Merkley unseats Smith
Expensive, contentious race finally at an end
By BRAD CAIN
Associated Press
Friday, November 7, 2008 11:04 AM PST
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| Ross William Hamilton | AP, The Portland Oregonian
Sharon and Gordon Smith share a moment as they take phone calls in the bedroom of their home in Pendleton,Thursday morning, before a news conference concerning the incumbent Republican senator’s defeat by Jeff Merkley. They had just spoken to Sen. Orin Hatch a friend and supporter over the years. |
PORTLAND — Democrat Jeff Merkley has ousted Republican Sen. Gordon Smith, a victory once considered unlikely against an incumbent who had highlighted his efforts to work across the aisle in hopes of surviving a wave of anti-GOP sentiment.
It was the first time in 40 years that an incumbent senator from Oregon has been booted from office. Smith was the last GOP senator along the West Coast south of Alaska.
For Merkley, it was a remarkable personal victory. The state House speaker and policy wonk was far from the first choice of national Democrats looking for a challenger to Smith.
‘’There’s a lot of work for us to do together,’’ Merkley told a crowd of supporters Thursday morning as they jammed a room at Portland State University and spilled into the hallway.
‘’It’s time for a very different approach,’’ he said, in such areas as health care, job creation, affordable housing and energy independence.
He was with his fellow Democrat, Sen. Ron Wyden, who said it wasn’t an easy decision for Oregon to replace Smith.
Merkley, said Wyden, ‘’is not just going to be a good Oregon senator, he’s going to be a great one.’’
After calling Merkley, Smith gave a concession speech from his home in Pendleton.
‘’There was simply a tide too strong for us to stem. We understand that,’’ said Smith, his arm around his wife.
For Smith, the election represented a stinging rejection by voters of his political strategy. He ran TV ads touting his work with Barack Obama, Ted Kennedy and other prominent Democrats on issues such as alternative energy.
Merkley countered with a TV ad featuring Obama directly urging Oregonians to vote for Merkley. It was the only TV ad Obama had done for another candidate during the general election, showing the importance that national Democrats placed on the Oregon race.
A year ago, most observers doubted that Merkley could defeat the better-funded Smith, a millionaire owner of a frozen foods processing plant and former state legislative leader.
Merkley turned the race in his direction with millions of dollars in help from national Democrats and a campaign blitz that took him to 100 communities around the state.
In his campaign stops around the state, Merkley tapped into an anti-GOP tide in Oregon, telling crowds that Smith was a Bush Republican who was more interested in bailing out Wall Street than helping folks on Main Street.
The 52-year-old Merkley announced his candidacy for the Senate in August 2007 after three better-known Democrats — Reps. Earl Blumenauer and Peter DeFazio and former Gov. John Kitzhaber — looked at running against Smith and said, ‘’No thanks.’’
‘’There are a lot of Democrats in Oregon who are kicking themselves right now for not running,’’ said Reid Wilson, a Washington, D.C.-based analyst with Real Clear Politics, a national political Web site.
While Merkley benefitted from the Democratic wave generated by Obama’s popularity, in many Oregon counties Obama got a lot more votes than Merkley did.
That’s not surprising, Wilson said, given that a year ago a lot of Oregon voters had never even heard of Merkley.
‘’But in this anti-Republican atmosphere, even a candidate with a profile as low as Jeff Merkley’s was able to win,’’ Wilson said.
Merkley is one member of a class of Democrats elected to the Senate in the election that put Obama in the White House.
So far, Democrats have at least 57 votes in the U.S. Senate with the outcome of three other races yet to be determined.
A flood of votes Oregonians delivered on election day kept election workers tallying ballots for two days.
Before an appearance at the Hatfield School of Government at Portland State University, Merkley took note of the history he’d made, issuing a statement saying he was ‘’the first leader in 40 years to defeat an incumbent U.S. Senator in Oregon.’’
Forty years ago this week, Republican Bob Packwood was declared the winner in an upset of Democratic Sen. Wayne Morse.
