Oregon Senate candidate Jeff Merkley was one of four Senate candidates who spoke at the convention tonight in Denver. Jeff Merkley took the stage and laid out his vision for 2009 and beyond. Jeff is very thankful to have been given the opportunity to speak at the convention. Here's video of Jeff's speech at the convention:

Full disclosure, I am the netroots director for OR-Sen candidate Jeff Merkley

Yesterday was the deadline for submitting minor party candidates and replacing withdrawn major party candidates for the Oregon ballot this fall.  Below you will find my review of the races from the statewide elections to ballot measures and all the way down to state legislative races.  Take a break from convention coverage and read on!

Cross-Posted from Loaded Orygun: http://www.loadedorygun.net/...

Oregon gets it.

While Oregon is a small state, and its delegation gets seated in the nosebleeds behind Puerto Rico at the convention, it is one of the most politically exciting places in the country.

Innovative organizations like the Bus Project and 1000 Friends of Oregon are both putting feet on the street today and crafting progressive leaders and policy ideas for the future. 

But perhaps most significant is the Democratic Party of Oregon, which has been a driving force behind Oregon's wave of new Democratic leaders in the state legislature and the tremendous surge in Democratic voter registration.

The passion and values of Oregon's grassroots party activists are captured well in the DPO's new video "We The People." Video after the jump.

Crossposted at Sandstorm.

Before I show you Republican Gordon Smith's new ad, let's just get one thing straight. Gordon Smith voted for the Iraq War. Gordon Smith voted at least five times in support of the Iraq War just last year. No matter how many ads Smith airs trying to fool Oregonians into thinking he's some sort of anti-war hero, his record speaks for itself.

Full disclosure, I am the netroots director for OR-Sen candidate Jeff Merkley

Many people believe that Jeff Merkley, Senate candidate from Oregon, is one of the most progressive candidates on the ballot anywhere this year.  He opposed the invasion of Iraq, supports the Reponsible Plan to End the War in Iraq, supports unions and workers, supports fair trade, is very green, and opposed FISA.  Jeff on the Issues

Down the line on issue after issue, he takes a strong progressive stand.  And when he wins, he will replace a Republican senator, Gordon Smith.  We get more and BETTER Democrats when Merkley wins.

So we've decided to do a weekly roundup on Sunday evenings regarding news of the Merkley campaign.  I'll do the first one, and each Sunday there will be a different author.

Come around after the fold, join our community, and hear the news.

When I lived on the Wind River Reservation in the early 1980s, there were a number of long term gay couples who were living together as husband and husband.  But, of course, it was never official because, well, it was the early 1980s, and, well, it was Wyoming.

According to tribal custom, any two adults who considered themselves married were married, and one partner went with the parties leaving the village (read doing the men's work: hunting, raiding parties, etc) while the other partner stayed in the village (read doing the women's work: tending the children, weaving, beadwork, etc.).

But the Coquilles are the first American tribe to make this official. And before you think this is the norm, some really big tribes like the Navajo and the Cherokee have said no to gay marriages. So, yay Coquille!

I know I'm not a famous blogger here at Daily Kos and my comments tend to garner only a smattering of recommends.  This diary is probably going to come across as whiney and I know that many readers DO give money to progressive candidates so I am not intentionally criticizing those people nor do I mean to criticize those who don't have money to spare but who dedicate themselves to electing Democrats thru activism.

I have been reading and posting here since about 2005.  I am not a wealthy person & the past year has been difficult for me.  but when the Front pagers & other posters here at Kos put out a call for contributions to their candidates, I try to help out.  Sometimes the amounts are small, but I do what I can because we need more progressives in Congress.

Yesterday, I decided to put out my own request for contributions for a progressive US Senate candidate, Jeff Merkley (OR-Sen), in what is considered one of the top Senate races in the country.  I offered & am offering to match contributions totalling up to $1,000 to people who contribute thru my Actblue page:  http://www.actblue.com/... .  Guess how many people stepped up to the plate?

Are you interested in putting more *progressives* in the US Senate in the upcoming election?  Would you like to double your impact thru a matching contribution?  If so, read on!

For the past 12 years, Oregonians have been cursed with a do-nothing Republican Senator who currently polls at under 50% approval.  His name is Gordon Smith and his list of legislative accomplishments in the US Senate is as meager as his committment to George bush is great.

Following the Democratic landslide of '06, Smith furiously tried to create the appearance of distance between himself and the Bush administration without actually distancing himself in a meaningful way.  He's a pretend 'independent' Republican Senator who 'independently' votes with George Bush approx. 90% of the time.  He's sort of like a dumber, more inactive and almost-as-insulting-to-your-intelligence version of Norm Coleman.

In the really green part of Oregon, Gordon Smith has a long tradition of presenting himself as the moderate, anti-drilling, good guy. In fact, one of his infamous ads in which he tries to pretend he's been endorsed by Obama, trumpets

"Who says Gordon Smith helped lead the fight for better gas mileage and a cleaner environment? Barack Obama!"

Clean environment? Tell that to the Oregon Department of Environmental Equality, not to mention the folks in Weston, OR.

For the second time in about a year, wastewater from the frozen-foods plant owned and operated in Eastern Oregon by the family of U.S. Sen Gordon Smith (R-Ore.) overflowed into a nearby creek in violation of state environmental regulations....

Smith Frozen Foods has a long history of wastewater violations.... According to the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality, an employee of Smith Frozen Foods contacted the state agency on July 29 (while the plant was processing corn) to report an overflow from the company's wastewater lagoon that "resulted in a milky discharge to Pine Creek."

...[T]he incident is considered a serious "Class 1" violation, meaning it "can harm aquatic life, contaminate drinking waters, and impair recreational, commercial and agricultural uses of water."...

On July 30, 2007, at the height of last year's corn season, Smith Frozen Foods had a similar violation. That violation resulted in a $3,000 fine — a small sum compared with the $25,000 DEQ fine in 1992 for another infraction. Between those two events, Smith Frozen Foods has been cited or fined by the DEQ more than a handful times.

After one of those fines in the early 1990s, Smith received $766,000 in state and federal grants to bring his plant into compliance with environmental regs. And then he had the gall to run his first, losing campaign against Wyden on "the principles of less government and unfettered free enterprise."

The most recent spill (there have been six or seven in the past 15 years) is hardly the same scope as the massive fish kill of 2002 that Smith helped engineer with Dick Cheney and Karl Rove, an environmental and economic disaster that killed over 60,000 fish, including naturally raised Chinook and endangered Coho salmon.

But it does put the lie to Smith's claim that he's a friend to the environment. And it's one of the reasons Oregon's environmental and conservation communities are lining up behind Jeff Merkley.

When last we checked in with checkered GOP Congressional candidate Mike Erickson, he was busy denying allegations that he used to throw wild cocaine parties on his private yacht, claiming to have had no idea what cocaine looks like:

"I've never used cocaine. I wouldn't know what it looks like," Erickson said, adding that he has never used illegal drugs or tobacco.

That's as may be (though if it's true, I can only wonder if Erickson has been to the movies since 1975, or uses baking soda). However, the Oregonian has come out with evidence that Erickson is certainly no stranger to the high life.

Mike Erickson, Republican candidate for the U.S. House, made a six-day visit to Cuba in 2004 that he described as a "humanitarian trip" to help disabled Cubans oppressed by Fidel Castro. But the visit was actually a vacation that included marlin fishing, nightclub visits and Cuban cigars.

See, Erickson has been boasting that he traveled to Cuba to provide aid and comfort to the oppressed multitudes:

Four years ago I was given an opportunity to make a humanitarian trip to Cuba, providing medical supplies and equipment to the disabled and Cuba's impoverished. The Cuban American Alliance Education Fund was looking for donors to help raise money and deliver supplies and equipment to Cuba's less fortunate. I was able to purchase badly needed medical supplies and equipment from the US and bring them to Cuba's disabled and poverty stricken communities.

The trip also provided me the opportunity to see firsthand just how horrific Castro's stronghold on the nation had oppressed and mistreated people. The living conditions and healthcare were horrible.

Yeah, but see, the Oregonian obtained a copy of Erickson's itinerary for the trip. It seems difficult to imagine him having much time for humanitarian activities, fitting them in between such enjoyable pastimes as

- Mojitos and cigars at cocktail hours - Dove shooting - Cock fighting - Cigar conventions and a tour of a notable cigar factory - Rides in vintage automobiles - Lodging in five-star hotels - And the creme de la creme, the centerpiece of the trip..."Comandante Fidel Castro's Annual Gala Cigar Dinner And Auction".

Well. That is a lot of cigars, for someone who has claimed never to have used tobacco.

It's also a lot of leisurely activities for someone traveling to Cuba for "humanitarian" purposes. Since, you know, actually vacationing there is forbidden.

Oh, and Erickson's trip was not sponsored by the "Cuban American Alliance Education Fund", but rather by an organization called "Safari Clubs International". They may be in hot water themselves, as the most damning part of their itinerary indicates:

I will provide each person with the information on how to acquire the travel license if they want to fulfill the obligations set forth under a humanitarian license. If not, I provide itemized, personal, hotel receipts and leter from concierge from the Hyatt Regency in Cancun, Mexico to show a proof of visit to Mexico not Cuba from February 25 Marc 2, 2004.

I believe this is also called "forging documents". Which is, I am told, very illegal.

So here is a candidate for the United States House of Representatives, who went on a $1700, top-shelf vacation to Cuba, hung out at Fidel Castro's gala parties, gamed the system by calling it a humanitarian trip, and traveled with an organization which offered to illegally forge papers for its guests.

Any guesses on what might have happened if a Democrat had done this?

I had been hearing rumors from friends who work for the Oregonian that a major story was about to break concerning Mike Erickson.  I do not know if this story is it but it's a fun one anyways.  Simply put, Mike Erickson claimed that he had taken a trip to Cuba in 2004 as an attempt to work with humanitarian organizations.  Instead, it appears that instead he used it as an excuse to have a good time, smoke a lot of Cuban cigars and have some fun watching cock fighting.

Major h/t to the Oregonian for this story: http://www.oregonlive.com/...

Cross-Posted from Loaded Orygun: http://www.loadedorygun.net/...

In 2007, the Oregon legislature passed two laws: The domestic partnership law (the Oregon Family Fairness Act) and the Oregon Equality Act, which prohibits discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.

A group of "concerned Oregonians" started gathering signatures because they wanted to place a referendum on this November's ballot requiring a statewide vote on the two laws.

They've now officially failed. H/t to Marshall Collins over at BlueOregon...

Republican Gordon Smith is now no longer a co-chair of the McCain Campaign in Oregon. Since 2006, Gordon Smith was listed as the honorary co-chair of the McCain Campaign and has been one of McCain's earliest supporters. Apparently Gordon Smith wants nothing to do with the McCain Campaign...oh but wait..Smith does support McCain 100% of the time.

More below the fold....

Full disclosure, I am the netroots director for OR-Sen candidate Jeff Merkley

Today has been proof that election news need not stop when the Olympics happen.  Instead, there have been several fairly important stories to come out today, four of which will be covered here.

Cross-Posted from Loaded Orygun: http://www.loadedorygun.net/...

This diary discusses a just announced major campaign by FreedomWorks Oregon to try and fool people into thinking that drilling is the only way to secure a sustainable energy future.  Major h/t to the Oregonian on this one (http://www.oregonlive.com/...).

Cross-Posted from Loaded Orygun: http://www.loadedorygun.net/...

Republican Gordon Smith's campaign has a serious problem addressing the issues Oregonians and Americans care about. The problem? He doesn't talk about them, instead he focuses on negative and misleading attacks. Gordon Smith's Campaign has spent nearly two million dollars attacking Oregon Senate candidate Jeff Merkley. This past week Smith continued his baseless attacks on Jeff and the Oregon Legislature for their recent renovation of the Oregon Capitol Building. Smith is also airing another negative ad pushing the tired ol' "he's a big bad tax and spend liberal" meme. It's a shame that Gordon Smith doesn't feel the need to address the real problems America is facing and would rather spend his time attacking Jeff Merkley.

Full disclosure, I am the netroots director for OR-Sen candidate Jeff Merkley

A neighbor and I were out canvassing our neighborhood tonight, in the first blast into our precinct since the primaries. I am tired and wanted to get to sleep, but this is bothering me so much that I thought perhaps I could get some help, via all of the experience represented at here at DailyKos.

I live in a low-income area of a relatively liberal Oregon town. I believe we are still considered a swing state, as Obama's majority may be well under 10%. It is polling under 7% right now, and with all the smears, it could get close.

So, now I come across people who are too progressive to vote for Obama, and a couple of mellow but firm republicans, and I can't sleep. I don't know what to say to convince them to help us to  get this thing done. I watched the video about McCain promising more wars, and I can't sleep without asking for your help. More below...

Last week I had a huge influx of readers interested in my piece on Eric Cantor. Seems I'm not the only one thinking McCain might just pick Cantor. I think it's a longshot, but possible.

Things are getting very hectic personally. This may be the last newsletter for a few weeks or more. We will be on vacation in California for a couple of weeks and I will have Grand Jury duty after that. Plus work is exploding for me and Joy's dissertation is overdue. Even politically, I will need to put some extra effort into my friend, Devin Cohen's primary election September 9th. But this newsletter I cover some pretty critical stuff.