With the collapse of Bush's popularity in the Pacific Northwest, Smith has found himself in the excruciating position of straddling the yawning divide between an electorate wondering why Smith continues to support a deeply unpopular President, and a state Republican party that is second to none when it comes to vengeful wingnut politics. Smith's Senate seat is a top-tier Democratic victory next year, if the state Democrats can nominate a credible candidate. But amazingly, that hasn't been easy.
And here's where it gets wild.
The obvious choice is Peter DeFazio (OR-4), one of the best US Representatives that Oregon has produced in decades. But DeFazio has decided he would rather be a larger fish in a smaller pond, and is staying in the House. The two announced Democratic candidates, Steve Novick and Jeff Merkley, have considerably less public stature and, frankly, are considerably less exciting than DeFazio. Absent a stronger showing by state Democrats, and despite Smith's increasingly schizophrenic efforts to simultaneously cast himself as both a moderate and as a wingnut, it is conceivable that the $10 million that Smith has already committed to spend (roughly $5 per registered voter) could carry the day.
As my esteemed blogging colleague mcjoan mentioned in an excellent recent post (in which Senator Smith formally claims the Pacific Northwest eco-terrorist mantle of soon-to-be-former-Senator Larry Craig), former Republican John Frohnmayer has formally announced his intention to run for Smith's Senate seat, as a member of the Independent Party.
Frohnmayer is an interesting guy. A Vietnam vet with deep Oregon roots, impeccable Republican credentials, and advanced degrees in literature, divinity, and law, he was George Bush I's pick to head the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), where he promptly encountered the meatgrinder of the increasingly vicious (although, in retrospect, still relatively unsophisticated - did you ever think you'd get nostalgic about Bush I?) Republican noise machine. He attempted to pander to the wingnut right by forcing artists to swear to not use Federal funds for "obscene" art (the four NEA-funded artists who sued over this ridiculous bit of kabuki won hands down), but it was the era of Maplethorpe and crucifixes in urine-colored water and Frohnmayer was the designated fall guy for the manufactured outrage, finally getting fired in 1992. An articulate and ethical voice of moderate Republicanism, he's one of the better-known and best-liked politicians in the state (his brother David is even better known - he was a popular centrist state Attorney General for a decade, and his brutal defeat by the wingnut right telegraphed the new savagery of Republican politics in Oregon when he ran for Governor in 1992).
Now, this part is hard to explain to people who weren't living in the Pacific Northwest before 1985 or so. Briefly, this part of the country once tended to elect Senators and Representatives for life, and the post-war generation of regional politicians had reached dominant senior positions throughout Congress by the late 1970's (Larry Craig and Max Baucus are the last remnants of this regional tradition). For historical reasons going back nearly a century, the region has tended to vote as a block on issues relating to efficiently extracting money from the Federal government, assuring the Pacific Northwest of a phenomenal share of all of the military and public works handouts since the New Deal. What emerged from that pattern was a generation of regional politicians who were reasonably competent, reasonably honest, and reasonably non-partisan. You voted for the person you thought would do the best job. You did not vote on the basis of party affiliation. Those days are long gone, thanks to the relentless toxic spillover of the national Republican noise machine. But an entire generation of voters remembers that time, and they miss it.
For that cohort of voters, Frohnmayer represents everything that decent politics used to be, and could once again become, and Frohnmayer has wasted no time in driving that point home. During the press conference announcing his candidacy, Frohnmayer elegantly and unequivocally blasted his former political party and called for the George Bush's immediate impeachment. In doing so, he positioned himself to the left of the Democratic candidates for Senate, while simultaneously retaining his image as an articulate centrist.
The Independent Party of Oregon didn't exist a year ago. It started as a project of Oregon political activists who remember that simpler, saner time in regional politics. The thinking was that they could register a few tens of thousands of voters, run a couple of local candidates, and gradually start to influence the dominant narratives of the currently dysfunctional state political scene. Frohnmayer's decision to leave the Republicans and run as a card-carrying member of the Independent party is an unexpected high-profile windfall, with utterly unpredictable consequences.
The best part is that both Republicans and Democrats not only hate the idea of a Frohnmayer candidacy, but are convinced that he is simply a stalking horse for the other party, a fiendishly clever plot set in motion specifically to hurt them. Me, I think this is just Frohnmayer being Frohnmayer. But the fact is that right now he is far and away the most credible candidate in the race. It is impossible to say whether he will take more votes from the toxic Republican incumbent or the singularly uninteresting Democratic challengers, or if he can put together a coalition to win.
But it's going to be a really fun election season in Oregon.
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