http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5gJgnTkyUqX7RGIiUuVqijzSQGoqAD92CD6DG5

Smith is one of six Republicans not attending his party's convention in Minneapolis. Cheney isn't going, either.

Smith, a two-term Republican, aired an ad in June touting his work with Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama on fuel efficiency standards. Last month another Smith ad cited his work with John Kerry, the 2004 Democratic nominee for president, on legislation to protect homeowners against foreclosure.

Matt Canter, a spokesman for Oregon House Speaker Jeff Merkley, Smith's Democratic opponent, called Smith's decision to skip the convention "a political maneuver to distract from his record of supporting George Bush 90 percent of the time."

Smith's spokeswoman, Lindsay Gilbride, said Tuesday that Smith will campaign in Oregon during the convention and that his absence doesn't indicate a lack of support for McCain.

Andrew

Actually this is a tad suprising...some are looking at Smith as VP material at some point.

Smith would be quite a choice for VP! The Democrats must be considering it too; they registered the domains mccainsmith08.com and mccainsmith2008.com on July 29!

Andrew

According to a new poll Smith is leading Merkley 49 to 37 Percent.

A Google search for this poll mainly got me a huge list of all pro-Merkley links and links to an older poll with Merkley ahead 43-41 percent. I really had to dig to finally find the new poll, which was mentioned on local TV news.

Even search engines are not immune to political slant.

Er, Google doesn't index pages instantly. Of course you got the older poll articles and only a few on the new one that came out today. Try again in a week.

Merkley's campaign is running pretty much as I expected it would: some lame, easy-to-tune-out TV ads while Gordon Smith continues to pretend he's a moderate, unchallenged. How about once in a while an ad simply stating the fact that until November 2006 Smith was a right-winger, in the tank for Bush?

Smith is going to be a shoe-in for re-election this fall.

Andrew

Yep, my good old Oregon Demo party dropped the ball again on this one. They had Smith running scared for awhile.

Smith was there for the taking, honestly, IMHO. For some reason the Democrats couldn't seem to get a candidate that stood a chance against him, though.

Merkley comes across to me as someone who is much more radical and extreme to the left than Smith is to the right, in this instance Smith comes across as the moderate for certain.

Warner is right, the Dems dropped the ball here.

The Democrats always have trouble finding a good Senate candidate to run against Smith. It's pretty pathetic. Lots of prominent Democrats begged off early on in challenging Smith, in a year that he would be vulnerable to a good candidate. They always find a decent guy who isn't a decent candidate.

I do think Smith it a right-wing Republican, based on how he stood with Bush on nearly everything prior to the Democratic avalanche of 2006, when Smith suddenly started acting like an independent. The Democrats should be repeating, over and over again, that this guy is a right-winger with examples of his votes for two conservative Supreme Court justices, etc. Instead, the Democrats are running these incredibly lame easy-to-forget, they-all-do-it smear commercials about Smith taking oil money. It's a shame they will waste the money here; it could better be spent in other races.

Andrew

Other than any of the Oregon Congressmen, who would have been an ideal candidate to run against Smith?

Kitzhaber!!!

Andrew

And most any of the Oregon congressmen would have been probably replaced by a Democrat in their district had they run against Smith. A Wu or DeFazio would fare much better than Merkley.

I think Wu and DeFazio looked at polling showing Smith would be really hard to beat. Those guys would probably have had to dump their House seats to run, and they wouldn't want to give up their growing seniority and committee assignments in a Democratic Congress unless the Senate seemed nearly a sure thing.

Andrew

I wish Kitzhaber would have run as well. I think Merkley still stands a chance, but he'd better start coming out with some attack ads against Smith. I've seen many of Smith's ads that are KILLING Merkley. Why the pussiness??

I have seen a few ads against Smith. They seem to from the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) and not from Merkley's campaign itself. They look like the kind of ads you'd run in a local sheriff's race - a one-dimensional attack ad from a disembodied voice, exactly the kind of crap the average voter hates. Meanwhile, Smith is running all those "Aw, shucks, I'm just a moderate" ads or testimonials from Democrats like Elizabeth Furse - that I think work if not countered.

Merkley doesn't need attack ads; he needs innovative ads that don't look like the junk the DSCC is running. I'd love to see an ad that simply repeats over and over again that Gordon Smith is a right-wing conservative. Have regular people saying it, not some disembodied announcer. "Right-wing Republican" polls very badly right now. Tag Gordon Smith with it.

Andrew

That would be absolutely effective. And it comes with a bonus!

They could just modify the ads slightly and keep on running them, if he wins!

Smith is really great at picking his battles. A steady stream of solid information about how he really votes the majority of the time needs to be done, if any progress is to be made.

...or he takes the VP slot, and goes down with McCain. Or, would he actually prove to be a benefit?

I don't know. Suspect he probably would be a benefit.