Gordon Smith Running Away From GOP

While control of Congress certainly will not shift back to the Republicans, the sixty vote threshold in the Senate for breaking the perpetual Republican filibuster is within reach for the Democrats, although it is still a long reach.

One contest the Democrats probably have to win if they are to reach filibuster-proof status is the race between two-term incumbent Republican Gordon Smith and his Democratic challenger Jeff Merkley in Oregon, a state where Barack Obama holds a consistent and wide lead over John McCain in the polls.

The popularity of Obama in Oregon has not been lost on Smith. "Smith isn't just running away from President Bush in his bid for a third six-year term in the Senate," wrote AP writers Matthew Daly and Brad Cain, "he's practically leaping into the arms of Barack Obama and other Democrats." Smith recently spoke out against robocalls the McCain campaign are running across the country linking Barack Obama and Bill Ayers.Merkley hit back with a statement of his own:

Gordon Smith is a complete hypocrite. Just like John McCain, Gordon Smith and Karl Rove are using robocalls to attack Jeff Merkley. On top of that, Smith and the Oregon Republican Party are paying this company (FLS) thousands of dollars for undisclosed services. Smith should immediately fire this group of Bush-Rove hacks and demand that Freedom's Watch get out of Oregon.

Smith has stressed his bipartisan work with Obama and other Democrats including fellow Oregon Senator Ron Wyden, who endorsed Merkley. Daly pointed out that Smith did fight the Bush administration on "gay rights, Medicaid cuts, drilling in Alaska and most notably, the war in Iraq."

Merkley continues to maintain a consistent, though small, lead in recent polls.

A theme hovering over the contest is Smith's elitism versus Merkley's populism. Syndicated columnist David Sirota wrote, "If [John] Kerry looked like a professor at La Sorbonne, then Smith resembles a playboy at the Monte Carlo Casino." Over the last twelve years, Smith consistently voted with the Republican Party when it came to economic policies that favor the rich.

Merkley, Sirota points out, made his name cracking down on predatory lenders. He seems to have gained traction since opposing the recent $700 billion bailout of Wall Street, which Smith supported.