[crossposted at Loaded Orygun, Oregon's progressive community...]
Does this qualify as an endorsement? On Friday, during the KPOJ Morning Show in Portland featuring national broadcaster Thom Hartmann, he and broadcasting colleague Carl Wolfson divulged their Senate votes while taking a call from a 70-year old Aloha voter who is also going with Steve.
Click the link for the audio, here's the transcript:
Thom Hartmann: Ben in Aloha, nice to welcome you to the show, Ben.
Ben in Aloha: Hey, thank you guys, I would really like to thank that lady for keeping the faith out there. And I would also like to mention Steve Novick's campaign. I'm 70 years old and I think that Steve is the best chance that we have to move Oregon forward in the Senate --
Thom: I would tell you Ben, I voted for him yesterday. We mailed in our ballots this morning.[emph me]
{the rest, below}
Ben: Cool, awesome. I'm going to pass out some literature for him today in a couple of very active spots --
Carl Wolfson: Hey Ben --
Thom: And that said, I think that Jeff Merkley is also a great candidate.
Carl: Yep. I voted for Steve Novick as well, as we're talking about balance, I voted for Steve Novick last Friday and again, Jeff Merkley, an excellent candidate, but I voted for Steve Novick as well and Ben, thank you very much for bringing that to our attention. Thom, I guess we're 2 and 0 on the Novick campaign.
Thom: Yeah.
With a week to go, the positive stories about Steve continue to come in. Eugene Weekly made their endorsement yesterday:
Change is the theme for this year's election, but the question for the Democratic Senate primary isn't just who can create change, but who can beat incumbent Republican Sen. Gordon Smith in November?
Outsider candidate Steve Novick is EW's pick as a guy who can do both. Novick is strong on the environment and healthcare, strongly anti-war and most importantly not afraid to take a strong position on controversial issues like same-sex marriage (he's for it).
Also with a feature column in Friday's Oregonian was regular columnist Dave Sarasohn, who followed the candidates around yesterday:
"The first thing," he told a fundraising rally in North Portland on Wednesday evening, deadpan, "I'll introduce a bill requiring the IRS to send each taxpayer a thank-you note."
At least we know the IRS has your address.
But with Novick, it's another sign of his insistence that he can run for office talking directly about how government works and how it gets paid for.
"Republicans don't trust people to know that those evil taxes go to popular services," Novick adds, "and Democrats don't want anybody to know that popular services are expensive."
By explaining those points, Novick -- a fairly unusual candidate himself -- has run an impressively strong campaign against better-funded, better-endorsed House Speaker Jeff Merkley. Polls have shown Novick with a narrow lead, his fundraising has just nudged past $1 million, and in the middle of the crowd at Northstar Ballroom on Wednesday evening stood an unusually beaming and hostlike former Gov. John Kitzhaber.
"I think he's got an excellent chance to win," Kitzhaber said about Novick. "I think this is a year, and an election cycle, in which people are really looking for people with answers. I think that's the reason Obama has done so well."
I'm with the popular former gov. I think coming out of the primary, we may have a national-level candidate to signify a real change in where we can take this country. If you're Oregonian and haven't done this race yet, I hope you'll fill in the oval for Steve. I just did!