DPO bucks Smith's FEC complaint, releases new Merkley ad

The Democratic Party of Oregon is persevering with its "issues" ad campaign and released a new ad on Thursday featuring Jeff Merkley, despite the complaint U.S. Sen. Gordon Smith's campaign had filed with the FEC against the party-sponsored ads.

The DPO ads have become controversial because, while the DPO says these ads are for the purpose of addressing issues in the election, they feature a political candidate. If the FEC finds that these ads support Merkley's candidacy, then Merkley and the DPO will be in violation of campaign finance laws regarding how much money a party can give a candidate.

On Thursday, Smith's campaign manager called on Merkley to cease and desist working with the DPO on issues advertising.

"You once stated that ‘honest, accountable governments begin with honest, accountable campaigns,'" Kochvar said. "I agree and hope that you will join Senator Smith in completing this campaign in an honest and publicly accountable manner."

But a Merkley campaign spokesman said that the continuance of the ads was up to the Democratic Party of Oregon, not Merkley.

"They asked him to participate in the ad, and he did," Matt Canter said.

Marc Siegel, spokesman for the DPO, declined to comment on how many more issue ads featuring Merkley the party planned to release, or if this "issues" campaign will continue through November, but he did say that the DPO was not concerned about Smith's complaint.

"They filed a complaint that they know is legally frivolous," he said. "A serious candidate would not spend his time on a complaint he knows is legally frivolous; he would spend it talking about the issues."

The latest ad focuses on government spending, and follows a similar theme of previous ads by accusing Washington of being broken and lauding the accomplishments of the Democratic-led state House, which Merkley was in charge of.

Siegel also addressed why the ads continue to stress that Washington D.C. is broken, despite the fact that the Democrats control the federal government's legislative branch.

"The damage done by President Bush will take many more years to undo," Siegel said. "And with Democrats taking control of congress, look at how much closer we are to getting out of Iraq, to combating global climate change. We need to elect Democrats to shift the emphasis from Bush's poor decision making to finding solutions to the problems the country faces."