OR-Sen: Frohnmayer Drops Out

Big news out of Oregon:

John Frohnmayer says he is dropping his bid for the U.S. Senate.

Frohnmayer had planned to run as the Independent Party’s candidate in a three-way race against Republican Senator Gordon Smith and Democrat Jeff Merkley.

But Frohnmayer said Tuesday he has had a tough time rounding up campaign money and grass-roots support.

This is great news for Democrat Jeff Merkley, as Frohnmayer was running a left-of-center campaign that included calls for the impeachment of President Bush and sharp criticism of his administration’s constitutional abuses.

Frohnmayer, who was chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts during the first Bush administration, might have been enough to tip the balance back to Smith in a close election.

(Hat-tip: Blue Oregon)

39 thoughts on “OR-Sen: Frohnmayer Drops Out”

  2. But even before this I was becoming more confident in taking this seat. If Barack is going to help a senate candidate anywhere it is in Oregon. I think that if at the very least Merkley can keep it close then presidential coattails will drag him over the line. Same goes for MN and the situation there and in Maine to a lesser extent.

  3. Last I heard Jeff Merkley was still calling for “investigations.” It's the Pelosi approved talking point that all establishment Dems are pretending to follow. In reality, they are content to let Cheney/Bush continue their reign of error. My Representative, Earl Blumenauer is shameless in his sham “support” for holding Bush, Cheney & Co. accountable. Some recent history.

    Sunday, September 9, 2007 Impeachment back on the table – Gosh, you leave the country for the weekend and all hell freezes over. (I blame global warming – and Canada!) Congress got an earful last month as our senators and representatives (and the Iraqi government) took time off the spend the hot August nights back home. Where our leaders had the courage to hold public forums, their constituents kept reminding them of an inconvenient truth. When the President so willfully breaks the law, defies the Constitution and takes powers unto himself befitting a king or a dictator, impeachment isn't merely an option, it's a must. We rejected Nancy Pelosi's assessment that “impeachment is off the able” and that message must have gone back to DC with the dogged Dems. In near simultaneous statements last week, Representative's Blumenauer and Hooley from Oregon have both put impeachment back on the table. [more…]

    Jeff Merkley was using the same talking points the same day as Hooley and Blumenauer. 

    Thursday, September 6, 2007 Drinking Merkally – I asked the Speaker simply if he had a plan to bring Bush and Cheney to justice. It was the candidate who brought up the I-word (not Iraq). A month ago, Merkley said he would “continue to be educated [regarding impeachment]” but said his “energies have to go into bringing [the troops] home from Iraq.” To those who were listening carefully, the first fruits of Jeff Merkley's education could be sensed. While not wanting to call for impeachment “hearings” in Congress he did go so far as to say that “investigations” into possible impeachable offenses are warranted. As with the gay marriage debate, i don't really care what you call it. This should be signaled as a major point of progress now that Oregon's Speaker of the House is getting in behind thousands of Oregonians he hopes to represent by voicing support for bringing the Commander in Thief to justice. [more…]

     How does Merkley's current position differ from the do-nothing Democrats currently running Congress?

  4. We’ve got to get rid of Smith and since the primary Merkley is the only guy who is even remotely in a position to do it. There was no way Frohnmayer could be anything but a spoiler, EVER, and looks like he finally figured that out.

    Hey, I was a Novick supporter, and I still think Novick would have been a stronger candidate against Smith (Smith doesn’t win on a left-right axis of support), but Merkley’s our guy now and we just have to suck it up and vote for him, even those of us who are not enthusiastic.

  5. I came clicked the 38 new posts thinking, holy shit, how did people have 38 different things to say about this piece of news that most didn’t really care or take into consideration anyway.  lol.  

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