Oregon GOP Candidate Endorses Obama

[CatWoman]

The Republican Party is famous for keeping members loyal. But in Oregon, at least, that no longer seems to be the case. First Oregon GOP Sen. Gordon Smith promoted his ties to Barack Obama in ads. Now a Republican candidate for the House is endorsing the Democratic candidate. The Politico reports:

A guy gets 70% of the Republican primary vote, and how does he repay his party? By endorsing Barack Obama for president and the Democratic challenger to an incumbent Republican for Senate. At least that's how Joel Haugen, challenging Oregon Rep. David Wu, decided to thank his party's leadership for their support.


Haugen, a businessman and Army veteran, is running an uphill campaign in a district Wu has held onto against good Republican challengers. So instead of embracing fellow Republicans in a state that's moving increasingly left, Haugen is falling in line with Obama, and he's is listed on State House Speaker Jeff Merkley's website as a backer; Merkley is the Democratic nominee against Senator Gordon Smith.

The endorsements aren't something Haugen is hiding. "We certainly understand why people are so surprised to see" Haugen backing Obama, the campaign writes on its website, citing the Democrat's positions on foreign policy and the economy over John McCain's.

But Haugen's is a position that causes the Oregon Republican Party some heartburn. The state party is continuing to offer tacit support for Haugen's candidacy (though they're not returning his phone calls) while local party officials have shut him out of some events, PolitickerOR reported over the weekend.

Meanwhile, the GOP's 2006 Senate candidate in Delaware says he's been booted out of his party position for supporting Obama.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/08/04/oregon-gop-candidate-endo_n_116839.html

[helderheid]

1. Matheson (UT-D) touted his love for Bush in his campaign ads.

[Drunken Irishman]

2. Yup and now he's not going to the DNC Convention. Fuck Matheson.

He'll hide from Obama, even though Obama is probably more popular in Utah than any recent Democratic candidate and McCain is the least popular Republican candidate here since Goldwater.

[CatWoman]

3. we should know tomorrow if the Dem(?) who will run against Chambliss

will be Vernon Jones, another dumb fuck who touts his love for Bush and brags about voting twice for him :puke:

[Drunken Irishman]

5. The same Vernon Jones who wanted to piggyback off Obama?

[CatWoman]

8. the one and only

http://www.ajc.com/opinion/content/opinion/tucker/stories/2008/07/09/tucked_0709.html

Barack Obama wants nothing to do with Vernon Jones.

"I do not endorse him. I have not endorsed him. He put my picture on his literature without asking me," Obama said Tuesday, when journalists inquired about the Jones connection after Obama finished a town hall meeting at Powder Springs' McEachern High School.

While Jones' tactics seemed vaguely familiar — "in the South Side of Chicago ... those kinds of things are not uncommon," Obama said — the presumptive Democratic nominee for president has only the vaguest notion of who Jones is.

"I think he may have come to an event of ours a while back," Obama said. "The reason I think I may have met him is I know somebody told me as I was shaking his hand that he had taken pride in voting for George Bush twice."

add that to the fact that Jones has been criticized brutally for his callus attitude towards women

His record of embarrassing antics would provide easy fodder for incumbent Saxby Chambliss, who has stored up a tidal wave of cash with which to drown his challenger. Just think of the ads Chambliss could run.

You'd see reruns of a woman's accusation that Jones raped her in December 2004, although he was never charged with a crime. At best, the episode, which involved two women, was a sordid ménage à trois, something unlikely to win the approval of Bible Belt Georgians — whether Republicans or conservative Democrats.

Earlier that year, DeKalb County Commissioner Elaine Boyer filed a police report alleging that Jones shoved her in the hallway outside the commission chambers after a heated dispute over a budget vote. That came shortly after an unnerved constituent had reported to police that a confrontation with Jones — at her home — left her feeling threatened. If you believe you detect a pattern suggesting Jones has a problem dealing with women, Chambliss will no doubt hammer the point home.

[Doctor_J]

4. Just changeyour affiliation, Joel

Fer chrissakes, they'll soon be using OR Repukes as javelin catchers.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

6. These ads are bugging the hell out of me.

I'm waiting for Obama to make a commercial with Merkley denouncing Smith.

[depakid]

7. This is the second set of Smith & Obama ads

with little or no response from the Obama campaign.

Merkley's at least got a DSCC ad up (it doesn't play much, but at least it shows Smith in his true light as a lockstep Bush supporter.

[samsingh]

9. cool

[babylonsister]

10. I hope he doesn't meet the same fate as Del. delegate Ding:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x3423500

The Delaware Republican Party's standard-bearer in the 2006 race for U.S. Senate has been expelled from his position in the state GOP.

His crime? Quietly supporting Democrat Barack Obama for president.

"Evidently someone went online and saw that I had been making contributions to Obama," Jan Ting said Friday.

Ting also was captured in a photograph at an Obama rally in Wilmington in February that drew record crowds to Rodney Square. At the time, Ting declined to comment about why he was there.

[snowbear]

11. The problem is... isn't he only doing all this to keep his seat???

And isn't it sad that in Oregon, the polls are so close??

Don't Oregonians know that he'll go back to his GOP ways if he wins the election???


Gordon Smith on the issues ...........