« Senator Max Cleland fundraising for Jeff Merkley | Main | Teachers and students resort to tape »

April 01, 2008

Top 5 reasons why Novick would mean 6 more years of Smith.

Steve Novick is one of the best professional attack dogs in Portland. He has had a long and successful career working as a campaign political consultant telling politicians what to say and how to savage their opponents.

It can be handy to have an attack dog on your campaign team when you need him, but it's not the guy you want leading the charge to change Washington D.C.

Steve says we need to defeat Gordon Smith and I couldn't agree more.

But Steve Novick is not the guy to do it. I'm supporting Jeff Merkley because he's a strong progressive leader who will fight for change in Washington D.C. Novick's strong suit is insulting opponents, not leading a principled charge.

Here are five reasons why Steve Novick is not the guy to bring change to Washington D.C.:

1. Novick is a divider who launches personal insults. He called Obama a "captive-of-special interest fraud who doesn't really care about global warming and doesn't deserve to be hailed as some great Kenya-Kansas hope," (ugh... what a truly ugly thing to have said) "a complete sell-out to the military-industrial complex" and "sorely lacking in fiscal responsibility." He called Hillary Clinton "a coward" "a traitress" and "distasteful." He even accused Darlene Hooley of peddling lies.

Novick calls this "criticizing Democrats", as if lobbing personal insults will push anyone to change their mind on an issue. Jeff Merkley has the effective approach: He brings people together and convinces them to come around to his way of thinking. No insults. No barbs. Just good policy.

2. Novick is a paid political campaign consultant. He has made a political career out of developing negative attacks, poll-driven campaigns, and advising candidates to say whatever they need to say to get elected.

3. Novick is a former lobbyist. D.C. already has over 40,000 lobbyists who take positions based on who pays them. We need someone who will take on the lobbyists and the special interests to bring change to Washington.

4. Those who know Steve Novick best have endorsed his opponent, Jeff Merkley. Novick has worked for Oregon Senate President Peter Courtney, Governor Ted Kulongoski, and the unions SEIU and AFL-CIO. All of them support Jeff Merkley.

5. Novick is simply not a candidate who can win this election. Carrying business cards that have a communist hammer and sickle symbol, even as a joke, is politically self-destructive. So is voting for Ralph Nader. He led an organization whose mission is to support higher taxes at a time when the country is facing war and recession.

Steve Novick is not the person who can run a statewide, grassroots campaign that will beat Gordon Smith.

Posted by Kevin at April 1, 2008 02:03 PM