Blue Oregon Blogs

• In the debate Thursday, Gordon Smith mentioned the longshore workers and seemed to suggest that they might be supportive of him. Well, they're pissed:

• Speaking of the debate, Todd Beeton at MyDD notes one particular moment of strength from Merkley:
  When asked about bucking his party, Merkley responded that he was against the war, against the bailout and against retroactive immunity for telecom companies. It's an interesting answer because basically what he's saying is "you know all those Democrats who caved on those fundamentally non-progressive votes... I won't cave. I'm not that guy."

• Three great Merkley events in three days:

  Sunday: The Decemberists' Colin Meloy and Pink Martini's Thomas Lauderdale & China Forbes will headline a rockin' show for Jeff Merkley at the Doug Fir Lounge in Portland at 7 p.m. $25 at the door.

  Monday: In Medford, Merkley will once again face off with Gordon Smith - this time on KOBI. There's a pre-debate rally and debate watch party. Details here.

  Tuesday: Russ Feingold is coming! Russ Feingold is coming! He'll be at a rally in Eugene at UO's Erb Memoral Union on Tuesday at 1:30 p.m. I saw him fire up a crowd at the Lucky Lab in Portland in 1998 - don't miss him.

• Speaking of Feingold, he told WW why it's time for Gordon Smith to retire:
  Q: Without employing any slogans or Democratic talking points, can you give me one good reason why Gordon Smith shouldn’t return to the Senate for a third term?

  A: Gordon Smith really isn’t an ally for progressive causes. Occasionally, he’ll throw us a good vote. But even when he realized the Iraq war was basically morally bankrupt and said so on the floor of the Senate, he continued to vote against the legislation that would have brought our troops home. He doesn’t live up to these allegedly heartfelt statements that he makes. He just keeps voting to keep this travesty going.

• Health care has taken a bit of a back seat in this campaign, but make no mistake, it's still a Merkley priority. Jeff's wife, Mary Sorteberg, has written an excellent post about her view of the health care system - from the view of a working nurse.

• In response to Merkley's awesome ad featuring Ron Wyden, the Smith folks are now running an ad featuring Ron Wyden too. Unbelievably, they actually included Ron's signature in the spot. Outrageous. And Wyden wants it pulled: "The unauthorized use of Ron's signature is no laughing matter," says Josh Kardon.

  Here's the ad:

• Meanwhile, the DSCC's IE team is up with another TV spot, asking voters to tell Smith that the party's over.

  
  

• Wow. A political consultant working for Arizona Republicans is warning his candidates that there's a disaster in the making. In John McCain's home state, no less! Rest assured, there's probably a similar memo floating around Oregon's Republican circles: If the election were held today, Republicans would likely lose control of the Arizona State House and would be very close to losing control of the Arizona State Senate.

  The situation is dire and getting worse by the day.

  There is an old saying about a canary and a coal mine. The miners used canaries in the coal mine to warn them if toxic gases were infiltrating the mine. When the canary stopped making noise and died, that was their warning signal to get out quickly.

  Well, the canary in the Arizona Republican coal mine is dead...

  The doomsday scenario for Republicans is no longer a distant possibility. The danger of minority status is real and imminent. Republicans are running into the stiffest wind it has encountered since 1974. Our State Party is broke and spending money foolishly. The Democrats are well-funded, organized and hungry. It is every man and woman for himself or herself. Good luck. You will need it.

• Here's the latest spot from Greg Matthews in HD 50 (Gresham), who is running against Republican John Lim.

• And one from Brent Barton in HD 51 (Clackamas), running against right-wing lunatic Linda Flores.

• Don't the screen door hit you in the ass on the way out, Dave. From the WW:
  Longtime Oregonian columnist David Reinhard may be leaving the paper. Reinhard, 56, submitted his paperwork Monday to take advantage of The Oregonian’s buyout offer of two years’ pay and bennies. But before lefty readers rejoice that the columnist who calls himself “right on the Left Coast” has opined his last, there’s a caveat. Like other O staffers meeting the Oct. 6 buyout deadline, Reinhard has seven days to rescind his decision. “I’m keeping my options open,” says Reinhard, who’s got a Ph.D. in history and, according to his Web biography, “dreams of living in Central Oregon when he’s not on the job at The Oregonian.”

• The Independent Party has endorsed Kate Brown for Secretary of State, in large part due to her support of campaign finance reform. More at WW.

• The legal battle between the recording industry and the University of Oregon has taken another turn, according to prominent tech blog Ars Technica. LiveRideOregon puts it into perspective:
  What this means is that if a student makes a mistake and downloads an album, costing the RIAA something to the tune of $5 in actual damages, they can be liable for hundreds of thousands to be awarded to the recording industry. To that end, they are particularly targeting students. They can take a student’s entire amount of financial aid, which defaults that student and forces him or her to begin repaying, nearly ensuring a college dropout and financial ruin. Students are about to get SCREWED by the unlimited legal resources of the recording industry, and no one is reporting on it.

Q: How is money created?
Virtually all money is created through the fractional reserve process (not the government).  Here is an example, although the numbers are not 100% accurate.  Bank A lends $100,000 to Consumer A that buys a house from Seller A that deposits that money into Bank B.  Then, Bank B will keep $5,000 in reserve and lend $95,000 to Consumer B that buys a house from Seller B that deposits that money into Bank C.  Then Bank C will keep $5,000 in reserve and lend $90,000 to Consumer C and so on and so forth.  From the original $100,000, the banking system can end up creating an infinite amount of money in theory so long as the reserve rate stays at zero and the money keeps on skipping from bank to bank.

Q: So how did this financial mess come about?
Greenspan and bedfellows thought it would be engenius to remove banking regulations set in place after the last major financial crisis (the Great Depression) and keep the reserve rate super low for a long time.  So banks ended up creating a heap load of money through the fractional reserve process (one giant pyramid) by extending loans to consumers that were not in a position to repay the money.  One bad loan can magnify problems for banks throughout the whole system because of how the same money ends up getting loaned out by several banks.  We know this can magnify problems because interest-only mortgages trashed banks in the 1930's.  So it was brilliant to reintroduce those into the banking system. 

Q: So how do we get out of this mess?
We don't!  Money drives an economy and the housing industry is an enormous source of new money  through the fractional reserve banking process.  When a consumer buys a new home or when existing home prices increase, then new money enters the economy and the velocity of that money trading hands  can rev up the economy and keep things going.  When people stop buying new homes, homes go into foreclosure or existing home prices fall, then money becomes more and more scarce.  If money is not available to support all the current transactions and things start to sag, then people get scared, the velocity of money trading hands slows and people overall will just not have the same amount of money crossing their paths. 

Q: When will this be over?
In a really long time.  We bubbled the housing market.  This is a key industry for putting new money into the economy.  Even if banks regain their footing, which will take a lot of government money and intervention to come, there still won't be much reason to borrow from banks and place new money in the economy.  So you can assume that we will face problems for at least the next five years.  Foreign banks can take up a lot of slack and make credit available, but again, we bubbled the housing market and it will take some time before demand for housing recuperates.  Well, at least sensible demand from consumers that can actually afford the loan.  Until that happens it will be hard to push money into the full economy for everyone to use to buy coats from China, gas from the Middle East and mangoes from India.

Measure 61

Title: Creates mandatory minimum prison sentences for certain theft, identity theft, forgery, drug, and burglary crimes.
Sponsor: Kevin Mannix
Type: Statutory
What it Does: Creates mandatory sentences on a variety of crimes, in many cases on first-time offenders
What it Costs: Estimated to cost $522 million to $797 million over the first five years and require the state to borrow $1.1 billion to $1.3 billion for prison construction.      

Measure 57

Title: Increases sentences for drug trafficking, theft against elderly and specified repeat property and identity theft crimes; requires addiction treatment for certain offenders.
Sponsor: Oregon Legislature, responding to M61
Type: Statutory
What it Does: Increases sentences for some crimes, provides drug treatment for offenders
What it Costs: Estimated to cost $411 million over five years and require the state to borrow $314 million for prison construction.   

Discussion
These two measures come with complex arguments for and against them, but they ultimately come down to priorities.  Kevin Mannix is the sponsor of Measure 61, and his priorities are clear: property crime is a critical problem, and the state should spend a large portion of its general fund arresting and incarcerating perps, even though it means less money for education, social services, and infrastructure.  The Oregon legislature's response to Measure 61 is a less-costly, less punitive approach that highlights drug treatment.

We have two measures on the ballot because Kevin Mannix first proposed M61.  In brief, this measure seeks to impose mandatory sentences many new crimes, including first-time offenses.  The theory behind this measure is incarceration--Mannix thinks we're safer if criminals are locked up.  He doesn't think it creates a deterrent effect, nor does he think treating drug offenders is cost effective.  "It's pulling this limited mass of bad guys off the street," he told Willamette Week.  (Go watch the first 15 minutes of the interview they have posted for a revealing look at the mind of the man behind the proposal.)

The downsides to this measure are substantial.  First off, the cost.  It will increase the prison population by 4,106 - 6,389 inmates, and cost $1.3 billion over ten years.  That will take a big chunk out of the budget the state might spend on other priorities.  The Oregonian estimates that it will radically increase female incarceration.  A quarter of new inmates are expected to be women, ultimately making Oregon the state with the highest proportion in jail.  Since 1994's Measure 11, which Mannix championed, Oregon's prison population has increased 80%.  This would continue that trend, but with no particular plan for what to do with all these hardened convicts coming back into society.  Mannix cites Measure 11 as the cause of dropping crime rates in Oregon and is certain that cracking down even harder will be even better. 

Measure 57 is the legislative response to 61.  Legislators agree that there's a reason for new laws: property crimes have been steadily rising, and the penalties for identity theft are too slight to act as a serious consequence.  But they share few of Mannix's other assumptions.  This measure has a provision for drug treatment.  It gives more discretion to the judge and is far less blunt in its provisions.  Nearly everyone from local DAs to police to corrections officials support 57 and oppose 61.   

Measure 57 contains a clause stipulating that if both measures pass, the one with the highest vote count becomes law.  If you think crime is a problem, the choice should be clear--Measure 57 will do a better job of lowering crime in the long run without a lot of the unintended consequences. 

But it's trickier if you are generally opposed to tough-on-crime laws.  If you vote no on both, you risk getting Measure 61.  I started by opposing both, but in the process of writing this post I plan to vote for Measure 57.  This is partly a matter of political strategy, but I've also been brought around by the pro-57 arguments.  The treatment provision is important--it offers something other than the short-sighted, punitive approach we often adopt. Since drug use are at least contributing causes for crime, treating addiction will get at the root. Furthermore, the law does need to be updated.  According to M57 supporters, the current law doesn't allow for a prison term for identity theft until the fifth offense.  This is obviously a law that needs updating.  So on balance, Measure 57 seems like a reasonable option.

Discuss.

______________________
Resources
OPB, Oregonian, Register-Guard, Yes on 57, Willamette Week

Today in Connecticut, the state Supreme Court overturned a lower court decision that had ruled that civil unions were essentially the same as marriage. In doing so, the Court allowed Connecticut to become the third state in the nation to provide marriage benefits to its GLBT citizens. Justice Richard Palmer wrote,

"Segregation of heterosexual and homosexual couples into separate institutions constitutes a cognizable harm,” in light of “the history of pernicious discrimination faced by gay men and lesbians, and because the institution of marriage carries with it a status and significance that the newly created classification of civil unions does not embody.”

It's a powerful statement and a significant step towards a legal argument in favor of full marriage equality.

Only 47 more states to go.

Of course, no matter what Connecticut does, the federal Defense of Marriage Act will stand in the way of the provision of over a thousand benefits for GLBT couples. That is why it is so very important to vote for Barack Obama, who opposes DOMA, and other anti-DOMA Democratic candidates in this election season.

In a great twist of timing, tomorrow happens to be National Coming Out Day. Coming out as a GLBT individual, or proudly announcing that you are an ally, is just one more step towards fuller equality for all.

In honor of Coming Out Day, here's a video for you all to enjoy.

By Rich Rodgers of Portland, Oregon. For 11 years, Rich was a policy advisor to a Portland city commissioner on housing policy, school funding, environmental restoration, and public safety. Prior to that, he studied the effects of regional growth management on housing prices, and worked in the Oregon Senate as a research assistant. At Yale University, his history thesis focused on the lack of community involvement in decisions to construct major public infrastructure in historic African-American neighborhoods in Atlanta. He now works in the private sector. Previously, he contributed "This Land is Your Land: A better way to spend $1 trillion".

In Tueday's debate, John McCain proposed spending $300 billion of our money to help only the most irresponsible players in this current financial mess.

In Tuesday’s debate, John McCain proposed spending up to $300 billion to have the government buy up the mortgages of people who are behind in their payments. His idea is to write off the difference between what people owe on their mortgages and what their house is worth, and then refinance the mortgage at a fixed interest rate.

The Obama camp was quick to point out that this isn’t an original idea -- section 110 of the Paulson plan already authorizes the Treasury to buy up troubled assets, and take steps to minimize foreclosures, including modifying the interest and/or principal on the loans.

What’s unique about the McCain plan is just how wasteful it is with taxpayer money, and how unfair. By paying face value for these bad mortgages, and then eating the losses, the taxpayer would be left holding the bag, letting off the hook both lenders and borrowers who made risky bets. The most responsible investors and lenders would pay the price for the mistakes of the least responsible.

Roughly a third of American households rent. About a quarter of households own their home debt free. So, about half of American households have some kind of mortgage debt. Of these, only 6-7% currently are delinquent on their payments, most of them subprime borrowers. John McCain would take $300 billion and direct all of it to the banks that made these riskiest of loans, in order to buy down the principal to the current value of the house. Meanwhile, close to 50% of all homes purchased in the last three years are worth less than the mortgages associated with them, but unless you’re behind on your payment, John McCain isn’t proposing to help you.

I very much believe that the best way out of this crisis is to focus direct aid on American households, while having the Treasury lend into the commercial paper market to keep credit flowing to non-financial businesses. But the benefits need to be broad, fair, and above all, a responsible use of taxpayer dollars. This means harsh terms for the banks that imperiled our economy by making such risky bets -- forcing them to sell their healthy mortgage assets along with the bad ones, at pennies on the dollar. Far from extracting a pound of flesh from these banks, John McCain’s plan would apparently hold them harmless.

On September 22nd, I offered up a modest proposal to write off the mortgage debt of every household in the country, with additional benefits for renters and homeowners who already own their home outright. A key difference was the means by which the government would acquire the mortgages. Rather than pay face value, the government should pay fire sale prices.

Using the case of Washington Mutual as an example, I believe the Treasury could have purchased WaMu’s $310 billion mortgage portfolio for about $2 billion in cash. By accumulating the mortgage assets of failing institutions, the government could have assembled a very large percentage of outstanding mortgages for a fraction of their face value.

My opinion was and still is that the magnitude of the bad positions staked out in the estimated $62 trillion credit derivatives market is sufficient to dwarf the $700 billion+ bailout plan. I believe that real recovery will come from letting bad financial firms fail, wiping the mortgage debts clean, cramming down a regulatory fix to the insane derivatives problems, and ‘rebooting’ the economy with American households in a position of strength, not weakness. If American households are in a strong financial position, to paraphrase William Jennings Bryan, the financial system will reappear as if by magic, albeit with some different players.

I think this would only work -- economically and politically -- if the benefits are widespread and as fair as possible. Renters and people who owe no debt on their homes would be rightly outraged to subsidize those who made the riskiest bets, as John McCain would have it. Instead, along with mortgage forgiveness for all mortgages, healthy and failing, the tax code and fiscal policy could be used to promote fairness -- for example, a higher federal tax rate moving forward for beneficiaries of a mortgage write off, and tax breaks and assistance for people who don’t directly benefit, spread over many years.

There are an estimated $11 trillion in outstanding mortgages in the U.S. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac already own a large percentage of them, and failing banks like WaMu, Wachovia, and Countrywide have or had large chunks, as well. Global equities markets have lost over $5 trillion in the last week. There are no cheap solutions to this problem. And many of the expensive solutions aren’t really solutions.

There is a real danger that the $700 billion bailout plan will be swallowed up by these churning financial markets, without fixing our problems. John McCain’s proposal is one sure way to blow $300 billion of that $700 billion with little to show for it -- other than the thanks of the banks that made these irresponsible loans in the first place.

This hit my email box thanks to Jefferson Smith:

Watch it here.

There is a lot that is wrong with this piece. Yes, there are many uninformed voters, but that category is not limited to young people, who are unfortunately the main target of this piece. Anyone who has ever watched Jay Leno could tell you that many Americans are uninformed about current events. Unfortunately, some see that as an excuse to rob people of their constitutional rights, and Stossel and ABC are happy to play along.

There is more to the email, but you get the gist. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that ABC News is participating in voter suppression. What do you think?

Reviews are rolling in for Ron Wyden's ad in support of Jeff Merkley for U.S. Senate

At Talking Points Memo, Eric Kleefeld notes the symbolic importance of the Wyden ad:

DailyKos front-pager Brownsox notes that Wyden's endorsement undermines a key argument for Gordon Smith:

Such an act is rather notable, however, when the prominent politician in question is known for his close relationship to his favored candidate's opponent. And so it is with Oregon's senior Senator Ron Wyden; he has just done an ad for Democratic Senate candidate Jeff Merkley, who opposes Wyden's friend Gordon Smith in the November election. ...

The ad is a pretty nice one, and should help Merkley a bit. But the ad is exceptionally damaging to the Republican Smith, who has been touting his bipartisan credentials - and particularly his relationship with Wyden - as he seeks reelection in his Democratic-leaning state.

Roll Call (sub req'd) notes that Wyden has a "legendary" and "close working relationship" with Smith, which makes the ad all that much more surprising.

And the O's Jeff Mapes notes that Senator Wyden's ability to cut through the attack-ad clutter is critical:

The ad is well-timed. Just as voters are expressing no end of irritation about all the negative ads in the Senate race, here comes one politician with a high approval rating saying only positive things - about Merkley.

Discuss.

Cruising around the net, I came across a bunch of reactions to the debate tonight between Gordon Smith and Jeff Merkley -- in particular to the hot exchange they had over the Bush tax cuts and Smith's support for big corporations.

Randy Stapilus at the Ridenbaugh Press introduces us to the moment of high drama in the debate:

It was a direct comment, candidate to candidate, something the rules didn’t contemplate, but no one objected when Smith replied back - directly - “So what would you have me do, Jeff?” The alternatives, he warned, could be economically devastating.

Then - again, rules be damned - Merkley directly shot back: Smith should say no, “the next time that powerful international corporations” want tax cuts: That money should be used for health care and other needs of working people. In the meantime, “This economy has been run into the ground.”

At the Oregonian, Jeff Mapes - one of the debate panelists - notes how tired Smith's rhetoric is on the Bush tax cuts:

I'll be curious to see how voters react to that this year. What are they looking for in the face of economic crisis?

Over at MOMocrats, Debbie Gorman liveblogs about the moment:

Smith's defense of the Bush tax cuts was also featured by the Portland Mercury's Amy Ruiz:

While talking about corporate tax cuts, Smith got highly defensive and exasperated--waving his arms and pounding the podium--while Merkley cleaned up by pointing out that Smith voted for the Dick Cheney energy plan that put money in oil companies' pockets, while gas prices went up.

That really was the big exchange in the debate. And Jeff Merkley gave no quarter. He stood up for middle-class tax cuts, but rejected the tired old Republican trickle-down mantra that Gordon Smith so ably represents.

OK, it's midnight. More tomorrow.

Ouch.

You can watch the entire debate at KGW.com - parts 1, 2, 3.

Update: Just came across this great line from the MOMocrats liveblog:

And btw, that MOMocrats liveblog from Debbie Gorman is seriously the best liveblog I've ever seen. She captures the essence of the back-and-forth without transcripting -- while inserting plenty of hilarious and insightful commentary. Check it out - parts one, two, three.

Tonight, Jeff Merkley and Gordon Smith faced off in their first debate - and the only one televised statewide.

What do you think? Did either candidate score big? Did either candidate exceed your expectations?

Did Jeff Merkley make the case for change? Did Gordon Smith manage to avoid the stigma of the Bush Administration?

Will this debate change the outcome on election day - or, at least, the argument over the next 25 days?

Discuss.

At 7 p.m., Gordon Smith and Jeff Merkley will debate for the first time. The debate will be aired live on KGW-8, and streamed live at the Oregonian.

And here, we'll be live-blogging it. Join in the conversation. (Use your usual name/handle, and we'll approve you for live-commenting. Anonymous comments will be moderated.)

As late as 1:30 pm, when the Dow was just a few points below where it started the morning, it looked like we were going to enjoy a fairly uneventful day.  And then it started falling.  And falling.  And falling.  It ultimately lost 679 points, 7.3%, finishing at 8,579.  The S&P dropped 7.6%, and NASDAQ dropped 5.5%.  It hasn't been this low since May 2003.  Economist Paul Krugman (grimly) reflected:

But you want to remember Robert Shiller’s classic real-time study of the 1987 crash. Basically, the crash had nothing to do with any news item. Investors sold because — drum roll! — prices were falling.

On a separate note, one good thing is that there haven’t been any reports of people on Wall Street jumping out of windows. That’s because the windows in modern office buildings don’t open.

Robert Reich added this:

After the market closed today, Bank of America announced a significant deterioration in people's ability to repay credit-card and other consumer debt.

The central fact is this: consumers in the real economy are coming to the end of their capacities to keep spending. They can't take on any more debt. And with the costs of energy, food, and health insurance all soaring, they're doing the only thing they can. They're pulling in their belts. They're leaving the malls. They're not buying a new car or TV or anything else they can do without.

How are you managing the news?  Discuss.

Most Oregonians know by now that Gordon Smith voted for a war that costs taxpayers $10 billion a month and sided with George W. Bush 90 percent of the time. But in addition to Gordon's spending spree -- voting for giant tax breaks for corporations that need it least and refusing to say no to special interest goody after goody -- Gordon Smith also chaired the Senate Finance Subcommittee on Long-Term Growth and Debt Reduction. 

How'd that turn out? Well, late last month, our nation hit a truly dubious milestone: Times Square's debt clock has run out of space.

From today's U.S. News and World Report:

Are you surprised? Times Square's National Debt Clock, which has been tallying up money owed by the U.S. government since 1989, is running out of spaces.

In September 2008, the digital dollar sign was eliminated to make way for an extra digit—the "1" in $10 trillion (the national debt is currently $10.2 trillion). Now, a new clock is in the works that will make room for a quadrillion dollars of debt, according to the Associated Press. Anticipated completion is early 2009.

A little history on the clock: It was created in 1989 by Manhattan real estate developer Seymour Durst to inform the public about the nation's snowballing national debt (back then, it was $2.7 trillion). Seymour died in 1995, and the clock is now owned by his son, Douglas Durst.

Our national debt was around $5 btrillion when George W. Bush took office. Today, it stands at more than $10 trillion. And Gordon Smith was there with Bush -- budget after budget -- every step of the way.

Discuss.

The Secretary of State has a fantastic new web tool available now. For the first time, you can verify online that you're registered to vote.

And you can even check your family and friends, too. All you need is a name, zip code, and birthday.

I recently shared the link with a bunch of friends on Facebook, and here's a couple of the responses:

Holy crap. thanks for that. it says I'm not registered. used to be. maybe it's because my driver's license expired. I renewed it, but... it says I'm not registered.

Don't take anything for granted, folks. I'm getting all kinds of reports of people who are having trouble with voter registration because of some of the new procedures.

For example, over at the Red Electric blog, Rick Seifert talks about his trouble registering voters in Oregon:

If would-be registrants (or those re-registering to change their addresses) don't have their driver's license or driver's license number with them, the default seems to be to provide the last four digits of their Social Security number.

Turns out the default is causing all kinds of problems because social security records aren't matching with new addresses, resulting in disqualifications.

Check your own registration. Then, check your friends. If you're on Facebook, note that most of your friends have posted their birthdays there. To spread the word on Facebook, join this "event" and share it with everyone you know in Oregon.

It's too important to just assume everything is OK.

Tonight, Jeff Merkley and Gordon Smith will face off in their only statewide televised debate.

Watch the debate at 7 p.m. on KGW - or watch it streaming online at the Oregonian. And once again, we'll be live-blogging here at BlueOregon. Update: Yes, the archived video will be available, in full, at KGW.com about an hour after the debate concludes.

As the two candidates finally get a chance to go head-to-head, Senator Ron Wyden has placed his marker down in a new television ad that sweeps aside all the attack ads and makes it clear who he'd rather work with.

The East Oregonian has the details on the format:

The debate format will exclude opening statements. The candidates will have one minute to answer questions and 45 seconds to deliver rebuttals. Smith and Merkley also will have 30 seconds each to answer any follow-up questions from the panel. Then Barry will go to the audience for questions.

At least one of the panelists, the O's Jeff Mapes, would like some suggestions for his debate questions. The Oregonian is also fielding question suggestions here.

The Politicker has some advance punditry on the debate - asking Jack Roberts, Len Bergstein, and Robert Eisinger for advice for the candidates.

For Smith, they advise him to "show off your record" (not that he actually has any major accomplishments):

Democratic lobbyist Len Bergstein is puzzled as to why Smith has not been touting his own accomplishments all along.

For Merkley, they advise him to "tell people what you will do for them":

"People will be looking for some solutions," Bergstein said. "They want someone who talks about people problems instead of candidate problems."

What do you think each candidate must do to win? What are you hoping to see tonight? Are there issues that deserve more coverage?

John McCain and Sarah Palin have been desperately trying to tie Barack Obama to William Ayres - a 60s radical who has since become a professor and Chicago "citizen of the year" nominee.

But if guilt-by-association is an acceptable standard for the McCain campaign, says MSNBC's Keith Olbermann, then what do we make of one of McCain's most stalwart supporters?

It's a story first reported by the Oregonian's Jeff Mapes (on his blog, back in April), and covered here at BlueOregon.

In 1993, John McCain was the keynote speaker at a banquet for the anti-gay hate group, the Oregon Citizens Alliance. Prior to his speech, Marylin Shannon offered a prayer in praise of a woman who shot a Navy veteran and doctor who happened to work at an abortion clinic. The judge who later sentenced the shooter for a string of clinic bombings made it very clear: "You are a terrorist."

As I wrote in April:

And yes, Marylin Shannon later became a state senator, a state GOP official, and a 2008 McCain delegate.

Here's Keith Olbermann's take, last night:

Candidates Gone Wild is coming up on Monday. If you not sure if you want to come or don't know what to expect, check out some video from the primary-election edition:

Amanda Fritz:

Sam Adams and Randy Leonard:

Charles Lewis:

Tickets available at Candidates Gone Wild's website.

Obama has led a solid attack against the McCain health care proposal. By illustrating (in each debate so far) that the $5,000 tax cut would be accompanied by a tax increase on employer health benefits, he has shown this bait and switch to be a bad idea.

What he needs to do is raise the question: how would this $5,000 tax credit help John McCain?

It wouldn't.

If John McCain were not in the Senate, he would be unable to get health insurance coverage, due to his many pre-existing conditions. Seriously, what for-profit health care plan would want to insure a 72-year-old cancer survivor?

That $5,000 tax credit that McCain touts so highly would be useless for him, and for many Americans, under the current system.

But there is a way to insure the healthy and unhealthy alike.

One of the most rampant causes of waste in our health care system was brought up in last night's debate. There is no centralized computer system that houses all of your medical records in one place. Anytime you apply for health insurance, or life insurance, or sometimes even for a job, your medical records have to be collected from all the places you've ever taken your body for a tune-up.

(Medical Information Bureau notwithstanding, of course, but insurance companies need more than a six-digit code to describe a diagnosis and operation accurately enough to give an insurance rate.)

Many hospitals and clinics have their own computer systems (if any), and collating all of this data is costly. Extremely costly.

A centralized medical database, an online clearinghouse where your ongoing health history could be uploaded, would eliminate this problem.

While the prospect of a Big-Brother-like computer warehouse with all your health history is a spooky concept, would it really be so frightening if your health insurance was free for the rest of your life?

Imagine, if a 72-year-old cancer survivor had no worry about getting health care coverage. Would he have anything to hide? Or would he prefer a $5,000 tax credit to go toward a health insurance policy he could never get?

Imagine you had $100 to donate to political campaigns in Oregon, and that you've already done your bit for Barack Obama and Jeff Merkley.

Where should the $100 go? What races are tight, winnable, but less funded than they need to be? Less visible than they ought to be?

Should some of it go to Kurt Schrader to hold onto Darlene Hooley's seat in the U.S. Congress?

Should it all go to Oregon House or Senate races? Which ones? Are there statewide offices of concern? Particular local or county races of special importance?

Should it be split up, or all given in one place?

Should a slightly less parochial thought be given to Washington state, e.g. Darcy Burner or Chris Gregoire?