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There are contentious primaries Tuesday in Oregon and Kentucky. They’re just not between Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) and Barack Obama (D-Ill.).
Democrats are battling for the right to face Sen. Gordon Smith in Oregon and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell in Kentucky, while Republicans are looking for a candidate to replace retiring Rep. Darlene Hooley (D-Ore.).
But the biggest battle is in Oregon, where Smith (R) and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) began their campaigns early this cycle in a torrent of ads. That air war has weighed heavily on the already pitched Democratic battle between state Rep. Jeff Merkley and activist Steve Novick.
A SurveyUSA poll conducted exclusively for KATU-TV in Portland and released Monday evening showed Novick leading by three percentage points, whereas he trailed last week in the same poll.
Novick has run a spirited primary campaign and has an interesting personal story — he graduated from Harvard Law School at age 21 and is less than 5 feet tall with a hook for a left hand.
Merkley has received the quiet backing of DSCC Chairman Charles Schumer (N.Y.).
Both Smith and the DSCC insist their early advertising, which totals about $800,000, was instigated by the other side, but the buys also appear to betray a preference about whom they would like to be the Democratic nominee.
The main target of Smith’s approximately half-million dollars’ worth of ads has been Merkley, who he has called out for allegedly breaking a pledge not to raise money during the legislative session.
Smith also called out Novick in an early ad, labeling him a big-government liberal, but that tack likely wouldn’t harm Novick’s primary campaign in a blue state.
The DSCC has responded with at least $300,000 in ads and phone calls to Democrats defending Merkley, whom it recruited and has been backing behind the scenes. Merkley also received $90,000 in start-up support from the DSCC and has been hooked up with big-dollar donors.
The DSCC has used Smith’s emphasis on Merkley to defend its early support for the Democrat and continues to insist that it’s not officially picking sides. Smith’s campaign likewise said it was merely responding to Merkley’s ads.
“The focus has been Merkley because Merkley has been the candidate who attacked Gordon Smith,” said Smith spokesman R.C. Hammond, pointing to an ad Merkley ran against Smith.
Hammond added that his boss “has pledged that he is going to run an aggressive campaign, and he’s certainly demonstrating that.”
The ads follow a pattern of early advertising for Smith, who also went up early in his 2002 reelection campaign against Secretary of State Bill Bradbury. But that situation was different, as the ads went up just after the primary and Bradbury didn’t face a tough Democratic challenge.
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