Anyone care to weigh in on this upcoming Congressional battle royal for Darlene Hooley's olde house seat?

Herb

As a 5th district Democrat, I am thrilled that Mike Erickson has won the primary. With the additional Democratic voters canceling out the Republican advantage, and a Republican candidate that has been very damaged by the charge that he paid for an abortion, Schrader should be able to keep this seat blue.

Mike Erickson is your typical wealthy "do as I say, not as I do" Republican. That dog won't hunt.

Hey Herb how are you going to vote? By the way wait until all votes are counted as of 2:00 pm Mannix is only 1,300 votes behind.

As it stands now, Democrats outvoted Republican by a huge margin in the Oregon primary. With that said, I would expect Schrader to run on the economy and the war in Iraq – two issues of significant import to voters. Erickson, handicapped by party affiliation and his involvement with an abortion, will probably run on lowering taxes and other conservative bread and butter issues.

To be honest, I don’t know much about Schrader. He didn’t do a ton of television advertising – at least compared to Erickson. But he scored well with Democratic voters and that should serve him well in November. It’ll be interested to see how much money the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee throws his way – as well as his general fundraising effort.

As for Erickson, will he go as negative as he did during the 2006 campaign and this year’s primary? He doesn’t run on much except that his opponent is too liberal, supports higher taxes, isn’t fiscally responsible or supports amnesty for illegal immigrants. I’m sure he’ll finance much of his own campaign.

If you were to compare the two candidates, I’m sure public opinion polls would indicate that Mike Erickson has much higher negatives than Kurt Schrader. With that said, and given the adverse climate for Republicans in general this campaign season, I think it’s Schrader’s to lose.

Of course Erickson will go negative, it's all he can run on.