Couple thoughts on the Oregon Primary election:

1. The Oregonian’s Twitter feed is easiest and fastest way to get results. This is especially true if you can’t just camp in front of a computer and surf from county website to county website. The Oregonian was the fastest to call results and post them to their Twitter feed. True story: We attended the election night event for Mike Erickson, Republican candidate for CD 5 and were the first in the building to know the Oregonian had called it for Erickson. We even told his campaign staff. And we shared it with a rival newspaper reporter, who will remain nameless. Kudos to the online team over at the Oregonian;

2.  So much for year of the outsider. At least in Oregon, mostly political insiders won elections. The main exception is John Kroger, who won the Democrat nomination for Attorney General, and thus the AG’s post unless Republicans managed to write someone in on their side. Erickson is kind of an outsider, but he did run in 2006. This time, he beat the consummate insider, Kevin Mannix. Otherwise, people like Merkley, Sam Adams, Kate Brown, etc. all won their primaries. And those are three of the biggest names in Democrat politics in Oregon.

Political advertising on television is one of my favorite topics. I genuinely love TV ads for all political campaigns. So, I am handing out some awards for ads running in Oregon for the Primary Election:

Most Overstated Claim: Apparently, if Kate Brown had been Secretary of State in 2000 then we would have been saved from a George W. Bush presidency. At least that is the inference of her ad for the Democratic nomination for Oregon Secretary of State. It opens showing images of ballots, hanging chads, a flooded New Orleans, George W. Bush and the ominous words from a male announcer “Because some votes weren’t counted, we were all left with a mess.” Then Kate comes on and says, “Under my watch, we’ll always have elections you can trust.” Wow, yeah, it really is too bad that Kate was just the Democrat Majority Leader in the Oregon Senate in 2000. If only she’d been Oregon Secretary of State she could have taken care of that whole Florida vote mess. Because, you know, the Oregon Secretary of State has that kind of power.

Biggest Pander: The Kate Brown ad also gets this award for biggest pander. What a better way to get the left fired up to vote for you in a Democratic Primary than to remind them of George W. Bush.

Worst Concept: Greg MacPherson, candidate in the Democratic Primary for Attorney General, has been criticized for the claims in his ad. But what he should really be criticized for is the approach. The attempt at humor completely falls flat. MacPherson is a very smart and personable guy, but he isn’t a comedic actor. Who ever did the concept on this ad should have played to MacPherson’s strengths and not put him in a situation that doesn’t fit his personality.

Worst Attempt at Parody: The MacPherson ad. When I first saw it I only vaguely thought is was a parody of the Mac v. PC ads. After talking to several others, they think it really is supposed to parody those ads. And since his website is VoteMac.com, I guess that is the case. But it is a horrible parody.

Best Ad Series: Running as the outsider has its advantages and Steve Novick running for the Democratic nomination for US Senate has taken full advantage of it. For him it also helps to have a brash personality, be shorter than 5 feet, and have a hook for a left hand. His series of ads all play on those things. The juxtaposition with his opponent, Jeff Merkley, couldn’t be clearer. Merkley’s ads are straight ahead and typical political fare. Novick’s not so much. The campaign has also done a great job getting tons of local and national earned media on the spots.