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  • wow...the times are tight...one minute to respond, 45 seconds for rebuttal...hope they ate their wheaties...
  • Question 1 - negative ads
  • merkley responds to question about negative ads...kind of a weasely answer
  • wow, smith brings up his wife's feelings...that's a pretty tough statement.
  • smith offers to bring down his ads.
  • merkley plays the rove card
  • smith calls merkley ads defamatory, etc.
  • this is getting pretty personal and snipy, right of the bat...
  • Question 2 - Bailout bill
  • Smith - talks about doing something vs doing nothing....seems to be a strong answer
  • Merkley - talks about smith raising taxes, and also cutting taxes for the rich. This seems like a tricky and strange argument. I don't think it works.
  • Smith - you have a choice to believe what he's said, or what he's done. Smith says he is a rural oregonian, and knows what they need. Says merkley has taxed, snubbed rural oregon. This is a very strong argument.
Smith looks strong tonight.

  • Smith - we need to stabilize the monster that is wall street before it gets to your street...good line.
  • This monster has many fathers and a long tail....
  • Merkley - meltdown on wall street is a consequence of bush-smith. de-regulation, let the bankers do what they want. bailout is a 700 billion dollar blank check to wall street. This is just untrue, hope Smith responds.
  • Smith - you fix it by stabilizing things, then modernizing regulatory system.
  • Smith - we have to unfreeze the credit market
  • Merkley - end the practice of subprime loans
  • Merkley - problem is due to bush-smith (blah blah blah)
Question 3 - Where have you disagreed with your party?
  • Merkley - speaks briefly on smaller things, then pivots to Iraq (was this a disagreement with your party?)
  • smith - state house resolution to praise bush, ask for removal of saddam, says merkley voted yes.

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