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May 16, 2008
Steve Novick: Democrats are failures
People have often asked me why, after leaving the Republican Party in 1990 out of disgust with their non-existant morality and ethics, why I didn't join the Democratic Party. It was because I didn't see any moral or ethical highground among either political party. And just weeks after having joined the Democratic Party specifically because I'd been inspired enough to do so, along comes Steve Novick to remind me why I'd made the decision I had back in 1990 and why I'd stuck with it for so many years.
Steve Novick rolled out a new TV ad this past Sunday and pledged to close out the campaign on a positive note. But, literally as he was making that pledge, he knew that the following morning his campaign would be mailing out a bizzare attack on Jeff Merkley because he hadn't been able to get enough votes to pass legislation to provide health care coverage to uninsured children.
“(Jeff Merkley) failed to deliver on Healthy Kids legislation that would have increased taxes on cigarettes. The result, 125,000 Oregon kids today are without health care.”
In what the Associated Press' Julia Silverman characterized as "And few campaigns are above last-minute flame-throwing she noted that Novick's attack mailer "drew howls of protest from health care advocates."
"No one worked harder than Jeff Merkley to pass Healthy Kids," said Maribeth Healey, who directs Oregonians for Health Security
The Oregonian's Jeff Mapes links to a copy of the Novick attack mailer (pdf warning) and noted several pissed off legislators.
"I was absolutely livid" after seeing the mailer, said Rep. Sara Gelser, D-Corvallis, a Merkley supporter who worked on the cigarette tax. Merkley "went to the mat" for the issue and the blame for its failure should be "with the House Republicans and the tobacco industry."
The web-based PolitickerOR focused on several truly pissed off unions including the SEIU, AFL-CIO and the Oregon Nurses Association.
“Speaker Merkley’s leadership and dedication on this issue is unquestionable,” the ONA said in a release.
and...
Tom Chamberlain, President of the Oregon AFL-CIO, was especially upset. Chamberlin recounted his experience watching Mekley attempt to push the Healthy Kids Plan through the Legislature before it was referred to the voters as Measure 50, and said that the Speaker “did everything he could to get it passed.”
Chamberlain went on to say,
"House Republicans and the tobacco industry made it their mission to keep the Healthy Kids Plan from being enacted and keep children as potential smokers," said Chamberlain. "This below the belt attack from Novick doesn't represent the kind of leadership Oregon needs."Chamberlain noted that he has been “pretty silent, we haven’t responded to the tit for tat [in this race] but this is over the top.”
It is strangely fitting that a caricature of a Progressive politician would reduce an important issue to a caricature of the truth. And the truth is that Speaker Merkley has a 31/29 Democratic majority - the slimmest mathimatical majority possible.
Speaker Merkley not only had to hold his 31 Dems together but also had to peel off 5 Republicans to get the required 3/5ths majority of 36 yes votes. Merkley had the votes in a preliminary vote, but on the final vote one of the Republicans flipped, dropping the Ayes to 35 and dooming the bill.
It's real easy for a 3rd string Armchair QB like Novick to talk a good game. Hell, over-weight Americans do that every Sunday during NFL season, all from the comfort of a LazyBoy and a bowl of cheesy dip. But they don't show up at pre-season training with a bag of chips and sweating profusely to dress down the star QB - who is in shape and good at what he does - for not being perfect.
Posted by Kevin at May 16, 2008 06:37 PM