Wyden squeaks
in
Oregon Democrat Ron Wyden
eked out an 18,000-vote victory over State Sen. Gordon Smith in the
Jan. 30 election to replace Sen. Bob Packwood. With the national
media noting that environmental issues took center stage in the
race, environmentalists have been quick to tout Wyden’s victory as
part of a backlash against the GOP’s
agenda.
Polls show that “green” independents and
Republicans added to Wyden’s urban support – the Portland-based
veteran of the House of Representatives won virtually no rural
counties.
After spending over $200,000 to defeat
Smith, the D.C.-based League of Conservation Voters and the Sierra
Club now plan to apply tactics learned in Oregon to the upcoming
election cycle. In past years, they contributed a few thousand
dollars to many campaigns; this year, they’ll target key
races.
The groups will likely return to Oregon
for the Senate race to replace retiring Republican heavyweight Mark
Hatfield. Probable contenders include Rep. Peter DeFazio, a strong
environmentalist and Democrat who lost in the recent Senate primary
to Wyden, and arch-conservative businessman Bill Witt, who says
Smith was defeated because he didn’t run far enough to the right.
Republicans immediately pointed out the
narrowness of the victory in a state that has backed Democrats for
president and governor for years. “The razor-thin margin … in
Oregon demonstrates there is no place in the country Bill Clinton
and his Democrats can take for granted in 1996,” Haley Barbour,
chairman of the Republican National Committee told The New York
Times. A Philadelphia Inquirer editorial agrees: “(Oregon) is
loaded with tree-huggers and light on churchgoers.”
*Chip Giller
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Wyden squeaks in.
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