XPost: or.politics, or.general, pdx.general   
   From: tedm@toybox.placo.com   
      
    wrote in message   
   news:1170282192.046640.278950@s48g2000cws.googlegroups.com...   
   > Smith's gotten in the way and blocked too many progressive reforms to   
   > count, and he's been a tool in W's woodshed far to many times. Can the   
   > Dems beat him in Oregon in 2008?  Hell yea.   
      
   Which would be absolfricking lutely stupid.   
      
   Oregon has not one whit of control over whether the Democrats or   
   the Republicans are in control of the Senate in any given year.   
      
   The smartest thing we can do as a state is to have 1 Democratic   
   senator, and 1 Republicsn senator, and continue to re-elect them until   
   both of them are so fucking old they have to carry them in and out of   
   Senate chambers on stretchers.   
      
   There are only 2 things that matter in the Senate - if your a member of   
   the ruling party or not, and how senior a member you are.   
      
   The senior members of the ruling party - by senate rules - get the   
   absolute creme-de-la-creme of the committee assignments.  Those   
   assignments determine how much money comes back from the   
   Feds to our state.   
      
   By all means, if you like more money flowing out of the State to the   
   Feds, continue to toss senators out of office every few years.  The   
   states that have figured this out will be laughing their asses off at you.   
      
   Ted   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)