Candy Neville Calls On Merkley To Unplug 'Misleading' Campaign

First John Kitzhaber stepped up with a TV ad to condemn Jeff Merkley's negative campaign and articulate another reason why he supports Steve Novick for U.S. Senate in the Oregon Democratic Primary.

Now one of Novick's primary opponents, Eugene's Candy Neville, has chimed in to support the fighter with a hard left hook and condemn Merkley's "divisive" campaign.

From Neville's campaign:

“It’s a divisive, regrettable and unnecessary distraction from real issues.”

EUGENE — Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Candy Neville on Tuesday called on fellow candidate Jeff Merkley to pull the plug on his negative campaign, which she called “disappointing, misleading and misrepresentative” in its depiction of candidate Steve Novick.

“This sort of ad is right out of the Republican playbook — it’s a divisive, regrettable and unnecessary distraction from the very real and important issues that Jeff should be talking about - the Iraq war, immigration, global warming.” Neville said. “I’ve been on the campaign trail with Jeff long enough to know he knows what the real issues are and he should be talking about them.”

The ad goes after Novick for his former blog posts as a Blue Oregon commentator. Neville said Merkley’s ad takes Novick’s comments out of context and ignores that they were made in his capacity as a political commentator, not as a political candidate.

Neville noted that Merkley’s ad ironically ends with the statement that “Jeff Merkley believes in bringing people together, not tearing people down — that’s the change Democrats need.”

“Jeff’s right on that count — that is the change that Democrats need,” Neville said. “He should prove it by immediately pulling these attack ads.