GOP Senator Banks on Obama in Oregon Race
Ads Using Illinois Democrat Play to Tradition of Centrism

By Karl Vick
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, October 28, 2008

PORTLAND, Ore. -- In the state where President Bush has his lowest popularity ratings in the nation, the incumbent Republican senator is reaching across the aisle and groping for the coattails of Barack Obama.

Sen. Gordon Smith, a two-term moderate in a state with a history of embracing centrist Republicans such as Mark Hatfield, has put the Democratic candidate for president in not one, not two, but three of his television ads.

How many mention John McCain?

"Zero," said Brooks Kochvar, manager of a Republican campaign that cannot accurately be described as running away from its party label. This is more of a sprint.

"Yeah, he's registered Republican," a timber man says in one Smith ad, "but . . ." But he worked with Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), says another spot. Yet another invokes Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.), whose name still appears on fading bumper stickers in liberal Portland. "If you need any more telling indication of where the race is, or where the Republican Party is, what else can you say?" said Tim Hibbits, a Portland pollster whose surveys are among the many showing Smith falling behind Democratic challenger Jeff Merkley.

"He's in a hell of a mess," Hibbits said. "This is a state that tends to lean Democratic to begin with. Bush basically has destroyed the Republican brand here."

On a national electoral map remade by the economic crisis, Oregon offers Democrats one of the trickier challenges in the quest for the 60 seats that would make their majority filibuster-proof.

Enthusiasm for Obama clearly has hastened Oregon's shift from swing state into the Democratic column. This year, registration drives brought 167,000 more Democrats onto rolls, against a rise of 7,000 for Republicans. Democrats now have a 43 percent to 32 percent registration advantage.

"That's indicative of the shift that's going on underneath the surface of our politics here," said William Lunch, a political scientist at Oregon State University, noting steady Democratic election gains since 2002.

Before last week, the Obama campaign had offered scant help to Merkley, who said, "He has so much money, he's doing his own thing here." But on Friday afternoon, Obama began showing up on Oregon television, addressing the camera directly to say "With Jeff Merkley in the U.S. Senate, we can get our country back on track." The spot was the first Obama has done for another candidate since endorsing Bill Foster in a House special election in Illinois last February.

In Oregon, the need for attention "down the ballot" was acute. The May 20 mail-in primary gave Obama a thumping victory over Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton but held ominous implications for Merkley: On the Democratic side, more than 90,000 ballots came back with no choice ticked in the Senate race.

"When you vote, don't stop at the top," a new TV spot counsels first-time voters, one of a flurry of new ads pointing out that Merkley is the Democrat in the race. "Give Obama the team he needs."

The spots reflect the concerns of some Oregon Democrats that Smith's contortions are proving effective. If the telegenic heir to a frozen-food fortune succeeds in melding his message to Obama's through their common appeal for bipartisan cooperation, ticket-splitters could make up the gap in new registrations.

"It isn't about politics," Smith said, straight-faced, at a press conference last week. "It's about presenting what honestly exists."

Smith, looking the part of a country club Republican in a blue blazer and bright yellow sweater vest, addressed reporters from a lectern labeled "Democrats for Smith." Two of the 22 registered Democrats flanking him sported Obama pins.

"The problems that confront us, no party can solve on its own," the candidate said.

Smith's claim of partnership with Obama appears thin. The Republican added his name to the list of co-sponsors on a bill the Illinois Democrat wrote requiring more fuel-efficient cars. Critics point out that Smith cast earlier votes against the same requirement.

"His record is so out of sync with Oregon," Merkley said.

But Smith does have lunch weekly and appears frequently in town halls with Oregon's senior senator, Ron Wyden, the state's most popular politician and a Democrat. "It's a question of finding common ground, and Senator Smith, my friend, my partner, always meets me halfway," Wyden says in archival footage the Smith campaign has turned into another television ad.

A Portland television station reported receiving calls from viewers wondering whether Wyden had endorsed both candidates. But he made it clear he backs only Merkley.

"The obvious intent of the ad is to confuse voters," said Wyden's chief of staff, Josh Kardon, who publicly asked Smith to remove Wyden's image. Smith demurred.

It is far from the most controversial commercial in a race that, but for Smith's embrace of the rival party, would be remembered for its nastiness.

The most notorious spot showed Merkley sloppily eating a hot dog while answering a question from the Republican operative who was filming him about the Russian invasion of Georgia. The words "Need a moment?" appear on-screen.

The spot, made by the National Republican Senatorial Committee, aired so relentlessly that Smith eventually condemned it. His own ads paint Merkley as hard on seniors and soft on rapists.

"There has been so much icky stuff," said Marny Gleboff, a retired librarian in Washington County, a Portland suburb that analysts call pivotal in voting that began last week, when Oregonians received their mail-in ballots. "Why doesn't he just quit being a Republican?"

"I think it stinks," said Judy, a retired utility worker and registered Democrat who said she twice before voted for Smith and who would give only her first name. "I think Smith has just shot himself in the foot, cut his own throat.

"I think if he just laid in the woods and paid attention to his own business, he might be okay."

Merkley has also faced bumps along the path to Nov. 4. The son of a lumber mill worker in rural Oregon, he did stints as a presidential national security fellow at the Pentagon and running Habitat for Humanity in Portland. In Salem, the self-described "policy guy" presided over a new Democratic majority in the state House during its most productive sessions in years.

But he challenged Smith only after more prominent Oregon Democrats declined to run and was nearly beaten by Portland activist Steve Novick in a primary Smith tried to influence by advertising against Merkley.

In the general election, most of the $27 million the two sides have spent on advertising has come from outside groups. One Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee spot accuses Smith's frozen-food business of hiring illegal immigrants.

"He voted with George Bush 90 percent of the time," said Merkley, irked by Smith's effort to slipstream Obama.

But some voters say that if Smith survives, it will be thanks to an Oregon tradition Hatfield embodied.

"We cannot get away from the fact that Oregon is benefiting from a conservative Mormon senator and a liberal Jewish senator," said Deborah Burton, head nurse at a Portland hospital, referring to Smith and Wyden, respectively. The registered Democrat said she was at Smith's side last week because of his abiding support on a long list of issues.

"I can't speak for the rest," she said, "but health care is nonstop where it needs to be."