With a new campaign manager, Avakian moves SecState race forward

After months of coping with what appeared to be the symptoms of a stalled campaign, State Sen. Brad Avakian's bid for Secretary of State finally seems to be taking shape.

Avakian has just hired a new campaign manager named Michael Clarke, a young campaign guru who only arrived in Oregon a couple of weeks ago, but who has experience working on legislative and congressional races in his home-state of Ohio, and most recently, in New Jersey.

Avakian, who faces three of his Senate colleagues in the Democratic primary - Kate Brown, Rick Metsger, and Vicky Walker - suffered some damage a few months ago when his name surfaced as a potential candidate to head the Department of Environmental Quality, a position many suspected would hold more interest for Avakian, who chaired the Environment and Natural Resources Committee in the Senate.

Avakian's name was subsequently removed from the Governor's short list of DEQ candidates, but it seems to have had at least a short-term detrimental impact on his fundraising.

Clarke expressed confidence, however, that there is still plenty of time before the May primary for Avakian's camp to win over voters and to dampen the prospects of Brown, who, at this point, is widely viewed as the frontrunner.

"Definitely there's some catching up to do in terms of fund-raising, but it's early yet, and remember, this isn't a presidential campaign that begins three years out," Clarke said. "Beginning this week, we'll also be rolling out some endorsements that I think are really going to open some eyes."

Clarke was also eager to reject the notion that Avakian was not taking the campaign as seriously as his opponents.

"Brad's running to win, and he's very serious about it, and I know that the rumor mill has produced a lot of strange stories like that he might run for governor, or that he's going to be appointed to the Oregon Supreme Court - but at this point I think it's key for us to reach out to the opinion-makers and to the people who need to know, so that they realize Brad is running to win this race," he said.

During joint appearances, the four candidates rarely, if ever, have displayed any sense of hostility, or even major disagreement, but among a crowded field of Democratic State Senators, Clarke said it was still important to draw distinctions, and pointed specifically to Avakian's leadership on the issue of "fusion voting."

Fusion voting allows candidates to run on multiple party lines, encouraging greater voter participation from third-party supporters, and allows voters to send a clear message about which issues are most important to them. For instance, Avakian could run as a Democrat, and as a Green Party candidate, and voters could vote for him on either line.

"Brad's sponsoring a bill to bring the system to Oregon, because he believes this is a way to give third-party voters a voice," Clarke explained.

In 2006, Clarke worked on Zack Space's successful US House bid to replace disgraced Ohio Republican Bob Ney, (perhaps best known for his weird mandate renaming french fries ‘freedom-fries'.) Ney fell victim to the far-reaching tentacles of Jack Abramoff, and resigned his seat, prompting a special GOP election.

Space's victory over State Sen. Joy Padgett, (who replaced Ney on the ballot after he pleaded guilty to conspiracy) was the largest victory any Democrat achieved in 2006 against an incumbent Republican - 62%-38%.

Ney is currently serving a 30 month sentence in a federal prison, (Not for the freedom fries debacle, but because of the conspiracy charges.)

Clarke said one critical component of a campaign like the one for Secretary of State, is the ability to transition from a district-wide mentality, to a state-wide one.

"It's probably hard on all these candidates when their campaign managers look at them and tell them that they can't win the race by knocking on doors," he said half jokingly. "We need to communicate with 1.5 million people, and you could knock on doors nonstop and still not make a dent."