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January 09, 2008

7 Faces of Dr. Novick

(shameless riff on the classic Tony Randall/Barbara Eden movie 7 Faces of Dr. Lao)

Yesterday, Oregon U.S. Senate candidates Jeff Merkley and Steve Novick released their education plans. You can read Merkley's plan here. Novick's can be found here.

Novick's plan came complete with a press conference in Salem, where he took the opportunity to take another weak swipe at Merkley:

SALEM, Ore. (AP) — Steve Novick, the self-described underdog in Oregon's Democratic U.S. Senate race, says the presidential vote in Iowa showed that voters are ready for a change and aren't taking their cues from party establishment types.

Novick likened his chief opponent, Oregon House Speaker Jeff Merkley, to Hillary Rodham Clinton, whose once formidable presidential candidacy was dealt a blow in last week's Iowa caucuses. Clinton rebounded to win the New Hampshire primary Tuesday night.

Bizarre.

Novick began his campaign last Spring by comparing himself to Jon Tester, the new Democratic Senator from Montana. But that ended up not working out so well for Novick. Tester endorsed Jeff Merkley and has been helping Merkley raise money and organize Farmers for Merkley.

Novick also tried comparing himself to Senator Paul Wellstone, who drove a big, green bus around his home state of Minnesota, talking up his grassroots campaign. As I recall, that sounds a lot more like Jeff Merkley's kick-off tour than anything Novick has done so far.

And now, Novick is busy comparing Jeff Merkley to Hillary Clinton. Ironically, Jeff Merkley is the head of John Edwards campaign in Oregon. And as Sarah Lane noticed, there's a huge amount of common ground between Edwards and Merkley. Novick's weak tea attempts to swipe at Merkley are getting lame.

Three faces thus far, Steve. Which face will be next? Hillary Clinton?

When do we get to see the real Steve Novick?

Why does the Novick campaign need to pretend that Novick is Tester or Wellstone or that Merkley is Clinton? Will Oregon voters ever get to know Novick and not some shallow effort to be something else?

It seems to me that Hillary takes a lot of heat for running very negative campaigns. The negative campaigning in the Oregon Democratic Senate primary is coming from one place: Steve Novick. She also takes a lot of heat for casting herself as this or that rather than just being herself. Again, that seems much more like Steve Novick's tactics than Jeff Merkley's.

Novick ought to reset his barometer for comparisons. It's obviously out of whack.

Posted by Kevin at January 9, 2008 08:00 AM