Smith and Merkley hit the screen

Senate candidates Sen. Gordon Smith and Jeff Merkley have jumped right in to internet campaigning, each releasing their own videos this week.

Smith went for his theme of the week: that Jeff Merkley failed to help Oregon’s children obtain health care because of excessive partisanship, while Senator Smith has a list of bipartisan accomplishments. Indeed, much of Smith’s bipartisan work has been on the health care front: he helped Sen. Ted Kennedy craft SCHIP and did work to find funding for a proposed Oregon Health Plan.

The bulk of the video is a cut of the Speaker at the Portland City Club in 2007, actually praising the Senator for his work with Gov. Ted Kulongoski on the Healthy Kids Initiative, a bill that was eventually referred to the voters and was defeated.

Smith seems to blame the entirety of that failure on Merkley’s stewardship in the Legislature, a sentiment which has been vigorously disputed by a number of organizations that worked in favor of the legislation.

Merkley’s video has a bit more youthful appeal… at least to those who are in the age bracket that remembers VH1’s pop-up video.

The spot takes a commercial released by Smith several weeks ago, and imposes what Merkley’s campaign believes Smith should really be saying.

Smith intones “I’ve shown a better way, thinking independently.” Merkley’s campaign draws in a pop-up box noting that “’Independence’ is voting with Bush 90% of the time.”

Of course 90% is a bit of an overstatement; Smith has had sessions where he’s adhered to GOP party line 90% of the time—usually prior to an election, which earns him a “I get it…in an election year” nod from the Merkley camp—although there are sessions during which he’s deviated from Republican orthodoxy as much as 72% of the time.