GOP Bid for Open Oregon House Seat Looks Deflated

[babylonsister]

GOP Bid for Open Oregon House Seat Looks Deflated
By Annie Shuppy, CQ Staff


Republican officials touted Oregon’s 5th Congressional District as providing one of their top 2008 House takeover opportunities after Democratic Rep. Darlene Hooley decided to retire rather than run this year for a sixth term. After all, Hooley’s moderate demeanor had helped her build a dozen-year career in a Willamette Valley district that is anything but a Democratic stronghold — and where President Bush ran 1 percentage point ahead of Democrat John Kerry in 2004. And the GOP had a willing candidate in businessman Mike Erickson, who at the least had proved as Hooley’s 2006 challenger that he is willing to spend deeply on his campaigns from his own pockets.

But with less than a handful of days left before the ballots are tallied in Oregon’s vote-by-mail elections, the chances that the GOP will score a much needed pickup appear to range between highly unlikely and impossible. CQ Politics now rates the race as Democrat Favored.

This is because of a confluence of positive factors for the Democrats that include the emergence of state Sen. Kurt Schrader as a strong nominee; a big push by the party to add new Democratic voters to the registration rolls; and presidential nominee Barack Obama ’s surge to a big lead over Republican John McCain in statewide polls on the race for the state’s seven electoral votes. But the biggest reason why the Republicans seem to have fallen out of contention may be the fact that Erickson emerged from a bruising GOP primary on May 20 enveloped in a controversy that hobbled his campaign.

more...

http://www.cqpolitics.com/wmspage.cfm?parm1=5&docID=news-000002982169

[depakid]

1. Glad to have Hooley gone

as well as to have watched the Republican candidates implode.

[ORDagnabbit]

2. Hooley was a corporate tool and should have been replaced years ago... n/t