I was wrong

A year and a half ago, Gordon Smith decided that we should pull our troops out of Iraq by the end of the summer.

When he cast that vote, I wrote that I could no longer support him as a United States Senator, and that he would not receive my vote in the 2008 election.

That was stupid, and I was wrong. Call me a squish, or inconsistent, or hypocritical, or whatever label you want, but I'm changing my mind. I will vote for Gordon Smith in the 2008 election. I may disagree with Gordon Smith on some things, but he is more conservative than not, and his opponent will be nothing more than a rubber stamp for Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi and Barack Obama.

Actually, I'm not changing my mind so much as I'm reverting to my usual philosophy, which is one of pragmatism.

Politics is never a game in which someone is always right or always wrong (although some are more right than others), and you certainly don't get such black-and-white choices on the ballot. You (or at least I) vote for the person who is closest to my position and has a chance to win.

This is why I voted for Ron Saxton instead of Mary Starrett, because Ron Saxton could get a plurality of the vote and Mary Starrett could not. And it also means I voted for Ron Saxton instead of not voting, because that would give another advantage to Ted Kulongoski, who I definitely did not support.

It means I will vote for John McCain instead of Chuck Baldwin or Bob Barr, because John McCain can get a plurality of the vote. And it also means I will vote for John McCain instead of not voting, because that gives another advantage to Barack Obama, who I definitely do not support.

And it means I will vote for Gordon Smith instead of Dave Brownlow, because Gordon Smith can get a plurality of the vote. And it also means I will vote for Gordon Smith instead of not voting, because that gives another advantage to Jeff Merkley, who I definitely do not support.

Above, I said that I disagree with Gordon Smith on some things, and I will continue to communicate those disagreements with him. On his decision to pull our troops out of Iraq, I told him that if he went through with that vote, I could not support his re-election. Now that I'm changing that decision, I acknowledge the downside -- that any similar future threat will not mean much.

But I also have to ask: how often would Jeff Merkley and I agree, and how likely would he be to change his mind when I disagreed with him? If I agree with Gordon Smith 80 percent of the time and with Jeff Merkley 20 percent of the time, which is better?

As Ronald Reagan is said to have uttered, "The person who agrees with you 80 percent of the time is a friend and an ally — not a 20 percent traitor." That applies to Gordon Smith.

Tuesday contrarian takes

Contrarian Take #1: If Gordon Smith has no better issues to tackle in a campaign ad than Jeff Merkley's office furniture, he deserves to lose. That is a lame ad, and a lame issue.

Contrarian Take #2: I have no dog in this fight, knowing nothing about the candidates. That said, those people who are making an issue out of Gresham Police Chief Carla Piluso wearing her police uniform in an ad for the Multnomah County Commission race need to get a hobby -- needlepoint, bocce ball, something. Because this complaint is a sure indication of people with too much time on their hands. She's the chief of police, for goodness sake! Get a life, people.

This will accomplish...what?

While I was away for Spring Break, I see the junior senator from the state of Oregon completely imploded. Gordon Smith voted in favor of a troop pullout within four months, distinguishing himself as the only Senate Republican willing to tell al-Queda how long it had to wait before it could start a full-scale slaughter of Iraqi civilians.

With that vote, Sen. Smith lost my support in 2008. I won't vote for his Democratic opponent (whomever it may be), but I won't support Smith, either.

However, the Northwest Republican rumor mill reported that Bill Sizemore may be considering a primary election challenge against Sen. Smith next Spring.

You remember Sizemore, don't you? In the 1998 governor's election, he won exactly one county against Incumbent John Kitzhaber, and that was tiny Malheur County, where he beat Kitzhaber by 363 votes. Overall, Kitzhaber beat Sizemore by 383,000 votes out of 1.1 million total votes cast, or more than 34 percentage points.

The author of a plethora of tax- and union-related ballot measures, Sizemore has been the favorite whipping boy for the unions. That included a multi-million-dollar racketeering judgment against him that took almost seven years for him to clear his name in the courts.

Sizemore is, in some respects, the Oregon version of Newt Gingrich; good ideas that are obscured by personal foibles. (I'm not saying Sizemore has Gingrich's ability to communicate or to think of creative policy ideas, only that his efforts are blunted by his personal issues.)

Run Bill Sizemore against Gordon Smith, and what happens? Most likely, Smith will clean the floor with him, because Republicans may agree with Sizemore's priorities, but I don't think they're willing to vote for someone with his history. It will mark Sizemore's second effort to "send a message" through personal candidacy, and will mark his second devastating defeat.

The only possible impact on Gordon Smith will be that he has to spend some of his campaign money to ward off a primary challenger (though I don't see that being a lot); and he has to defend his Senate votes earlier in the campaign season, thus exposing his inconsistencies to a press and a Democratic Party that are both eager to trumpet those issues.

Although doubtful, there is another possible outcome stemming from a Sizemore-Smith matchup: perhaps Republican resentment against Smith is broader than I imagine, and Sizemore squeaks past Smith in the primary. What happens then? Sizemore gets pasted by the Democratic machine even worse than in 1998, and becomes even more of a laughing stock.

It will also be a knock-down blow for Oregon's Republican Party, which will once again demonstrate its lack of effective candidates and organization and will cause independents to lose faith in the party's legitimacy.

Gordon Smith, for all his maverick status, is still a more reliable conservative vote than any Democrat (including Joe Lieberman) will ever be, and in many respects I hope he wins reelection in '08. But regardless, a Bill Sizemore candidacy would be a disaster -- for him, for his priorities, and for his party.