben Nelson, Kit Bond, Trent Lott, Susan Collins, and Ted Stevens enjoy the Senate's seersucker suit day. No word yet on whether Senators can bring their butlers.
It's not just Newsweek of DC elites pressing a conservative, elitist agenda. Local newspapers are often the worst purveyors of conservative ideas, and they often have a hammerlock on information in the district. Oregon is a good example, where progressive Jeff Merkley is challenging Republican Gordon Smith. Though he has a moderate reputation, Gordon Smith is very much the picture of a pampered Republican politician. Born wealthy into a Mormon family, the anti-choice Smith's family money comes from a frozen food company with a history of safety violations, low pay for workers, and a record of hiring undocumented immigrants. His privilege is legend; he owns golf clubs worth over a million dollars, he uses 15 year old footage in his ads so he'll appear younger and slimmer, and he enjoys Seersucker suit day in the Senate (he's the one on the far left). I've even heard rumors he has a golden toilet seat at home and a giant mural of himself in his foyer. Smith is a wealthy, entitled man who enjoys his position as a wealthy, entitled Senator voting for policies that help those who are wealthy and entitled. It's literally in his blood.
But in one breath, the powerful local newspaper the Oregonian endorses Democrat Barack Obama, arguing there has "rarely been a time when the nation so desperately needed a sharp change in direction," and Republican Senator Gordon Smith, arguing that his seniority, moderation, and power are what Oregon needs. Merkley, by contrast, is apparently in thrall to the very liberal wing of his party, as evidenced by his opposition to the bailout and corporate friendly trade agreements. Oregonians "need a senator who thinks of their needs before he thinks of his party's priorities. Gordon Smith has proven that he's the man in this race who can do that. We believe Oregonians should re-elect him."
You have to hand it to Gordon Smith, he is quick on his feet when he's cornered. Now he's lining up names like Kennedy and Barack Obama to shore up his image.
What is his real record?
Well, he has been a great legislator......for President Bush's failed policies:
1. He's supported tax-cuts for the wealthy.
2. He's supported Subsidies for Big Oil.
3. He's voted against allowing the government to negotiate lower drug prices through Medicare.
Gordon Smith - he is in someone's corner, and that is Bush's corner.
About a third of the entire construction crane capacity in North America is between Bellevue and Seattle.
I've been traveling around over the past few days throughout the unbelievably beautiful and ridiculously wet Northwest, and I'm struck by the commitment of this new generation of organizers, both on the Obama campaign and the campaigns of both Darcy Burner and Jeff Merkley. Merkley's race in particular has really heated up in the last few weeks, concurrently with the financial meltdown. They are progressive, they work extremely hard, and they are dedicated to a new way of doing politics. It's fascinating and inspiring.
I'm going to a concert with Pink Martini, Laura Veirs, and members of the Decembrist tonight for Merkley. He's a gentle guy and very wonky, well-suited for Oregon. I keep hearing people bitching about the negativity of the campaign, but the local media won't report on anything but the ads and man in the street interviews with people bitching about how negative the campaigns are.
I went to the senior citizens retirement home and I was the only member of the media there. Meanwhile, the local media is complaining about the lack of substance in the campaign. Great job, local press!
The drive from Seattle to Portland is beautiful when the weather is crisp and sunny. I arrived at the Rose Schnitzer Senior Home, a privately funded Jewish retirement home for senior citizens. Merkley spent his ten minutes of remarks on Social Security and Medicare, and the questions are about the negative campaign and the financial crisis. I learned from Steve Kofahl, an AFL-CIO rep who represents Federal government employees that work on Social Security and Medicare cases that the Bush administration has gutted the case worker workforce who deal with the administration of Social Security as a backdoor way to destroy and delegitimize the program. Kofahl is working to help Merkley beat Gordon Smith, which is now a dead-heat.
The photo above was taken on the highway. I'll have more soon, including video and an interview.
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