Posted on 09/07/2008 5:39:05 PM PDT by Clintonfatigued
Mike Erickson (R-Lake Oswego) could use a little emotional support. A week ago, he endured a harsh week of attacks from Oregon Democrats at the Democratic National Convention, calling him everything from a “weasel” to a “schmuck.” So with this week’s Republican National Convention kicking into gear, conventional wisdom would assume that Oregon Republicans would rush to their congressional candidate’s defense.
But ORGOP chair Vance Day said Tuesday that he would not be making or asking any candidate to step up and support Erickson as his campaign headed into the final part of the election cycle.
“He probably could use some help,” Day said from the Republican National Convention in Minnesota. “But the way I view it is I don’t push any elected official or individual to endorse anyone for the job.”
Day acknowledged that Erickson had difficulties with Republicans in the past, including former 5th Congressional District candidate and current Oregon delegate Kevin Mannix. It was Mannix who unveiled the accusations that Erickson had paid for a former girlfriend's abortion. The accusations hit Erickson, who was running a strong family values platform at the time, very hard.
“Earlier in the primaries, I would say there were some scuffles,” Day said. “But Kevin and Mike have both moved on from that.”
However, they haven’t moved far enough along for Mannix to officially back Erickson. Mannix’s campaign manager Amy Langdon told PolitickerOR.com shortly after the primary that he would not support Erickson’s candidacy because “he cannot support a dishonest man."
And while other Republican officials, including U.S. Sen. Gordon Smith (R-Pendleton) and Rep. Greg Walden (R-Hood River), have not been quite so blunt, they have kept their distance as well. Day said he would not try to persuade them to do otherwise.
(Excerpt) Read more at politickeror.com ...
When it comes to the downballot races, Republicans seem to have a theme song:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMenB9Ywh2Q
Ah yes, Oregon, where the RINOS run free....
Everytime I see a Gordon Smith ad on TV, I simply want to puke. Calling him a Republican is really a stretch.
Isn’t Gordon Smith of the Mrs. Smith’s Pies company? I think he is a liberal at heart, but he knows OR is so full of liberals he can do little else. Just five or six liberal counties dominate the whole state the way Philadelphia and Pittsburgh guarantee Democrat majorities in PA.
Day should be fired for gross incompetence. The fact that the OR GOP is failing to even put up candidates is appalling. We need to have someone leading the party who actually wants to win seats.
True enough, but Mike Erikson is also part of the problem. A candidate who pays for his girlfriend to have an abortion cannot credibly run on family values, as Erikson has. He should have dropped out, and the GOP should have found a candidate who didn’t run this year. But it’s too late for that.
Gordon Smith should just pull a Ben Westlund and change party to democrat. And take heart, their are conservatives right here in the Willamete Valley...and even a few here in Portland.
Similar story here. I tell my wife, who is also ex military and conservative, we're going to change this.
To me the nanny-state/leftist political track here is very puzzling. There is plenty of business initiative. There is widespread family centered social orientation. There is widespread Christian church presence. etc.
It's almost like the people are so naive, living in their to-date prosperous state they don't yet see, or know, the tragedy of the government leviathan. Kind of like parentally supported college sophomores everywhere - activist, even honestly motivated, but without a clue.
Mannix should’nt have damaged himself by getting the primary dirty.
The Democratic party here in Oregon has been doing everything it can to malign Gordon Smith.
The Liberal free rag called Willamette Weekly had a big article about his Smiths Frozen foods buisness.. a outfit that he has been on record to say tries its best to avoid hiring illegals.
Of course.. the paper found a former worker who stated that she believes that many of the hispanic workforce used in-proper (illegal) documentation to get hired.
Of course if the liberals would be smart.. they would allow the deportation of the illegals to happen instead of fighting it.. and boycott the vegiies being sold all over the PNW.. but they are not that smart to hit Smith in his personal pocketbook.
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