The Oregonian's Jeff Mapes reported Tuesday that state Sen. Rick Metsger, who is running for secretary of state against fellow Democratic state Sens. Kate Brown, Brad Avakian and Vickie Walker, released a statement reiterating his intention to not raise money during the session. He also leveled some criticism at his primary opponents and Merkley.
Merkley is "the one who put the rule in" banning fund-raising for House members during the session, said Metsger. "Now he wants to make contributions to federal office different than to state office. To me, that is a distinction without a difference."This seems similar to Merkley's robocall mess up, where he kicked off his campaign with a front-page story in the Oregonian detailing how he sent recorded campaign calls to people on the no-call list after having voted in the Oregon legislature to ban such calls. The law "doesn't take effect until January," Merkley campaign manager Jon Isaacs explained to the newspaper.
Give the campaign credit for following the letter of the law, if not its spirit. But the attitude seems more like politics-as-usual, not the "change" we're being promised.
In the thread of a different post on Mapes' blog, this one covering Merkley opponent Steve Novick's new ad, one of the commenters offered this: "Hilarious! No wonder Merkley is going to accept contributions during the session."
That observation, made with humorous intent, also appears to be spot on.
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