For comparisan sake - Bush won Jackson County in 2004 by over 8000 votes. We look at a surge for Merkley very differently than say Multnomah County. Up north it may not look like a surge but down here Merkley benefited from the Obama campaign doing as well as it did. I know it's hard to differentiate. The complexity of Merkley's win was brought about by a skillful campaign on the ground for Merkley. 936 Jackson County Dems volunteered for the Merkley campaign. Ian Foster tirelessly ran the campaign out of the JC Dems offices.

The fact that Jeff Merkley won without artifice or political theater speaks volumes about his honest sincere competence. If the Dems in Jackson County helped Merkley win they should be proud.

Hoorah for Jackson County.

I wonder how those wonderful Jackson County DEMOCRATS feel about Lieberman, who DONATED TO GORDON SMITH'S CAMPAIGN? What say ye, Lieberman appeasers?

Five weeks before Jeff Merkley spoke of the Obama spirit of reconciliation during the Senate Democratic caucus meeting that eventually voted 42-13 to allow Joe Lieberman to keep his Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee gavel, Lieberman donated $5,000 to incumbent Oregon GOP Senator Gordon Smith's reelection

http://campaignsilo.firedoglake.com/2008/11/26/lieberman-donated-to-gops-gordon-smith-peter-king/

Scumbag Lieberman contributed $5,000 to Gordon Smith's campaign.

LINK

I don't want to have to register over at firedoglake, but I wish someone would go over there and set them straight about Merkley "speaking of conciliation" about Lieberman. (see link above) He spoke out against Lieberman.

Lieberman sucks and should have been allowed to stay in the caucus, but only given a vice chairmanship and relegated to a stinky closet.

Since I was a wee lass, Oregonians have tended to vote for the incumbent, "because Packwood/Hatfield have so much seniority now that we can't possibly give this up...it will hurt Orygun....we'll lose the little funding that we get and after all, we don't have military bases here and get even less funding....after all, Hatfield is for peace and Packwood is for women." blah blah.

There are many people who still think this way, that's why Merkley didn't get the margin that Obama did. Plus, the outside groups flung so much crap, some stuck on Merkley.

Now Kari, you really should go read that article I cited above from Firedoglake and correct that dude who wrote the lead. (unless Merkley WAS being conciliatory re: Lieberman which I highly doubt).

The most astounding thing about the polling in Jackson Co. is the vote from Ashland 12,644 for Obama and 2,664 for McCain, that is almost 5 to 1! No wonder Obama outpolled McCain in Jackson when the results from Ashland alone gave him an almost 10,000 vote edge. I haven't looked at other municipalities around the state (or country) but that is a remarkable advantage.

TJ you really need to come out visit us out here. Obama bumped the numbers for Merkley - we didn't need an overall victory in Eastern and Southern Oregon just a 2 to 3% bump for an overall victory for Merkley. I couldn't find the figures at the Deschutes County Website but if my memory serves me correctly Bush in 2004 received almost 65% of the vote here - Obama lost here by 819 votes this time. This change is not going to happen in one or two election cycles - this is a 20 year project. Obama and Merkley's performance in office will make a big difference in future elections. Their actions in office disproving all that scary stuff Rush, Sean and Lars have been spewing will go a long way to creating the change we need.

Another interesting aspect of the election was the larger than expected support for Working Families Party Attorney General candidate Ashlee Albies. It’s safe to say that 160,000 voters choose Albies solely because of her Voters Pamphlet statement which included the WFP platform. She had no other state wide campaign. The WFP platform is uncluttered and direct. The party stands for healthcare for all Oregonians without private profit, debt-free higher education and technical training, creation of green family wage jobs, affordable housing and an end to predatory lending; and strengthening workers' right to organize and negotiate with employers. More remarkable –and this relates to Jackson County - is that rural counties voted for Albies and the Working Families platform in larger percentages than the urban counties. Jackson County voted 12.9% for WFP; Douglas and Josephine Counties voted 14% and 14.6% respectively, and Klamath County voted 17.54%. The urban areas were much less receptive to the WFP message. Multnomah County voted 7.52%, Washington and Clackamas voted 8.8% and 9.63% respectively, and Lane County 9.6%. So, what’s going on here; why would the “blue” counties be less supportive of a working family’s party than “red” counties?

Bruce -- good question. It might be worthwhile to post this on some red blogs and see what comes back, share it over here. Could be that blues were SO dedicated to organizing, being organized and WINNING this time that blues were completely focused only on their primary war targets on positive and negative sides. So blues were blinded to options beyond getting behind the most likely-nominated to ensure a more-progressive agenda is not Perot-ized or Naderated again. Maybe WFP just did not feel to be primary party enough to be a horse to back and know there'd be a win. It is indeed about two big machines in combat season after season, after all. Our nation is run monolithically, ultimately, and folks may be losing their idealism and getting "real" about how to never be BushWhacked again... for just long enough to get back off our knees, at any rate...

P'raps.

But that is a really good question, and I hope you take it to other blue blogs to find out what they report as their personal thinking and to red blogs to try to find that out as well. Indeed, wonder if you could call a TV news line and suggest this as an unscientific poll type question, eh.

Kevin - if they "engage" in the style of Bodden or Kershner, you can then see the harm of blindly pugilistic monomaniacal rant. Denying humanity and rationality to anyone but "your side" means your side will indeed stay a handy fable: the fight the good fight crowd who do not want to learn how to get along with anyone or see anything but what they see. And who NEED to be an orthodox (original meaning of this word - "right thinking") victim crying in the wilderness.

Damn, sometimes our loudest support is our greatest foe.

"...a small handful of WFP advocates on Lefty blogs up here (PDX metro) are widely seen as cranks and thus turn many Lefties off to the WFP candidates.

My initial thought is that some idiots see the power of blogs (and consequently their own) as waaaaaaaaaay more influential than they actually are.

Bruce, many people are not tied to partisan political platforms.

Could it be that there were voters impressed with what they saw of Kroger (I didn't vote for him in the primary but saw him once or twice in person and he makes a good impression in person) and didn't think this was a year to vote for an unknown 3rd party candidate?

Party platforms are not the same thing as actually making things happen. And they are no substitute for a candidate with experience and ability to talk about it in public.

Another good question - do people come on blogs with their minds made up, or to leave them open enough to be changed? My impression is that they have minds made up. We do not speak in a blog until we are sure of somethign we will say. And if one asks a non-positioned question, it frequently will go unanswered as not interesting, as people are not here to "educate" but, rather, to argue and rationalize point / counterpoint.

I was afraid to admit I was still wavering between candidates when I started posting, not watching. And that is the truth. This did not feel like a good place to say anything that could invite being blasted unless I was really robust enough to take it. I'm oftimes not.

So I'm not certain blogs are a reasonable place to expect change or effect, frankly. I do not see that the function matches real change/buy in as the outcome. They are a way to sharpen one's teeth, thrash ideas. It's why y'all ain't out CONQUESTING. Virtual crusades we have here! Heheheheh.

Here's what I am stupidly wondering: why are we even discussing this? What's done is done. Unless TJ wishes all to do a post-mortem so as to deepen our understanding of all that went right? And make it go more-right next time? Not sure what purpose the hairsplitting exercise at this juncture. P'raps I'm a hopeless plebe.