Big shoes empty
in
Oregon
After 28 years, the
door to both of Oregon’s senate seats has swung wide open. The race
to replace Republican powerhouses Mark Hatfield, who has announced
his retirement after November, and Bob Packwood, forced to resign,
begins with the Jan. 30 election for Packwood’s
spot.
Because many see the race for Packwood’s
seat as a bellwether for all Senate hopefuls in 1996, it has
captured national attention. So far, the contest between Democratic
Rep. Ron Wyden and Republican Gordon Smith, president of the state
senate and owner of a food processing plant, has been bitter and
acrimonious. “Each candidate has pulled all sorts of devices to
demonize the other one,” says Sally Cross of Oregon Natural
Resources Council. Both campaigns have raised $2.5 million for a TV
war so ugly the candidates decided to give the public a two-day
reprieve from negative commercials over
Christmas.
Weeks before the deadline for mail
ballots, the two candidates remain in a dead
heat.
At the center of the showdown are
environmental issues ranging from logging to salmon. The Sierra
Club and the League of Conservation Voters quickly jumped into the
fray by raising more than $100,000 to defeat Smith. Their TV ads
blast him for 10 recent chemical spills at his frozen pea-packing
plant and his low 4 percent LCV scorecard for environmental votes
in 1995. In November, Smith fired back, charging salmon activists
with trying to depopulate Oregon from 3 million to 1 million
people. But more recently Smith has highlighted his ability as a
broker between environmentalists and business
interests.
Not everyone agrees that Wyden
promises a brighter future for Oregon’s environment. Native Forest
Council’s Tim Hermach says Wyden, who received an 89 percent LCV
score in 1994, has never been a leader on environmental issues.
Hermach adds, “The only environmental credibility Ron Wyden has is
that which we give him.”
Betsy Loyless of the
League of Conservation Voters says that backing Wyden is part of
the league’s national strategy to expose the Republicans’ war on
the environment. The league plans to spend an unprecedented
$800,000 to campaign against the worst environmental offenders in
1996.
Come November, the rest of the country will
vote on a record number of open Senate seats. Like Hatfield, nearly
half of the senators up for re-election have decided to
retire.
* Heather
Abel
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Big shoes empty in Oregon.
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