Steve Novick is a committed progressive taking on Gordon Smith for the U.S. Senate. You can find out more about the fighter with the hard left hook at his website and help support his campaign at ActBlue.

As you may know, I'm running for the United States Senate in Oregon because I'm really worried about the direction of the country. We face an awe-inspiring quintuple challenge of ending the war, stopping global warming, combating runaway economic inequality, reforming the health care system, and preventing the national debt from soaring out of control. We need to get moving on all of those issues -- and we needed to do so yesterday. To meet those challenges, we need political leaders who will be willing to take risks, willing to call for sacrifice, and be able to persuade the American people that their sacrifices will not be in vain.

That's why I'm voting for Barack Obama.

The Huffington Post (see full Huffington Post entry here)picked up Steve Novick's new and unusual campaign ad, referring to Harper's depiction of our fighter with a hard left hook:

Harper's magazine's Scott Horton writes, "One of the more unconventional races in the country this year may pit Democratic challenger Steve Novick against a distinguished Republican incumbent, Gordon Smith, for a U.S. Senate seat in Oregon. It wouldn't be hard to pick out Novick: he's 4'9" and has a steel hook in place of a left hand. And rather than view these traits as handicaps, the resilient, relentlessly upbeat Novick has made them his hallmark."

Watch the campaign ad below.

Steve Novick is a committed progressive taking on Gordon Smith for the U.S. Senate. You can find out more about the fighter with the hard left hook at his website and help support his campaign at ActBlue.

The Novick campaign today launched the first television advertising in Oregon U.S. Senate race. The spot, "To Tell the Truth" was produced by Steve Eichenbaum of Eichenbaum & Associates. Markos & Jerome wrote very highly about Eichenbaum in Crashing the Gate (excerpt here).

See this post in full to watch the youtube spot of this commercial.

Steve Novick, progressive Democrat and Oregonian running for U.S. Senate (see his website here or donate to the campaign), noted the sixth anniversary of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) and pledged to work to repeal the flawed legislation. He described it as a backdoor attempt to discredit public education in America.

Liz Kimmerly, Online Director for Steve Novick, posts the results from a comparison of Steve Novick and Jeff Merkley to Senator Jon Tester from Montana. Steve Novick is a committed progressive taking on Gordon Smith for the U.S. Senate. You can find out more about the fighter with the hard left hook at his (newly upgraded!) website and help support his campaign at ActBlue.

Steve Novick is a committed progressive taking on Gordon Smith for the U.S. Senate. You can find out more about the fighter with the hard left hook at his (newly upgraded!) website and help support his campaign at ActBlue.

Babe Ruth said that baseball is "the only real game." I’m not sure I’d go that far – I enjoy basketball, too – but I might say that baseball is the only game that matters. (Yes, you’re right, that’s a deliberate reference to the Clash.)

And of course, the sports events that matter most tend to be the ones that occurred in your childhood. So it was an incredible thrill for me to meet, in Baker City, a genuine American icon: Joe Rudi.

Steve Novick is a committed progressive taking on Gordon Smith for the U.S. Senate. You can find out more about the fighter with the hard left hook at his (newly upgraded!) website and help support his campaign at ActBlue.

In exciting news for Oregon Democrats, Steve Novick is just six points behind of Gordon Smith in a new poll (click here) - within its margin of error. This impressive showing provides another indication of how Steve's homegrown, grassroots campaign is catching fire and connecting with voters across Oregon.

Steve Novick is a committed progressive taking on Gordon Smith for the U.S. Senate. You can find out more about the fighter with the hard left hook at his (newly upgraded!) website and help support his campaign at ActBlue. Today, Steve responds to the NYT piece laying out Obama's strategy for Iran...

Senator Obama shares my deep concern about the attempts to produce nuclear weapons by a nation whose President has called for wiping Israel off the map. But he correctly recognizes that reckless saber-rattling is precluding constructive dialogue and diplomacy with Iran. Instead, he makes it clear that if Iran is willing to give up its nuclear program, and cooperate in fighting terrorism and ending the violence in Iraq, we will welcome Iran into the family of nations.
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Steve Novick is a committed progressive taking on Gordon Smith for the U.S. Senate. You can find out more about the fighter with the hard left hook at his website and help support his campaign at ActBlue.

Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Steve Novick calls on the Senate to refuse Mukasey's confirmation as Attorney General unless he rejects Bush's unconstitutional and inhumane use of torture.

Steve Novick is a committed progressive taking on Gordon Smith for the U.S. Senate. You can find out more about the fighter with the hard left hook at his website and help support his campaign at ActBlue.

Question: When it comes to the innocent children of undocumented immigrants, who is less caring, less thoughtful, and more willing to pander to the extreme right than Orrin Hatch, Sam Brownback and Trent Lott?

Answer: Oregon Senator Gordon Smith.

On Wednesday, Gordon Smith filibustered the DREAM Act, designed to give a limited group of children of undocumented immigrants a chance to go to college, serve in the military and perhaps earn legal status.

Steve Novick is a committed progressive taking on Gordon Smith for the U.S. Senate. You can find out more about the fighter with the hard left hook at his website and help support his campaign at ActBlue.

So I was going to give all of my kicker to Measure 49. Already have given some. But it seems that Measure 50 might have a tougher row to hoe, so I'm going to give a chunk of it to Measure 50.

Eventually, I'd think we need to have a conversation about putting kicker surpluses into a rainy day fund. But if we don't pass Measure 49, pretty soon every day in Oregon will be dark, dreary and overdeveloped.  And if we don't pass Measure 50, it will mean some very dark days for a lot of kids. So I think giving your kicker to 49 and 50 is consistent with the rainy-day concept.

You can give online to them right now here and here.

Gay Rights, Iran, the DPO Summit, the AFL-CIO Convention, Paul Krugman, the Talking Heads, the V-22 Osprey, Todd Haynes, Bob Dylan and the Idiocy of "Supply-Side Economics"

Steve Novick is a committed progressive taking on Gordon Smith for the U.S. Senate. You can find out more about the fighter with the hard left hook at his website and help support his campaign at ActBlue.

Dear friends,

First of all, as Basic Rights Oregon said, yesterday was a proud day for Oregon. The forces of intolerance failed to gather enough signatures to force a vote to overturn Oregon's new domestic partnerships law.  YAY!!! Kudos to the Legislature (including my opponent in the primary, Speaker Jeff Merkley) for passing the partnerships law, and to the voters of Oregon for refusing to jump on a bandwagon of intolerance.

Steve Novick is a committed progressive running to defeat Gordon Smith.

On Monday, I asked supporters to help us raise $30,000 online by the end of the quarter next Sunday evening. And already people across the nation are responding.

Since Monday morning, we've received over $8,300 online - putting us on target to hit that ambitious goal. But there is still a long way to go and I need your help!

Please contribute $35 today to help elect Steve Novick to the U.S. Senate

Steve "Left Hook" Novick is a committed progressive taking on Gordon Smith for the U.S. Senate. You can find out more about the fighter with the hard left hook at his website and help support his campaign at ActBlue.

Avast, ye fair people of Oregon and hear these words from our fine new cap’n, "Left Hook" Novick, who having sailed the harsh seas of politics, hereby calls Gordon "Red Ink" Smith to account to explain his doings.  

"Garrrrr, ‘tween giving half our pieces of eight back in tax rebates to the rich and jumping at every new drivelswiggered GOP project that comes along, ‘tis no wonder there be no booty in our hold," Novick was heard sayin’ as he loaded supplies for International Talk Like a Pirate Day. "Methinks it be fine time old ‘Red Ink’ was retired from command of the good ship Junior Senator from Oregon."

Last week, John Frohnmayer entered this race for U.S. Senate, offering a strong statement on an important issue of the day: whether the conduct of this President constitutes grounds for impeachment.

At the time, I gave an incomplete response and I wanted to provide voters with my full views on the issue.

As a candidate for Senate, I am hesitant to call for impeachment, because the Senate sits in judgment in an impeachment proceeding, and obviously, I believe the President and members of his Cabinet are entitled to present a defense before judgment is rendered.  

I do, however, believe that an impeachment investigation by the House of Representatives is strongly warranted by the facts, on at least two grounds: the warrantless wiretapping of American citizens in violation of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, and the false – and possibly deliberately misleading – statements made by the President and others to justify the invasion of Iraq, including perhaps most famously the 2003 State of the Union speech alleging that Iraq had attempted to obtain uranium from Africa as part of a nuclear weapons program.

Steve Novick is a committed progressive taking on Gordon Smith for the U.S. Senate. You can find out more about the fighter with the hard left hook at his website and help support his campaign at ActBlue.

Last night, President Bush again offered his latest rationale for continuing this disastrous war in Iraq – offering a token concession to bring troop levels back to where they were before his misguided "Surge" policy. We've all seen this song and dance with timetables and benchmarks time and again.

But I'm writing you now because the truth about this war is clear for all to see: it was a mistake that we aren't going to be able to fix alone and no amount of discussion or compromise with Bush, Cheney and the rest of their cronies is going to get them to accept that fact. It is clear what we need to do now: demand an end to this war. No compromises, no excuses. As John Edwards said earlier this month:

It's time to end the game – we can't wait. Congress must tell the president something very simple: No timetable, no funding. No excuses.

Steve Novick is a committed progressive taking on Gordon Smith for the U.S. Senate. You can find out more about the fighter with the hard left hook at his website.

Today is a day of mourning.

We mourn the thousands who died in that horrible, senseless attack on September 11, 2001, and our hearts go out to their families.

We mourn the thousands of Americans and Iraqis who have died in a senseless war that our leaders claimed was somehow justified by September 11, and our hearts go out to their families.

The philosopher and novelist Albert Camus once said: "Perhaps we cannot prevent this world from being a world in which children are tortured. But we can reduce the number of tortured children."

We cannot pretend that anything we do can ensure that there will never be another act of terrorist violence, or that there will never be another senseless war. But we must do what we can to reduce the number of terrorist attacks, and the number of senseless wars.

Every day we can find more reasons to be pessimistic about the future of the human race. But we must remember the words of another philosopher, Antonio Gramsci, "Pessimism of the intellect. Optimism of the will."

Steve Novick is a committed progressive taking on Gordon Smith for the U.S. Senate. You can find out more about the fighter with the hard left hook at his website and help support his campaign at ActBlue.

The bloggers at Loaded Orygun put to me a rather interesting question:

What are the roots and causes of the regression in real incomes for mostly lower- and middle-income Oregonians, and what federal policies would you support or repeal in order to reverse these trends? Or alternately, are the solutions outside of the federal government's reach, and if so where do they lie?

As I see it, first there's the "why."  Then there's the "what to do about it."  The first one is easier.