Perhaps the sharpest contrast between Merkley and Novick was drawn and underscored by their answers to the question of who they would vote for if they couldn't vote for themselves.

Merkley immediately and emphatically stated that he'd vote for Novick - who also happens to be the one candidate who has attacked Merkley mercilessly for months now.

Novick immediately and emphatically state that he'd vote for... Frohnmayer? Then when told that as an Independent, Frohnmayer won't be on the DEMOCRATIC ballot, Novick paused for what seemed like an eternity, whined a bit about Merkley campaigning against him, and eventually settled on Neville.

Neither Neville nor Frohnmayer have a snowball's chance in hell of even getting Senator Smith's attention, let alone providing a credible challenge to Smith.

Clearly, Jeff Merkley is 100% dedicated to defeating Senator "votes 90% with Bush" Smith.

Unfortunately the same simply cannot be said of Novick, as his answers prove.

The second video is the one that really put me off. I want the Democrat to beat Gordon Smith in Nov. and I don't want any Democratic politician to be lending any weight to an independent candidacy. I know it's selfish but I truly believe that if Frohnmeyer enters the race we're going to have a much tougher time beating Smith here in Oregon.

As an Oregonian I have decided to back Merkley. He's been a great progressive leader in the House here, and I think he'll be a very strong U.S. Senator that we'll be able to depend on. You may think he has a conventional political approach, but he's been a very determined fighter for progressive bills in the Oregon House. Considering the current state of the Senate Dem leadership which has lacked courage on many important issues, we need Merkley to bring back some passion to the Senate.

that novick actually says he will vote for the eventual dem nominee

   Questioner: Speaker Merkley, if you could not vote for yourself, who would you vote for?

   Merkley: I'd vote for Steve.

   Questioner: Steve, who would you vote for?

   Novick: I'd vote for John Frohnmayer.

   Questioner: He's not in this room.  [Reminding Novick that he has to pick a fellow Democrat for the purposes of this question.]

   [Twelve-second-long dead silent pause.]

   Novick: I have a very hard time answering that.

   Questioner: You're gonna have to make a hell of a lot harder decisions when you're on the floor of the Senate.

   [Thirty-second-long dead silent pause.  Very uncomfortable.]

   Novick: I'd wait several weeks because I'd want to see whether Speaker Merkley continues to run the kind of campaign that he's run against me.  If he's, in fact, planning to attack me, as his poll already has as a pro-tax advocate, to continue to attack me for a 1998 comment about Ralph Nader, to attack me as--

   Questioner: OK, given what you know now.

   Novick: Given what I know now?  I would vote for Candy Neville.

   [...A few moments later, after Candy Neville's response to the question.]

   Questioner: You like Frohnmayer?  Why not a Democrat?

   Novick: I think that John Frohnmayer, with all due respect, has presented a thorough discussion of the major issues based on the {indecipherable word(s)} and his positions are extremely progressive.

   Questioner: Isn't that just another example of your being willing to throw away a vote, which you did with Nader?

   Novick: I was saying that- I am in the race- I was saying, if- I was interpreting it as what is my preference.  If, what's- I will vote for the Democratic nominee.  But if I could vote for the person I think is best qualified other than myself, I would vote for John Frohnmayer.  But, after the nomination is determined, I will vote for the Democratic nominee.

and that his "Attack on bloggers" was actually a comment on "nasty back-and-forths between bloggers"

Questioner: The blogs - do you think they've helped or hurt the Democratic nominee's chance to win in November.

Speaker Jeff Merkley: I think that the blogs help because they are going to spread a lot of information.  We have some incredibly progressive talent here.  And that word is going to spread about the fact that Oregon has enormously progressive candidates to take on Senator Smith.

Questioner: (partially inaudible) But all of these nasty back and forths on the Blue Oregons and the Loaded Oryguns.

...

Steve Novick: Uh, I have no idea. I think that they provide information to some people. They're also a way for a number of people to waste a vast amount of time. But probably they're the only ones that suffer from that.

I think that the choice in the primary is becoming increasingly clear to voters.  And while it is certainly a contrast in styles, I think it may be an even starker contrast in the commitment to defeat Gordon Smith in November.

Choice One: We have a candidate--Steve Novick--who's often made highly critical remarks of his allies leading up to and during this campaign, only to regret them later (either out of principle or political expediency).

He's admitted he's a loose cannon, and that he goes over the top frequently to make a point. And that causes some damage. He's called Obama a 'fraud' and 'uninspiring', Hillary a 'traitress', Richardson a 'shameless panderer', and Darlene Hooley a 'peddler of lies'. And now this about blogs.

Yet Steve Novick has recently said that he worries about 'uniting progressives' for the General Election. Then why does he prefer independent John Frohnmayer over Jeff Merkley, as he said in this same interview?

Choice Two: Fortunately, we have Jeff Merkley. Jeff's served for 10 years in the Oregon House and built the strongest progressive campaign in a long time to take back the Oregon Legislature. He took back 7 seats in two elections! And then, with a bare 31-29 majority, led the most productive, progressive session since the 1970s.

Jeff's the one uniting progressives to defeat Gordon Smith. And that's why he's supported by Planned Parenthood, Basic Rights Oregon, AFL-CIO, SEIU, the Sierra Club, the Oregon Nurses Association and so many more.

Here in Oregon, it's going to take everything we've got to beat Gordon Smith. We can't afford to have a nominee who attacks his allies.

We need Jeff Merkley, a strong progressive uniter, to beat Gordon Smith and take on special interests in the Senate.

Please join me in supporting Jeff Merkley for US Senate!

This is just another example, yet again, of Steve Novick sticking his foot firmly in his mouth.Novick wildly attacked Obama, Novick wildly attacked Darlene Hooley,Novick called Hillary a traitress Novick wildly attacked Bill Richardson. Novick irresponsibly said that he would vote for Frohnmyer, who, rather than the Democratic nominee is the best candidate not named Steve Novick.

This is far more than a pattern and if our nominee, it would only be a matter of time before Novick says something he would call "undiplomatic" and I would call exceedingly stupid that Smith would use against Novick like a bludgeon. We cannot nominate someone so undisciplined to take on Gordon Smith or we will lose.

I liked Merkley's answer in the video. In contrast to Novick, Merkley responded that blogs are essential to the spread of information and used the opportunity to compliment the other three Democrats, saying that the candidates in the race represented amazing progressive talent. I am glad that Oregonians have a great option for people that like candidates like Obama that unite people to bring about change. That candidate is Jeff Merkley.

Chris,

We hear you and we love the blogs. I can't speak for what most candidates feel, but Steve is a former blogger and has great respect for the medium. As you mentioned, he posted an apology on his own blog over the weekend after realizing the trouble his poorly chosen words caused. I'd like to call out a key sentence from Steve's apology because I think it's illustrated nicely by the comments we're seeing on this post right now:

In my own primary, we've seen bloggers who are typically allies divided into increasingly personal and repetitive fights that I worry do little to help reach a broader audience or advance our cause.

If you look at the previous comments in this thread you'll see people who spam every blog that mentions the race in any way with pro-Merkley platitudes and anti-Novick bile. I won't call anybody out by name here, but guys, you know who you are.

I know most of the people in this discussion have already read Steve's apology, and from what I can tell many of them are already partisans who have made up their minds in the primary. But for those of you who haven't, here's his post reproduced in full:

In the Willamette Week endorsement interview the other day, I gave a pretty dumb answer to a question about the impact of blogs on politics. Some folks online are blowing my comments up as a betrayal of the netroots, so I wanted to take a moment to apologize for my statement and clarify what I was trying to say.

We were asked: "The blogs ... do you think they've helped or hurt the Democratic nominee's chance to win in November?" Given the editor's additional comments, I took this to mean, "Has all the back-and-forth between the candidates' partisans on the blogs so far helped or hurt the cause?"

The truth is that blogs and the netroots are doing a lot to beat Gordon Smith and they are doing a lot to help my campaign. I was proud to attend the Yearly Kos conference last year and be recognized as a netroots candidate. I've blogged here on my site, on Daily Kos, Huffington Post and Loaded Orygun. And I'm incredibly thankful for all of the online support I've received and the value of the blogs in exposing just how out of step Gordon Smith's record is with the priorities of regular Oregonians.

My concern, which I agree came out very poorly, was whether the internal fights between like-minded progressives can distract us from the larger task of taking back our country. In my own primary, we've seen bloggers who are typically allies divided into increasingly personal and repetitive fights that I worry do little to help reach a broader audience or advance our cause. Of course, as I noted in my comments, this is (hopefully) really just a loss to those individuals, but I worry about the cost to personal relationships and uniting progressives in the general election. Kossacks have been having a similar discussion over the past month about the back and forth in the presidential race. And it was in that context that I thinking when I responded to the question. (I feel quite sure that's how Willamette Week intended the question, too.)

That being said, of course blogs and the netroots have been a huge boon to progressive activism. The ability to connect people across geographical distances, demand transparency in our government and media, bundle small contributors to give regular folks a fundraising voice in national politics - these are all transformative developments in politics today that have been made possible by the internet and online activists. I am sorry for my poorly chosen words caused this misunderstanding.

Thanks for listening.

Andrew Gorry
Online Director
Novick for Senate