Golf Clubs and Social Security

The DSCC puts out two new ads hitting Gordon Smith on Social Security. The one below is creative and very well done. The second one is more traditional, and a little boring. The race in Oregon is tight but Merkley has a good shot at unseating Smith.



(H/T: SSP)

Election Year Moderation

Congressional Quarterly highlights waning support for President Bush as Republicans prepare for a tough election in November.

Until last year, Bush had historically high support scores among Republicans: No GOP president had done as well among fellow party members since 1953, when Congressional Quarterly began tabulating these things. Not even Ronald Reagan could boast of Bush’s degree of support.

GOP House members voted Bush’s way between 80 percent and 89 percent of the time on roll calls where he took a clear position during his first six years. Among Republican senators, his average support score had been even higher, reaching 94 percent twice, in 2001 and 2003.

In both chambers, Bush’s support faded a bit in 2007, but this year it has fallen through the floor. The average House Republican supported him just 63 percent of the time in 2008, and the average GOP senator, 68 percent.

The chart below highlights some of the more blatant attempts at election year moderation, especially among Senators facing tough reelection battles. The percentages in the chart show how often the Senator in question supported Bush on roll call votes. For the original and complete chart, follow the link to the CQ article.

Hall of Fame

Steve Novick is an unusual candidate and he ran some very unusual ads in the race for the Democratic nomination for the US Senate seat. He went on to lose narrowly to Jeff Merkley in the Democratic primary but I feature this ad mostly because it highlights the clever use of humor as a hook (pun intended) in political advertising.



And just in case you missed this piece in the bio that I linked to earlier, here's the story on the hook.

Novick was born with significant physical disabilities which include a missing left hand and missing fibula bones in his legs. As a result he uses a hook prosthesis and stands approximately 4'9" tall. His unusual physicality has prompted him to use the slogan "The Fighter with the Hard Left Hook." His levity about his physical stature has drawn both positive and negative reviews from the press.

The Scarlet Letter

Sen. Gordon Smith (R-OR) knows that his party label is huge liability in Oregon and he's tried just about everything short of leaving the Republican party. One of Smith's ads features former Democratic state lawmakers. Another ad makes it seem like Obama was endorsing him. The third features John Kerry. Smith's latest ad portrays him as a maverick on Iraq.



Smith recently resigned as McCain's co-chair for Oregon although he was an early supporter of Sen. McCain's candidacy. He will also be absent from the Republican convention in St. Paul.

Time will tell if Oregon voters will overlook the "R" next Gordon Smith but the ads themselves are pretty well made. His Democratic challenger and the Speaker of the Oregon House, Jeff Merkeley might want to start highlighting Smith's election-year moderation before the narrative about Smith being a maverick gets any more established.