How Merkley Won, part one

Kari Chisholm

I'll have more to say on the topic, but for now, check out the excellent discussion of the Senate race from the O's Jeff Mapes.

Mapes makes it clear that - even before anyone had decided to run against Smith - key Democrats were working to build the campaign against the incumbent Senator.

At Gov. Ted Kulongoski's re-election party in 2006, Democrats were already gunning for Republican Sen. Gordon Smith.

Jim Ross, Kulongoski's campaign manager, and Josh Kardon, who took a leave as Sen. Ron Wyden's chief of staff to help Kulongoski, talked about how the governor's victory against a wealthier opponent showed them how to beat Smith in 2008.

The Democrats never let up. Ross set up a Web site attacking Smith and Kardon began looking at potential candidates for Democratic leaders in Washington, D.C.

Ross and Kardon were a small part of a relentless, two-year effort to take down a GOP senator who once seemed politically secure.

One minor correction: Jim Ross did a whole heckuva lot more than "set up a Web site". At the beginning, he built the entire Stop Gordon Smith effort. Working with the DPO's Trent Lutz, they set up a communications operation to hold Smith accountable, including a Web site (which I built), a press secretary, and regular outreach to lots of organizations around the state. The DPO's 36-county grassroots organizing campaign, funded in part by Howard Dean's 50-state strategy, was also a key early capacity-building effort.

As the campaign moved into an active phase, first with a tough primary campaign and then the tight general election campaign, Mapes notes that the DSCC took an active role -- despite the expectations from many, many Oregon Democrats (including dozens of comments here at BlueOregon) that the DSCC would abandon the effort, as they did in 2002.

"Everyone likes to quote the line about never getting between Chuck Schumer and a TV camera," said Mark Wiener, a Portland political consultant who used to work for Schumer. "The real story is never get between Chuck Schumer and anything. ... He has a very keen sense of a goal and is relentless in pursuing it."

So when Smith started attacking Merkley, the committee didn't hesitate. It counter-punched with its own ads hitting Smith.

But, of course, the biggest factor was Jeff Merkley's willingness to gamble on the race - and do the work to win it. He was a relentless campaigner. In an online extension of the printed edition, Mapes expands on that aspect:

[T]his was not exactly a case of Merkley having nothing to lose by running for the Senate. Jon Isaacs, his campaign manager, told me that his first reaction upon hearing that Merkley was thinking of running for the Senate was to say: "That's crazy. You're the speaker" and on the track to be the next governor.

But, as I've learned over this last year and a half, Merkley is both a gambler and a hard worker. ...

Merkley, never that compelling of an orator in the Legislature, improved steadily on the campaign trail and learned how to give a pretty commanding stump speech. "Practice makes perfect," said Jack Isselmann, a Portland lawyer who served on Merkley's finance committee and watched him do dozens of house parties, sometimes as many as four in a day and night.

Given Merkley's work ethic, it's no surprise that on Thursday, he repeated his pledge to hold a town hall meeting in every county in every year. Like the state's senior senator, Democrat Ron Wyden, you can expect Merkley to working hard to bring around the non-Metro areas of the state that are more Republican. He's a guy who will put in the time.

I'll have more to say on the topic - including discussions about the importance of Steve Novick, the ad war, the top-tier staff, and the organizing effort. Stay tuned.

By Kari Chisholm Nov. 09, 2008