Going Negative On Novick: Jealous Much?

(UPDATED BELOW)

If the topsy-turvy national primary season has taught us one thing, it's that having a good week certainly comes with its consequences. I guess that's to be expected in the game of politics-as-usual.

And it's no newsflash that Steve Novick's (pictured at left) U.S. Senate campaign has been picking up steam as of late.

The release of its catchy new television ad earned coverage on the front-page of The Oregonian and got more notice from Register-Guard reporter David Steves. The Salem Statesman-Journal declared Novick one of the week's "winners." The once-skeptical Ashland Daily Tidings is now convinced that Novick's "humor is a welcome and refreshing change. He is anything but a politically washed and dried, spin-cycle candidate speaking only in elementary talking points."

Several friends of mine who don't follow politics the way the rest of us do commented that they had seen the ad by "that politician I've been talking about." Their reviews were unanimously positive. These personal anecdotes apparently weren't isolated events, as the Novick campign blew past the goals it set for more ad buys.

In D.C., political insider newspapers Roll Call and The Hill took notice of Novick's campaign.

At the same time, the mainstream media were starting to notice how primary opponent Jeff Merkley's rhetoric was morphing closer and closer to Novick's.

But then the strangest thing (insert wry grin here) began to happen. Negative stories about Novick started popping up on the internet from the usual suspects -- and some not-so-usual suspects.

On Jan. 15, Senate Guru 2008 attempted to smear Novick with an accusation that he recently plagiarized rhetoric from Barack Obama's presidential campaign. Turns out Novick's been using the line in question since the first official day of his campaign nearly a year ago. And this wasn't the first time the "Guru" had pursued and pushed a false negative narrative about Novick.

Then on Jan. 16, BlueOregon front-paged a piece by the Oregon Economics blog wondering if Steve Novick isn't just a little too short to be elected.

But the whopper of them all came on Jan. 18, when Merkley campaign consultant Kari Chisholm -- whose internet consulting company Mandate Media also publishes BlueOregon -- wrote an outraged post on that site about a brand new, eh-hmm, scandal he was "sad" to have to report about his "friends" at the Novick campaign.

From Oregonian reporter Jeff Mapes' blog (which mentions this incident only as part of a post about other issues):

Liz Kimmerly, who is working on the Novick campaign, is also starting a Progressive Democrats chapter in Oregon. And she allegedly tried to rush through an endorsement process that critics thought was rigged to favor her man Novick.

Blue Oregon founder Kari Chisholm, who is supporting Merkley, wrote a quite outraged post about it. Novick's campaign manager, Jake Weigler, responded to the same post that this was all about nothing. He said that Kimmerly recused herself from the process, and the local chapter agreed to put off the endorsement for a month after the Merkley campaign complained.

That was on Friday. On Saturday, the chapter met and one attendee, blogger Ben DuPree of Witigonen, said Kimmerly still seemed to be pushing for a quick endorsement before Moses Ross, a political operative and Democratic Party activist, took over and slowed things down. Novick, Neville and Merkley's campaign manager, Jon Isaacs, were present and it sounds like quite the lively night, if you're into that sort of low-stakes drama.

Although Register-Guard reporter David Steves first reported the story on his blog, Steves' version of events seemed much tamer than Chisholm's two overwrought BlueOregon posts on behalf of his outrageously wronged client (that wry grin again). Given Chisholm's and others' hysterical comments about this episode being the dirtiest trick in Oregon Democratic history, you'd never know what the real, un-entangled journalists were reporting about this "low-stakes drama."

From Steves' post:

Democratic consultant Moses Ross, who was asked to take that duty over, said he’d been concerned that Kimmerly was trying to rush the endorsement process. But he added that he didn’t think the Novick staffer was trying to rig the process to benefit her boss—even though that could have been the effect.

“I don’t sense there were any dirty tricks involved - just enthusiastic activists,” said Ross, who is not involved with the campaigns of any of the Democrats running for the Senate seat held by Republican Gordon Smith.

“I think it will be a fair and-above board process. And that’s my role to see that that happens,” Ross said.

Novick campaign manager Jake Weigler said no one on his staff, including Kimmerly, saw the PDA endorsement as an opportunity to game the system. He said Kimmerly had been involved with the Progressive Dems when she lived in Los Angeles before relocating to Portland, so it made sense that she would start a chapter here for reasons other than to help her candidate pick up an endorsement.

It’s not unreasonable to ask why Chisholm is trying to make such a big thing out of a "scandal" nobody else but Merkley's internet partisans seem all that interested in. Merkley is a paying client of Chisholm's company, Mandate Media. That same company publishes BlueOregon. There’s no disputing that.

The question is, does BlueOregon come along with the deal when a candidate hires Chisholm and Mandate Media, which thrives on its Democratic Party establishment clients? Sure looks like it does, especially when you consider the "Is-Novick-too-short-to-be-elected?" post that preceded the current "scandal" Chisholm’s trying to build up against his client's opponent.

There's a real reason Oregonian columnist Steve Duin referred to Chisholm as the "Democratic Party errand boy who runs BlueOregon." It's no mistake he's already earned Willamette Week's Rogue of the Week for his "excessive use of bullshit in his mudslinging" against the Novick campaign.

I admit that I've enjoyed the guilty pleasure of watching Chisholm in political operative mode using BlueOregon to beat the drum against Republicans. It's much less amusing when he does it unfairly to fellow Democrats. I'll admit to being a hypocrite on that score.

But the sky-is-falling posts at BlueOregon on this drummed up attempt to further smear Novick are at least as tainted by conflict of interest as were Liz Kimmerly's alleged efforts to put herself in charge of a somewhat obscure group's relatively "meaningless" (Chisholm's word ) endorsement for the Senate nomination.

The Merkley camp appears desperately willing to go out of its way to hit the gutter -- from co-opting Novick's bolder message to engaging in any low-stakes drama it can pump entirely out of proportion.

What drives this? It's gotta be Novick's recent successes. Sometimes it just doesn't pay to have a good week. Maybe the proper response from the Novick campaign (and in the spirit of the people mercilessly pimping these pumped up dramas) should be: jealous much?


“Fake” Scandal Backfires On Merkley Operative
(UPDATE: Tuesday, January 22, 11:45 a.m.)

Well, “Endogate” really got interesting this morning. In the thread of Chisholm’s third breathless post pushing the latest line of attack, Progressive Democrats of America Executive Director Tim Carpenter weighed in to ask Chisholm to stop misrepresenting the nature of their previous telephone conversation and to stop using BlueOregon and the DPA in a “swift boat campaign” against Novick. Carpenter's comment speaks for itself:

Kari,
It was my hope that after you began your effort to misrepresent my conversation with you on the phone you would allow the work of PDA to move forward. I was wrong! When you called me I had just completed my chometherpy session and just had a shot in my eye...you never said you were blogging... simply calling to ask a few questions..I never said anyting about 48 hours...never..Liz was active in PDA in California before she moved to OR to begin a Portland Chapter. she had been on a number of calls with national PDA...her work with PDA predates her move to OR... if you are really about building the progressive movement which I think you are...it's time to stop the swift boat campaign and allow the PDA chapter to move forward and the Senate race to get back to talking about single payer heatlh care, the end of the occuaption of Iraq and building the movement. It was never my intent to jump into this...it's time to get back to organizing...finally I invite folks to visit the PDA site at PDAmerica.org and read about the great OR PDA work that is moving foward ...onward! Posted by: tim carpenter | Jan 22, 2008 7:27:34 AM @ BlueOregon (emphasis mine, ellipses are Carpenter's)

There are certainly a lot of questions that should be answered, but not by the Novick campaign. Given the recent pattern of fraudulent attacks against Steve Novick’s character, one can only wonder if the Merkley camp has realized that bold and fresh beats “washed and dried, spin cycle” politics no matter how much old-guard establishment props a candidate piles up.

Again – in the spirit of the motives behind this pattern of trumped up charges – one can only ask: jealous much?