Bob Packwood

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Some good news for Gordon Smith: Oregonians traditionally doesn’t vote out incumbent U.S. Senators. It’s been nearly forty years since a sitting Senator lost, and its only happened three times in state history.

That was in 1968, when Republican turned Independent turned Democrat Wayne Morse lost to Bob Packwood by 3,445 votes. Since voters began directly electing U.S. Senators in 1912, only two other incumbent Senators lost re-election bids: Republican Guy Gondon, 3,462 votes in 1954 (against Democrat Richard Neuberger), and Democrat George Chamberlain, who lost to Republican Robert Stanfield by 16,572 in 1920.

Some good news for Gordon Smith: Oregonians traditionally doesn’t vote out incumbent U.S. Senators. It’s been nearly forty years since a sitting Senator lost, and its only happened three times in state history.

That was in 1968, when Republican turned Independent turned Democrat Wayne Morse lost to Bob Packwood by 3,445 votes. Since voters began directly electing U.S. Senators in 1912, only two other incumbent Senators lost re-election bids: Republican Guy Gondon, 3,462 votes in 1954 (against Democrat Richard Neuberger), and Democrat George Chamberlain, who lost to Republican Robert Stanfield by 16,572 in 1920.

New York, where Gov. Eliot Spitzer is involved in a prostitution ring, still has a ways to go before it can catch up to Oregon’s modern day political sex scandals. Robert Packwood served in the United States Senate from 1968 until he was forced to resign in 1995 following allegations that he abused, harassed and sexually assaulted a group of women, including lobbyists and staffers. And Neil Goldschmidt, who served as Governor, U.S. Secretary of Transportation, and Mayor of Portland, met with considerable disgrace after he admitted to having a sexual relationship with a fourteen-year-old babysitter while in his thirties.

Craig Campbell, the only prospective statewide candidate that has surfaced in past weeks, has told his lobby buddies he’s only “contemplating” the treasurer’s race until the party organization can find a different sacrificial lamb to take his place, as he has no interest in that position (or pay cut).

Bob Packwood was the last challenger to oust an incumbent U.S. Senator -- in 1968Some good news for Gordon Smith: Oregonians traditionally doesn’t vote out incumbent U.S. Senators. It’s been nearly forty years since a sitting Senator lost, and its only happened four times in state history.

The younger generation of Oregonians may not remember Wayne Morse, our Senator for 24 years and nationally prominent as a maverick who switched parties and fervently opposed the war in Vietnam.