Chuck Butcher endorses Novick

Chuck Butcher, 2006 candidate for Congress (OR-2), has decided who to support in the Senate race. From his "Chuck for..." blog:

Jeff Merkley is a personable, intelligent, and accomplished legislator and has good policy points. He is not Democratic Lite or any such adjective. He has put together a campaign and endorsement list that is enviable and he can beat a Gordon Smith. What Jeff is not, is a sharp edged innovative candidate. That in my mind is the only telling deficit in comparison with Steve Novick. And it is why I'm coming out on Steve's side in this tussle.

Partisans on both sides have had harsh things to say about each and a couple times the candidates have been a bit harsh, but on the candidate's end this has been pretty darn gentlemanly. Some of you unofficial partisans have shown an inability to shut up or to think about working with others, I don't hold you against the candidates, but you are doing harm within the Party and you need to think about it. There is no way that either of these men are not a vast improvement over Gordon Smith and discouraging the other's supporters from your's is stupid.

Steve Novick has shown from early age that nothing stops him, that he fights and he fights smart. I don't discount that sometimes his edginess gets the better of good judgement in a statement, but this will not be an issue with Gordon. The fake moderate guise Smith takes on every six years needs to be punctured and that done repeatedly. He needs to be taken to task in very real terms and not allowed to wriggle out of it. This is going to take a bit more than gentle handling and House decorum. Here's the nub of what I expect, I expect this fight to continue, to be taken right to the US Senate floor and a damn gauntlet thrown down in DC. I'm sick of business as usual and that is going to take a real hard nosed Senator. All of my affection for Jeff Merkley does not assure me of that, I don't think he is weak willed or a go along to get along sort, but I also do not see that hard edge that I see in Novick.

Read the rest and discuss over there.

April 28, 2008 Posted in elsewhere.