Skip to main contentThe Nose has a friend who has a friend who has a friend. Who works for Oregon's junior U.S. senator.
And word is that, boy, is Gordon Smith torqued.
The source of Smith's anger is a butt-whupping TV ad that ran last week, blasting the Pendleton Republican's environmental record. "America, Land of the Red, White and Blue," the spot says, in a patriotic tone that had the Nose reaching for his miniature Old Glory from his La-Z-Boy perch. "Unfortunately, Gordon Smith doesn't share our values." The 30-second ad appeared more than 60 times in the Portland market.
"Blatantly partisan," cried Gordo's campaign. Well, duh, given that the Sierra Club, which paid for the darn thing, has endorsed Smith's Democratic opponent, Bill Bradbury.
But what really has Gordo's peas squeezed is that he thought he had taken care of all this.
Smith knows he is no friend of the environmental movement. He's aware that his 2001 score on the League of Conservation Voters' report card was zero. That his votes to allow drilling and mining in our national-monument areas won few green friends. That his opposition to reducing cancer-causing arsenic in public water supplies is considered anti-environment. That his 2000 vote seeking to automatically renew the permits of cattle ranchers who lease public land was a jab against those trying to reform grazing practices. That his 2000 vote to continue timber subsidies was hostile to tree-huggers.
In sum, Gordo knew that his five-year Senate career has earned him a cold shoulder from conservationists but brought him warm hugs from the oil drillers, food processors and timber titans who helped put him in office in the first place.
So why is he upset that in this, an election year, the Sierra Club would carpetbomb the airwaves to point this out? Because Gordo, to whom self-preservation is very, very important, had taken out insurance and thought he was covered.
Earlier this year, Mr. Smith made two decisions that were entirely inconsistent with his career in Washington. He twice voted green.
In April, Smith voted against allowing oil exploration in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, the most symbolic environmental vote in Congress in many, many years. And it was entirely out of character. In fact, just two years ago, Gordo voted in favor of Alaska drilling. But this year, Gordo saw things differently.
He also voted in favor of demanding greater fuel efficiency for cars and trucks, one of only a handful of Republican senators to do so. Again, a vote contradicting his record. But a green vote nevertheless.
Gordo figured that with these two votes under his belt, he had bought a measure of goodwill among the greenies.
"He was hoodwinked," says Scott Stoermer, a very candid fellow with the Washington, D.C.-based League of Conservation Voters. Stoermer says that Smith was duped by enviros into believing that with a couple of green votes he could paint over a five-year record of anti-environmental positions. Gordo didn't expect the Sierra crowd to embrace him, just to stay out of his way.
How wrong he was. Tim Hester of the Sierra Club's Oregon chapter says he met with Gordo's staff, lobbied them on the Alaska drilling vote and is delighted that the senator agreed with him. But, Hester, points out, Smith was wrong to believe that this vote, which "coincidentally" occurred during an election year, would white-out a prior record in which Smith "has been an anti-environmental leader."
As for the Nose, he's hardly shocked to learn that this Pendleton pea packer doesn't exactly bleed green. He's amused, however, that the good senator apparently thought he could sanitize his record so easily.
WWeek 2015