Personally I think it's a waste of their money but it seems the Koch Brothers and conservative columnist, George Will, have a soft spot for Merkley's opponent, Dr. Monica Wehby (R. OR):Freedom Partners Chamber of Commerce -- the Koch brothers' group reportedly planning to spend $3.6 million trying to unseat Democratic Sen. Jeff Merkley of Oregon -- opened a three-month advertising campaign Wednesday with a TV commercial attacking Merkley's votes on government spending.
The group is funded by large, undisclosed donors who have joined the political network established by billionaire industrialists Charles and David Koch, who in the last election cycle orchestrated some $407 million in political spending for conservative causes.
The commercial makes no mention of Merkley's Republican challenger, Portland pediatric neurosurgeon Monica Wehby. She has welcomed the advertising campaign while making it clear that she didn't work at all with the group -- which would be a violation of federal election law.
The new ad seeks to tie Merkley's votes on government fiscal policy -- specifically for raising the debt limit and against requiring a balanced budget -- to the economic struggles being experienced by many Oregonians.
"Oregon families seeing their incomes shrink have had to tighten their belts and make responsible decisions, said Freedom Partners spokesman Jim Davis in a statement. "Sen. Merkley could learn from them. Instead he voted repeatedly to spend more of their hard-earned tax dollars in Washington." - The Oregonian, 8/6/14
It makes sense because Wehby's the type of candidate who would do the Kochs' bidding:Part of this is due to the largess of outside conservative and libertarian groups, who are still pouring money into the race. The Koch brothers just recently opted to boost their overall spending in support of Wehby, partly because her policy positions are simpatico with those of the broader Koch empire, but also because the Koch brothers don’t really have to worry about prioritizing when it comes to political spending. But Wehby-mentum refuses to die also because conservative pundits have convinced themselves that Obamacare’s unpopularity is so potent a force that it will take down an incumbent Democrat in a solidly blue state.The latest example of this phenomenon comes courtesy of George F. Will, who wrote a column late last week that put a high gloss on Wehby’s candidacy. “For 17 of her 52 years she has been a pediatric neurosurgeon,” Will wrote, “holding in steady hands sharp steel and the fate of children’s brains. She probably can cope with the strains of legislative life.” But when you pick apart Will’s column, you have to wonder what it is that makes him so bullish.
“Oregon is one of the 18 states and the District of Columbia that have supported Democratic nominees in at least six consecutive presidential elections,” Will wrote. “But,” he adds, “from 1969 to 1995, both Oregon senators were Republicans.” That’s true, though the sharp observer will be quick to notice that 1995 was, in fact, nineteen years ago. The state has trended toward electing Democrats to statewide office since then. Sen. Ron Wyden (D) was elected in 1996 to replace Sen. Bob Packwood, who resigned in disgrace the previous year, and he’s been reelected comfortably every cycle since then. (Wyden’s closest race came in 2010, when he edged out his GOP challenger by 18 points.) Sen. Gordon Smith (R) was ousted by Merkley in 2008.
And that gets us to the polls. Citing a Wehby campaign internal poll, Will writes: “Wehby’s pollster says Merkley’s two-point lead (41 percent to 39 percent) derives from the incumbent’s perishable seven-point advantage in name recognition. Wehby is up one point among voters who say they ‘know’ both candidates.”
There are a couple of things to point out here. First of all, the poll Will appears to be citing is nearly two months old, and it was leaked back then likely to help calm jittery donors after a series of reports surfaced showing “that an ex-husband and ex-boyfriend had separately called the police to complain about [Wehby’s] behavior.” Next, Will’s trust in that one stale, internal poll doesn’t seem to be shaken by the fact that almost every other public poll conducted shows Merkley with a comfortable, double-digit lead. The New York Times and YouGov just released a huge survey of 2014 states that gave Merkley a characteristically large 14-point advantage. Every single political prediction outfit crunching the 2014 numbers gives Merkley an outsize chance of winning.
“Another Democratic theme is that all Republicans are extremists,” Will continues. “Wehby, however, won 50 percent of the vote in a five-candidate primary in which her rivals accused her of moderation.” Wehby’s primary claim to moderation comes from the fact that she supports abortion rights while being personally pro-life. But when the Oregonian asked how she’d vote on key issues ranging from taxes to the environment to jobs, Wehby took hard-line Republican positions on all of them. On taxes, she would have voted to make the Bush tax cuts permanent and repeal the estate tax. The 2014 farm bill? She would have taken the Tea Party stance and voted against it. She’s pro-Keystone XL, against the Environmental Protection Agency’s carbon rules, and would have voted against equal pay legislation. If there’s “moderation” to be found in her policy platform, it’s well concealed. She also supports a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution, a conservative hobbyhorse that is opposed by liberals (and some conservatives) because it’s a terrible idea that would destroy the economy.
But George Will isn’t concerned by any of this. He thinks Obamacare – which had a particularly rough rollout in Oregon – will trump all come November. “Oregon had the worst of all the unpleasant experiences that states had with the Obamacare rollout,” he writes. “The FBI is investigating how the state managed to spend $250 million on an online insurance exchange that failed.” But we’ve been hearing this same story for months now, and overarching Republican faith that the Affordable Care Act’s Oregon face plant will propel Wehby to victory thus far has not been validated. - Salon, 7/29/14
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...
But again, it's a waste of money because Merkley's a smart campaign and is making this his key issue:Webhy's policy platform, meanwhile, is lining up squarely with that of the Kochs. The Oregonian, a Portland newspaper, recently posted a series of articles detailing the positions of Wehby and Sen. Jeff Merkley (D) on 14 Senate votes from the past six years. Wehby took a hard conservative line. On every vote where the Koch-backed tea party group Americans for Prosperity took a position -- eight of the 14 -- Webhy sided with the Kochs.Wehby said she would have voted to make the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy permanent and to approve the tea party "cut, cap and balance" budget bill, which includes severe across-the-board spending cuts more draconian than those in the budget proposal from Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) that would have slashed Medicare and converted it to a voucher program. Wehby also said she would have voted against both Obamacare and the 2010 Wall Street reform bill. She said she would have voted to prohibit the Environmental Protection Agency from regulating greenhouse gas emissions and to approve construction of the Keystone XL pipeline. She also said she'd have voted against the farm bill. All of those positions match the Americans for Prosperity congressional scorecard.
Wehby took conservative positions on votes that AFP didn't monitor for its scorecard, including the Paycheck Fairness Act, an equal pay bill that Wehby said she would have opposed. - Huffington Post, 7/25/14
And he has a big lead in the polls:Sen. Jeff Merkley spent some time at the Hillsboro Public Library on Wednesday, meeting with a group of eight senior citizens about Social Security and Medicare as part of an eight-town tour across Oregon.The Democrat emphasized his commitment to the programs in a closed session that lasted about an hour. Invited guests included seniors from the Washington County Democrats, the nonprofit Physicians for a National Health Program and a group that helped re-elect President Barack Obama.
Merkley highlighted legislation like the Medicare Protection Act and the Older Americans CARE Act, which he sponsored, as examples of his commitment to the crucial demographic as he runs for reelection against Republican challenger Dr. Monica Wehby.
One of the guests alerted Merkley to the Independence at Home program, which strives to increase the amount of home visits that doctors make. After the meeting, Merkley said finding out about such programs is one reason why he holds the roundtable events.
"It's a much cheaper way, if [seniors] can age in place rather than going to a nursing home or care facility that would be more expensive," Merkley said of Independence at Home.
The first-term senator attacked Wehby, accusing her in a press release of embracing a "Tea Party budget that would force massive cuts to Social Security and Medicare."
"She has called for repealing the Affordable Care Act, and what that means is just a very destructive impact on Oregonians. ... It would return us to a situation where health care is for the healthy and the wealthy," Merkley said at the roundtable.
Merkley also blasted right-wing efforts to privatize social security and Medicare, tying them to the fluctuations of the stock market. - The Oregonian, 8/6/14
Oregon is blue but we can't take anything for granted. Click here to donate and get involved with Merkley and Kitzhaber's campaigns:Gov. John Kitzhaber and Sen. Jeff Merkley, the two statewide Oregon Democrats up for re-election this year, continue to hold double-digit leads over their challengers, according to a new poll taken by SurveyUSA.The poll, sponsored by KATU TV, also found that ballot measures to legalize marijuana and require labeling of foods containing genetically engineered ingredients are supported by just over 50 percent of voters.
The Aug. 1-5 survey of 564 likely voters concluded that Merkley leads Republican Monica Wehby by 19 percentage points, 52 percent to 33 percent, almost identical to the lead he held in an early June poll conducted by SurveyUSA. The latest poll has a margin of error of 4.2 percentage points, plus or minus.
Kitzhaber has a smaller lead of 12 percentage points, leading Republican Dennis Richardson, 48 percent to 36 percent, the poll said. The pollster didn't find any change in sentiment in that race either. - The Oregonian, 8/7/14
