OR-Sen: Novick Campaign Attempts to Manufacture Sham Endorsement

Last July, when Speaker Jeff Merkley entered the US Senate race, Steve Novick promised Oregon voters an “inspired primary where each of us makes our case for why we must replace Gordon Smith and presents our respective visions.” While there were early signs Novick might not be planning to run such a campaign, things have taken a recent turn for the worse

All the signs point to members of the Novick campaign attempting to create a local chapter of the Progressive Democrats of America with the intention of receiving its endorsement:

On Tuesday, the Merkley campaign got an email inviting Jeff Merkley to an endorsement meeting this Saturday for the Portland chapter of the Progressive Democrats of America.

Four days notice is pretty tight for an endorsement meeting, but that was only the first red flag.

The email was sent by the “State Coordinator” of the Progressive Democrats of America…. Liz Kimmerly. Who is Liz Kimmerly? She's a senior staffer for the Novick for Senate campaign.

That's right: The endorsement process by which the PDA would endorse a U.S. Senate candidate is being organized by the staff of one of the candidates.

Further implicating the Novick campaign staff, it appears that the local chapter planned to disregard the national organization's guidelines for endorsements, which require “a written questionnaire prior to the interview and 30 days notice to all local PDA members about the interview meeting.” And perhaps most unsettling, the national PDA says the Portland chapter was a mere “48 hours” old at the time the endorsement meeting was announced.

Apparently, the Novick campaign is “so desperate for their first organizational endorsement that they tried to fake one” by “setting up a shotgun chapter of a national organization in order to get their endorsement.” If nothing else, this whole ordeal is embarassing to the Novick campaign; these aren't the sort of dirty campaign tricks Democrats should be using against each other in a party primary.

Update: While nothing takes away from the hard facts of the matter, it's worth noting for disclosure reasons that Kari Chisholm, author of the BlueOregon piece, works as a consultant for the Merkley campaign. In this instance however, the message remains unchanged and speaks for itself regardless of the messenger.

20 thoughts on “OR-Sen: Novick Campaign Attempts to Manufacture Sham Endorsement”

  1. what’s the scoop on the independent that is running for the OR Sen seat? It looks like that’ll make a dem win impossible?

  2. Steve Novick seemed to have the makings of a Feingold/Wellstone-style progressive, someone who would never cave to the mealy-mouthed DLC way of thinking.  It truly is a shame that his campaign would shoot itself in the foot this way.  I really had high hopes for him; this is very disappointing.

  3. I have had this story up on my blog since Steves’ broke the story yesterday morning and I really find it deeply disturbing that a progressive Democrat would employ such repulsive and underhanded means.

    How complicit is Steve Novick in this huge breach of ethics by his staff? Did Novick know? Did his campaign? Did they put her up to it or just tacitly approve of these immoral tactics? If she is rogue (which I don’t think she is, considering Novick accepted the interview invitation), what actions will they take to hold her accountable for what is clearly an unethical conflict of interest?

    The details Blue Oregon revealed late yesterday about how the chapter was only created 48hrs earlier, coupled with reports that Oregon members of the Progressive Democrats of America were not contacted about the endorsement hearing, show just how dirty these tactics are, and that they are even worse than the initial reports by Steves. We need to replace the Karl Rove culture in Washington with people that have respect for fair play and who will restore honest and progressive discourse to our nation’s capital. With unethical tactics like this it is clear that Steve Novick cannot be trusted with that crucial task.

    If she was acting alone, Novick needs to fire Kimmerly immediately, and if Novick was complicit, voters should punish him for this unethical Rove-like behavior at the ballot box this May.  I am just glad that we have a real progressive, Jeff Merkley, as a much better alternative to Novick.

  4. I think there will turn out to be a lot more to the story on this than we have so far from the online media consultant to the Merkley campaign. Let’s not jump the gun on a Friday Surprise just yet…

  5. Even if the quick establishment of the PDA chapter with Ms. Kimmerly as coordinator and the apparent rush to hold an endorsement meeting were simply poorly thought out, it raises questions about how the Novick campaign is being run.  Surely somebody in the campaign should have recognized that there would be questions raised by this situation.  

    To defeat Gordon Smith in November, we need to make sure that the campaign organization is just as good (if not better than) the candidate it is backing.  Jeff Merkley is a fantastic candidate, and the Merkley campaign is proving to be an excellent organization supporting him.

  6. Aside from the (at best and most charitable interpretation) dumb and improper thing Liz did, the larger issue this incident exposes which I and others have touched upon already, is the questions it raises about Novick’s skill-set at building a team, know how to lead it, his skill at spotting the red flags as they pop-up and steer clear of the land-mines and ethical traps (or even the appearance of such ethical conflicts), and how to work within a team (while being responsible for it and leading it) to be effective not just as a candidate, but where he to hold office, being responsible and effective as an elected official, particularly at this level (United States Senate).

    While the candidate/elected official are the leader and are ultimately responsible, they are actually just the most visible and central member of a team if they want to be effective at all. No matter how smart or intelligent they are, at this level it is impossible to be effective and responsible as a one-man team. As Steve Maurer over in the BlueOregon thread commented, which I agree with 100%…

    Bad: Liz Kimmerly trying to pull this fast one. Inexcusable. Period.

    Worse: Jake Weigler (Novick’s campaign manager) chiming in the thread on BlueOregon before all the facts are known and a communications strategy is in place to handle this.

    Worser: The attempt by Jake and other pro-Novick partisans to shift blame by attacking Kari Chisholm (the author of the piece on BlueOregon giving a lot more first-hand reportage on what the facts are). Do they seriously think people are that stupid? That that would work?

    Worst: The inescapable conclusion that Novick has simply not put together a remotely credible campaign organization. Massive tin ear, bunker mentality, shaky ethics, maladroit media management – this is the crew that’s going to take on Gordo and the Republican attack machine?

    As Steve Noick is a good guy, I hope he can address these issues and problems with his campaign. Without going negative, I have been warning and hinting at real problems with his candidacy, such as the entire negative approach those around (and within) his campaign has taken. It was a factor (but not the only one) which made me reconsider my support and look seriously at the Merkley campaign, which I am now a proud supporter of. The tells this sort of thing speaks to, (the lack of a solid team around him and his not addressing that shortcoming) are other factor (and major ones) which I withdrew my support, and I am now fully, and without reservation backing Jeff Merkley who has an exceptional, and proven record of being not just a rock-solid progressive, but extremely effective and professional.

  7. I would just like to reiterate that this is a disappointment not just for those supporting Novick, but for those of us that support Merkley (like me) and Oregon Democrats at large.  As Trent writes in the introduction, both Steve Novick and Jeff Merkley had committed to a spirited primary campaign based on the issues and their respective visions.  

    Until now, it seemed that both had come out with bold, progressive ideas for the future of our state and had run campaigns on the merits of those ideas.  The amateur actions of Novick’s online director have inhibited Novick’s ability to continue that kind of campaign.  What’s worse, the neither the campaign nor the candidate has yet responded proactively to these allegations.

    Oregon Democrats deserve better than that.  It is my hope that Novick will come forward and take the responsible course of action necessary to put things closer to right again.

  8. This whole thing is a terrible mess and shame. Any time something like this happens, have to rub our eyes and double-take.

    I hope all of our questions get answered, as I’m extremely concerned over how this whole process has played out. I’d recommend everyone go take a look at the post and subsequent thread over at BlueOregon (http://www.blueoregon.com/2008/01/fake-endorsemen.html) to see what I mean.

    Luckily, Oregon has Jeff Merkley running in the same primary…  

  9. what we have here are so-far unsupported allegations from a Merkley consultant, based on a telephone call we are relying on his transcription for.

    I’d like to hear from PDA national before making any judgements on what’s going on. Simply being chair of a PDA chapter doesn’t seem prejudicial, and the facts around the endorsement–timing, announcement, structure–are unclear.

    It’s a PDA process; PDA should officially weigh in. We’re on a holoday weekend, however. I would counsel patience.

  10. This release from the national field coordinator (essentially Kimmerly’s “boss” in the organization) pretty clearly indicates that the national sees no conflict of interest. In fact, they praise Kimmerly as a good operative that started organizing Oregon months ago. They also discuss the role of Moses Ross, who they are clear would handle any endorsement process.

    So too on that tip, the comments make no indication of misconduct or an emphasis on following procedure. To the contrary, the idea of an endorsement (which would just be for the chapter, since the national typically endorses just in the House) was debated openly and delayed. Doesn’t sound very secret.

    The point is that if there was such a conflict of interest, it would behoove PDA to take steps to resolve it. They’re doing the opposite, standing behind Kimmerly as coordinator. And if there was some strange business involving a local endorsement, it would behoove them to correct it. They didn’t.

    That says more to me than the conclusions jumped to by a paid consultant to the Merkley campaign.

  11. are you paid by the Novick Campaign?  I know you are an early supporter just wondered if you were staff.  I am not in OR and do not have a dog in this fight but the problem for Novick as I see it is that his online supporters have been uniformily agressive and negative (lots of implications that anyone who has had any career at all in politics is necessarily corrupt) and this incident reeks of trying to put one over on people.  I was not at the meeting but the reports I’ve seen indicate that Kimmerly failed to identify herself as on Novick’s campaign.  If that is true (and I don’t know if it is) that is dirty whether or not PDA calls it a true conflict of interest.  Why has neither Kimmerly or Novick had something to say about this?

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