Below The Beltway

Over in Oregon, a Republican Senator is hoping that the Democratic candidate for President will help him keep his Senate seat:

PORTLAND, Ore. — In the state where President Bush has his lowest popularity ratings in the nation, the incumbent Republican senator is reaching across the aisle and groping for the coattails of Barack Obama.

Sen. Gordon Smith, a two-term moderate in a state with a history of embracing centrist Republicans such as Mark Hatfield, has put the Democratic candidate for president in not one, not two, but three of his television ads.

How many mention John McCain?

“Zero,” said Brooks Kochvar, manager of a Republican campaign that cannot accurately be described as running away from its party label. This is more of a sprint.

“Yeah, he’s registered Republican,” a timber man says in one Smith ad, “but . . .” But he worked with Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), says another spot. Yet another invokes Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.), whose name still appears on fading bumper stickers in liberal Portland. “If you need any more telling indication of where the race is, or where the Republican Party is, what else can you say?” said Tim Hibbits, a Portland pollster whose surveys are among the many showing Smith falling behind Democratic challenger Jeff Merkley.

“He’s in a hell of a mess,” Hibbits said. “This is a state that tends to lean Democratic to begin with. Bush basically has destroyed the Republican brand here.”

That fact can be seen quite clearly in the fact that Obama leads McCain by more than 15 points in Oregon, and the fact that Oregon has not gone Republican in a Presidential election since Reagan’s landslide in 1984.

It’s also understandable. Smith is in a close race with his Democratic opponent, which is surprising in itself given Obama’s strength in the state.

Incidentally, this isn’t a new strategy on Smith’s part; he was running ads touting his relationship with Obama all the way back in June.

Is Smith a doctrinaire conservative ? No, he’s not. However, he’s the only kind of Republican that can get elected statewide in state like Oregon in the present climate.