That ad is just too funny.

It's time for change? You bet it is. It's time to change who represents us in DC and send Gordon Smith home.

I'd hope that when this sort of ad goes head-to-head with future Novick ads pointing out how vapid these traditional ads are that people may see through the B.S.

But there's no doubt we've got an uphill climb to take out Gordon Slippery Smith.

This is the "knife the baby" strategy. Same thing he did to Bradbury in 2002. He's got $4 million to spend and ready access to another $8 million if the race gets competitive.

Expect it to be all-attack all-the-time between now and November in every media market that matters to Democrats (PDX, Eugene).

There's a reason Gordon carried the tri-county region in his last re-election bid.

Miles:

It was definitely a smart move by Smith, no doubt about it.

Several of us had expressed concern about him raising money during the session. That concern was blown off by people, saying he'd never said he was going to take money during the session, that it was completely different, etc. Smith's not stupid - he's going to use anything that appears to be hypocritical or a double standard like that against them. And sure enough he is. I'm not sure how the Merkley campaign can frame this issue without sounding like it's a double standard or a loophole. It doesn't matter that there was absolutely nothing wrong with what Merkley did and that he was completely within his rights to raise money (after all, everyone else could), it's about the perception by the voters.

You're right that we knew the tax thing would come up on Novick. It's one of the most commonly used messages against Democrats. I think that Novick has done a great job thus far of framing the issue - that it's about tax fairness. It's something we all have to do better on - reframing the issue rather than just accepting the Republican's right-wing spin on it.

I'd like to echo Jenni's comments about Steve's successful framing of taxes in terms of fairness. He also can point to his efforts towards making government more efficient, which addresses one of the major concerns people have with paying taxes.

I've heard Steve make the point well that taxes are the price we pay for the services we want. As long as people believe their tax dollars are being spent well, I don't think most people have a problem with paying taxes.

On that point, Smith has no credibility and Steve will make the case well for holding him accountable.

I couldn't tell you how many times I have heard Steve point out that Smith has no credibility on fiscal issues because he supports most of the spending as well as all of the tax cuts. And it's true. People understand that services cost money. Steve has framed the tax issue very well, and as a Democrat should.

Issue framing has been a big part of the trainings that the DPO has been running over the past two years. It's something the Republicans and the right wing has been very, very good at, and it's won them a lot of elections.

We have to get better at it and stop just accepting their framing and trying to defend ourselves. Instead, we need to reframe the issue so that we're not constantly playing defense.

It's something that I've been trying to use a lot lately when talking with people about the city of Gresham. As many of you may know, it's hard to find a place more anti-tax than Gresham. We have the lowest tax of any major city in the state ($3.61 per $1,000), and there aren't many small cities that are lower than ours, either. We bring in $20 million in property taxes and another $20 million from other areas (our share of the county business tax, fees, money from other governmental sources, etc.). That's a whole $40 million for a city of 100,000 residents. I looked through the budgets for cities all over, and the standard would be about $1 million per 1,000 residents. So going from the low to the high, we should be in the $80-120 million range. And that's why almost 90% of our budget is fire and police and we have little money for anything else.

But right wingers out here have framed the issue as the city doesn't deserve any more money because it doesn't come through on promised services, already has enough, etc.

If our city is ever going to have the funds to do what it needs to be able to do as a large city, we need more money. And we're going to have to change the way the issue is being framed out here if we're ever going to have more money.

now THAT is a negative ad. Anytime you lead off with your opponent(s)...

I think it's a brilliant ad. Political jiu jitsu. The incumbent outsider versus the challenger insiders. Typical of the "turn the opponent's strength into a weakness" strategy that we've seen from the right wingers in recent years.

A good low-cost riposte would be a YouTube video of someone watching the ad who is totally unable to swallow the line of B.S. that Smith's people are spinning with some good pull-quotes showing just how establishment Smith actually is.

Sal:

Great idea!