I've never writting a diary before, and may not be totally up on the protocol, but I found this kind of interesting:

Here in Oregon we are choosing between two candidates, Steve Novick and Jeff Merkley, to run against Gordon Smith for his Senate seat in the fall.

Novick is the maverick guy, Merkley the establishment candidate.  Most of Merkley's funding is coming from out-of-state, and he was selected and supported by the national party apparatus.  Novick has gotten tremendous progressive regional support, and is a different breed of politician.

Merkley is now airing his first negative ad aimed at Novick.  Novick, in a debate, was bascially railing against hypocracy and insulted Hillary Clinton, Obama, and Bono.  (Oh no, not Bono! LOL)  He subsequently apologized because people thought it was way too alarming to actually speak truth, I guess.

The new Merkley attack ad first criticizes Novick for insulting Clinton, then some other thing, then it builds to "He EVEN said Barack Obama is a 'special interest fraud.'"  The impression it creates it that it may not be polite to insult Hillary Clinton (cursory nod to Clinton supporters) but it's another class of crime to insult his High Holiness.  Oregon is expected to be very favorable for Obama, so this is a pretty cleverly calibrated attack from Merkley: If you like Obama, you should hate Novick.

It's meaningful, too, because anyone who's done any canvassing for the primary senate contest knows the number of undecideds is sky-high.  In the absence of much knowledge about either candidate, Merkley offers only this:  Novick said the Messiah is not perfect.  So Obama voters, take heed, although he's the more progressive candidate, Steve Novick speaks truth before he kisses butt.  Can't have that now, can we?

[Sorry for typos, misspellings and whatnot.  Gotta fly out of here now.]