Steve Novick: "fire-breathing populist"

Steve Novick's candidacy for the US Senate is taking off like a rocket. Below, highlights from the news coverage.

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From Willamette Week:

“I’m running because while George Bush was taking our country to hell, Senator Gordon Smith had his hand on the handbasket every step of the way," Novick stated before a crowd of close to 200 people in the ILWU Local 8 Hall. ...

During his speech he spoke of issues he would focus on if elected: an accessible and responsive government, cheaper health care, wealth inequality, the national debt and environmentally friendly technology.

“He’s kind of a Cinderella story,” said spectator Don Beal of Novick’s boy-genius rise to a fire-breathing populist. “We need somebody who’s aggressive, somebody to fight the fire.”

From the Associated Press:

Portland pollster Adam Davis said Novick has an engaging personal story, partly because he was born with multiple physical disabilities and yet graduated at age 18 from the University of Oregon and later was the youngest member of Harvard Law School's Class of '84.

"I've heard him joke, 'I'm four-foot-nine and have a mean left hook,' " Davis said, referring to the prosthesis Novicks wears because he was born without a left arm. "Steve is the type of candidate who is going to catch people's attention. He is very articulate, and very passionate."

From the Oregonian:

He calls himself "a fighter with a hard left hook," referring to the metal appliance he uses instead of a hand. And he says he can beat U.S. Sen. Gordon Smith next year. ...

"Gordon Smith is a nice man. He's just a very bad senator," said Novick, 44, an attorney who once battled polluters for the U.S. Justice Department....

Novick, who made announcements in Portland, Salem and Eugene, has enlisted some prominent supporters, including state schools Superintendent Susan Castillo, City Commissioner Erik Sten of Portland, and Fred Miller, former head of Portland General Electric.

From the Portland Mercury:

"You might be concerned that a political strategist will run with one eye on public opinion polls," Novick explained, "but what I've learned is that people don't vote for you because they agree with everything you say. They vote for you because they agree with a few things, but mostly because they can trust you."

As for Smith, Novick says he "shows an ability to ignore inconvenient truths."

"He always sounds sincere, and I'm sure he is sincere, but he doesn't have a good relationship with the facts," Novick says, pointing to Smith's long support (which only ended recently) for the Iraq War and denial that fossil fuels are leading to global warming.

And Oregonian columnist Steve Duin has this to say:

Steve Novick is savagely smart, issue-driven, relentless as a junkyard dog, easily underestimated . . . and, and he says, the only candidate in sight who can remove a red hot oven rack without a potholder. ...

[Compared to Smith,] Novick, 44, presents the voters with a startling contrast in stature, style, name recognition, experience in elective office and the deft footwork that allows a politician to take a position on both sides of an issue.

"He is fearless," said political consultant Mark Wiener. "He is clearly not driven by fashion or a decent haircut. He's about ideas. He is about things. Politics used to be about things. Look at the presidential race now, and it's about nothing. Nothing!"

Novick would change that.

Discuss.