I'm not saying there aren't plenty of 2010 candidates that need our help. (There are! Please help!) I'm just saying that helping our previous progressive winners to close their books and retire their debts could encourage other Democrats currently running to follow in more progressive footsteps, knowing we have their backs.
I'll leave you with a few reasons to be very, very proud of Senator Al Franken's first months as a U.S. Senator (and very, very motivated to help retire his campaign debt):
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.
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.
With only seven days until the polls close, most campaigns have already made their final media purchases for this cycle. However, even though campaigns are winding down their paid media purchases, there is still plenty of time for you to run a low-cost, easily changed, personalized paid advertising campaign for whatever swing state or whatever congressional campaign you wish.
It is time to ramp up the Personal Paid Media campaign. Between now and the election, I will personally run at least 15 of these, and probably closer to 30. In the last twenty-four hours alone, I started three new Google Ad campaigns, all targeted at key congressional races. Check them out in the extended entry.
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.
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.
Oregon Republican Senator Gordon Smith owns a food processing company that has come under scrutiny because it was apparently hiring and using undocumented workers. He denied it ardently, calling the Willamette Week publication that broke it a liberal rag and saying that the company followed stringent hiring procedures and fired any employee who was found to be undocumented. Well, now it turns out that Smith's company hired one particular undocumented worker for an entire decade (1997-2007) whose status was widely known because in 2000 he was the subject of a local news series on a rare disease. This series revealed that this worker couldn't get treatment because he was undocumented.
This worker was finally fired in 2007 because his salary hit $9/hour and he could be replaced by a worker who was paid $8/hour.
Ouch.
This race was considered a long shot just a few months ago, because Smith was well-liked in the state. That was frustrated because his opponent, Jeff Merkley, is one of the most progressive candidates in the country. Because of bumbles like this, though, Smith is in trouble and going harshly negative; the polls are tied and Smith has a 33% approval rating.
You can give to Jeff Merkley on Better Democrats. He's going to be another Russ Feingold type, only more partisan.
Two new polls out show Democratic candidate Jeff Merkley has caught up to Republican Gordon Smith in the race for Oregon Senate. Yesterday, a Rasmussen poll showed a statistical tie between the two candidates, Smith 46% and Merkley 45%. Today, a Hibbits poll was released showing Smith leading Merkley 42-39, which is still within the MOE.
Full disclosure, I am the netroots director for OR-Sen candidate Jeff Merkley
There are numerous Senate seats up for grabs this election, from North Carolina to Minnesota to my home state of Oregon. The race in Oregon is heating up and the momentum is clearly with progressive Democrat Jeff Merkley. It's no wonder that his opponent, Gordon Smith, decided to launch the worst smear campaign in Oregon's history over the weekend. More below the fold.....
Full disclosure, I am the netroots director for OR-Sen candidate Jeff Merkley
(Oh, Yeah! The SENATE! - promoted by Paul Rosenberg)
So with the Alaska primary and the conventions now over, it's time for another look at all the 2008 Senate races. There are 35 seats up for election because of a scenario in Wyoming and Mississippi where both seats are up, due to the passing of Craig Thomas and the resignation of Trent Lott, respectively. Obviously, quite a few of the races are considered "safe" for the incumbent. So what are the competitive races?
Again, just to be clear, I don't do predictions. Every time I do, horrible things happen. So I won't even make an actual prediction on the Virginia Senate race, because doing so would effectively jinx Mark Warner. So, I'll rank these in terms of tiers. The top tier will be the races where the party holding the seat has a legitimate chance of switching (but I ain't guaranteeing anything). The second tier are races that could become top tier races, but are not at this point. Tier III are ones where a major event would need to happen for the seat to come into play. And the safe seats? Well, Mike Gravel has a better shot at winning the presidency than those incumbents have of losing their races.
This is meant to be a primer for both newcomers and political junkies alike, so some of the information may seem repetitive for you junkies out there. Also see my previous August diary to see what things have changed since my last update.
A major scandal is brewing in Oregon, where Republican Senator Gordon Smith, who has aggressively touted his moderate credentials, was just found to have hired illegal immigrants for his frozen foods company that supplies a good deal of his multi-million dollar fortune.
Progressive stalwart Jeff Merkley is calling on Smith to release his company's hiring records, while Smith has responded by calling the newspaper that reported the story a 'liberal tabloid'. That's not good rhetoric for someone running ads showing him with Barack Obama.
Merkley is one of the bright spots in the potential freshman Senate class of 2009. He's come out against Democratic leaders for not forcing the GOP to filibuster, and he criticized Obama on FISA. He's a Paul Wellstone type candidate.
You can help Merkley take advantage of this stumble by Smith and throw something to him at our Better Democrats page.
The Merkley Campaign just released a new ad addressing the problem of unfair trade deals and tax policies that pad the pockets of the big corporations while leaving American workers behind. Here's what Jeff had to say about unfair trade deals and the lack of job creation in America:
"Not only has Washington failed to create jobs and get our economy growing again, they've actually made the problem worse," said House Speaker Jeff Merkley. "Our government should not be giving tax breaks to companies that ship American jobs overseas. We need to end the same, old failed economic policies and start creating jobs and cutting taxes for American families."
Full disclosure, I am the netroots director for OR-Sen candidate Jeff Merkley
Oregon Senate candidate Jeff Merkley is one of four Senate candidates who spoke at the convention tonight in Denver. At 7pm eastern time Jeff Merkley took to the stage and laid out his vision for 2009 and beyond. Jeff is very thankful to have been given the opportunity to speak at the convention. Here's video of Jeff's speech at the convention:
Full disclosure, I am the netroots director for OR-Sen candidate Jeff Merkley
In the last 24 hours, Republican Gordon Smith has aired two attack ads against Jeff Merkley and one ad portraying himself as some sort of anti-war hero. Today, Republican Gordon Smith used Obama yet again to attempt to portray himself as an environmental champion.
Full disclosure, I am the netroots director for OR-Sen candidate Jeff Merkley
Republican Gordon Smith is not just the Senator from Oregon, he's also the owner of Smith Frozen Foods. Smith Frozen Foods is a processing plant here in Oregon and has been involved in numerous environmental violations over the years. They have been caught polluting Pine Creek, located in a small town in Weston, Oregon....AGAIN.
Full disclosure, I am the netroots director for OR-Sen candidate Jeff Merkley
Republican Gordon Smith's campaign has a serious problem addressing the issues Oregonians and Americans care about. The problem? He doesn't talk about them, instead he focuses on negative and misleading attack ads. Gordon Smith's Campaign has spent nearly two million dollars attacking Oregon Senate candidate Jeff Merkley. This past week Smith continued his baseless attacks on Jeff and the Oregon Legislature for their recent renovation of the Oregon Capitol Building. Smith is also airing another negative ad pushing the tired ol' "he's a big bad tax and spend liberal" meme. It's a shame that Gordon Smith doesn't feel the need to address the real problems America is facing and would rather spend his time attacking Jeff Merkley.
Full disclosure, I am the netroots director for OR-Sen candidate Jeff Merkley
So with about three months to go, with Ted Stevens' indictment dominating the Senate news, it's time for another look at all the 2008 Senate races. There are 35 seats up for election because of a scenario in Wyoming and Mississippi where both seats are up, due to the passing of Craig Thomas and the resignation of Trent Lott, respectively. Now obviously, quite a few of the races are considered "safe" for the incumbent. So what are the competitive races?
I'll rank these in terms of tiers. The top tier will be the races where the party holding the seat has a real shot of switching (but I ain't guaranteeing anything). The second tier are races that could become top tier races, but are not at this point. Tier III are ones where a major event would need to happen for the seat to come into play. And the safe seats? Well, Mike Gravel has a better shot at winning the presidency than those incumbents have of losing their races.
This is meant to be a primer for both newcomers and political junkies alike, so some of the information may seem repetitive for you junkies out there. Also see my previous May diary to see what things have changed since my last update.
As you all have most likely heard by now, Senator Ted Stevens has been indicted on seven counts of corruption. Stevens hid the fact that he was receiving hundreds of thousands of dollars in gifts from a private company to remodel his home.
