I've been saying for some time that Oregon's Republican Senator Gordon Smith's bid for reelection in 2008 is going to be a tough slog. Although Smith has been largely successful in playing up his façade of moderation and independence, as Jeff Kosseff and Janie Har report today in The Oregonian, the state's largest paper, more often than not, Smith toes his party's line and backs the President, a strategy that does not play well in the Democratic-trending Beaver State. To illustrate this point, I might note that for every time Smith has, say, spoken out against the Iraq War, he has twice tacked to the hard right, for instance by backing a loophole that allows the extremely wealthy to pay just a 3.5 percent federal income tax rate.

Given this situation, it has been at least somewhat surprising to see the reluctance of Democratic officials to make the plunge into a race against Smith. Surely, there is no paucity of Democrats who could, including the current Democratic governor or one of his two immediate Democratic predecessors, one of the five other Democratic statewide elected officials, one of the state's four Democratic congressmen, or one of the Democratic leaders in the legislature -- not to mention some of the fine community leaders and activists in Portland or elsewhere around the state. But now, according to a post on The Oregonian's politics blog (via the Ridenbaugh Press), one of Oregon's Democratic Representatives is perhaps re-opening the door to a challenge to Smith.

Rep. David Wu, D-Ore., is "happy where he is," spokeswoman Jillian Schoene said. But she added that "if that opportunity were to present itself, he would definitely consider it."

As of recently as late January Wu was reported by Oregon Public Broadcasting to not be interested in running against Smith in 2008, so on its face this hedge appears to be a change of position, however slight, on the part of Wu. Perhaps his interest in moving up to the Senate is rekindling?

Wu is not the most progressive member of the House. In fact, according to 2006 National Journalvote rankings he was the least liberal of Oregon's four Democratic House members. On the other hand, CQ ratings show that Wu voted with his party 92 percent of the time that year, making him the second most loyal Democratic member of the state's delegation. What's more, in 2002 Wu had the good sense to oppose the authorization of use of force against Iraq and more recently has spoken out strongly against the war (though with language that might rub some the wrong way).

Leaving aside Wu's ideology, on paper he would seem to be a fairly decent competitor for Smith. Although his slightly under $500,000 in the bank is noticeably less than Smith's $2.2 million warchest, Wu has been known to be quite a prodigious fundraiser, bringing in well over $2 million in his last competitive race in 2004 and raising at least $1.4 million for each of his runs since 1998. (As one of the few Asian-American members of Congress and the first Chinese-American member of the House, Wu has been effective in tapping into fundraising channels around the country.)

Perhaps more importantly, Wu represents and has consistently won in an area of Oregon -- Portland's western suburbs, which any Democrat almost needs to carry in order to win statewide -- that will be important for the Democratic Senate nominee in 2008. To give you a sense of the power of Washington County, which makes of the largest chunk of Wu's district, in 2004 it accounted for about 13 percent of John Kerry's total votes in the state, and Kerry's winning margin in the county was more than one-fifth of his margin across the state (in terms of pure vote totals). Wu actually outperfomed Kerry in Washington County in 2004, which could augur well for a 2008 Senate run should he decide to run. As such, it comes as little surprise that Smith's favorability numbers aren't terribly strong.

There are still a number of other Democrats who are said to be looking at this race, including Rep. Earl Blumenauer, Clatsop County D.A. Josh Marquis, and former Justice Department attorney Steve Novick, so it is far from a foregone conclusion that Wu would win the nomination even if he decides to run (which in and of itself is far from a foregone conclusion). That said, Wu would represent a fairly strong challenge to Gordon Smith, who is frankly ripe for a challenge in 2008.

There's more...