Mapes Weighs In On Merkley's Negative Attack

Oregonian reporter Jeff Mapes picks at the festering wound that Jeff Merkley's U.S. Senate Democratic primary campaign has become.

From Mapes' blog:

Negative advertising is always tricky in a primary race since it's sort of like a spat among members of an extended family. But the Merkley folks may feel they need to do this with the race seeming so close. The last public poll showed that it was essentially tied, although with Merkley gaining ground on Novick.

The Merkley ad goes after Novick for his year-and-a-half old blog posts that vivisected Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, among others. At the time, Novick was not a candidate and he was using his sharp wit as a regular commentator on Blue Oregon.

Novick has always insisted that nobody particularly cared about what he wrote then - and that was the theme that his campaign manager, Jake Weigler picked up on Wednesday after he saw the ad.

"It's a pitiful reflection of how much their campaign is running on empty," he said. "No one has evern brought up these comments or objected to them except for Jeff Merkley...The one dividing Democrats here is Jeff Merkley."

Merkley spokesman Matt Canter said the ad merely points out one of the big differences in the race - the different leadership style of the two candidates. "This is not an attack ad," Canter insisted, adding that "these are [Novick's) words."

Okay. Well, I guess you have to say that kind of stuff when you're trying to convince the extended family of Democrats. It's not the same as taking on a rival clan.

Read Mapes' entire post HERE.