04/30/2008

By JULIA SILVERMAN and BRAD CAIN  / Associated Press

With just three weeks to go until Oregon's primary, ad wars in Oregon's U.S. Senate race are heating up.

On Monday, Portland lawyer and activist Steve Novick took direct aim his rival, Oregon House Speaker Jeff Merkley, for his 2003 vote on a House resolution that expressed support for the troops, while acknowledging "the courage of President George W. Bush" in launching the Iraq war.

The Democrats are competing for their party's nomination in the May 20 primary.

And on Wednesday, Republican incumbent Gordon Smith will hit the television airwaves with a spot designed to paint him as an independent voice for Oregon, though Democrats argue his reputation as a political moderate is undeserved.

In the Novick ad, filmed at an airport, the candidate tells voters that, "Unlike my opponent, I would never praise George Bush for invading Iraq. With me, you can expect real change on the big issues."

Merkley has said that he made his opposition to the war clear in 2003, and that his vote in the then-Republican controlled chamber was intended only as a show of support for the troops. And his campaign has pointed out that other Oregon Democrats, including U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden and Congressman Peter DeFazio, voted for similarly phrased resolutions just days later.

On Tuesday, former U.S. Sen. Max Cleland of Georgia, a triple amputee from the Vietnam War who was in Portland to campaign for Merkley, called the Novick ad, "a last-ditch effort to make something out of nothing. When you start throwing dirt, you're losing ground."

Cleland called the 2003 resolution a classic example of a time-tested GOP tactic: Putting two separate ideas into the same proposal, including one that's so popular — like supporting the military — that there's virtually no way to vote against it.

"Years later to pick out this vote focused on supporting the troops with a Republican barb and hook in there is unfair and misleading," Cleland said.

But Jake Weigler, Novick's campaign manager, said the ad reflects, "a basic disagreement about (Merkley's) record, which goes to the respective principles of the two candidates. Steve was asked on the first day of the campaign whether he would have voted (for the resolution) and he made it clear that he would not have done so."

A handful of House Democrats did vote against the resolution in 2003, though most joined Merkley in voting in favor.

The ad aired once, during KGW's morning news program Monday. Weigler said the spot ran before it was supposed to, due to a station error, but the campaign was "considering running this ad in the near future," more widely. KGW confirmed the ad ran by mistake.

Smith's ad, set to begin airing in TV markets statewide Wednesday morning, is noteworthy in part because he faces only token opposition in the May 20 GOP primary.

The Republican senator's ad is clearly aimed shoring up support among independent and Republican voters in the general election as he tries to win re-election in a state that's been trending bluer by the year.

"I approve this ad because no matter who our next president is — him or her — I will find common ground for the change we need," he says in the 30-second spot.

Democrats have been hammering on the theme that Smith has voted with the Bush administration most of the time, often canceling out the vote of Oregon's Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden.

Smith, who's already raised $8.3 million for his re-election campaign, said in an e-mail to supporters Tuesday that his new TV ad is part of an effort to "set the record straight and focus on my goal of bringing positive, bipartisan change to Washington, D.C."

"At a time when we face a crisis in health care and our economy — and the continuing threat of terrorism — there's too much partisanship and not enough leadership in Washington," said Smith, who is the lone GOP senator serving on the West Coast.