The Ashland Daily Tidings reports that State Senator Alan Bates (D-Ashland) is "seriously considering" a run against Senator Gordon Smith.
State Sen. Alan Bates, ending weeks of speculation, said Wednesday that he is “seriously considering” seeking the Democratic nomination to face U.S. Sen. Gordon Smith in 2008, challenging the Republican’s positions on the Iraq war and health care reform.
Bates is a doctor, and has been actively working on health care reform at the State Legislature.
“Health care is the biggest crisis facing our nation,” said Bates, a physician, in a lengthy interview with The Daily Tidings. “In the last eight years, with Republicans in control of the House and Senate and the presidency, nothing happened on health care reform.”
What about Iraq?
On the war: Bates, an Ashland Democrat, said that Smith, 54, made “a huge error in judgment” when he voted to give President Bush authorization to use military force to depose former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, but then changed his position mercurially amid faltering public support for the war.
“I know he’s apparently changed his position on the war, but many of us from the very beginning were opposed to the war,” Bates said. “When you’re at that level you have a responsibility to know what you’re doing; be very careful of your votes.”
The 62-year-old Bates, who served in Vietnam from 1965 to 1967, said recently that the war in Iraq is “unwinnable” as was the Vietnam War. He added, U.S. troops remain in Iraq for “no discernable reason.”
Previous BlueOregon coverage that included Senator Bates is here and here.
His campaign website is here and his official website is here. His health care reform plan is here.
Now that Congressmen Earl Blumenauer and Peter DeFazio are out of the picture, will we start seeing more stories like this? Who else should be considering a run? Discuss
http://www.blueoregon.com/2007/05/smith_08_senato.html
