I get the feeling he thinks he's capitalizing on a tea party zeitgeist of which he would be a natural leader, and he must seize the moment personal circumstances be damned--but this is really not a good way to announce your candidacy for governor:
Sizemore filed Monday to seek the Republican nomination for governor, to the surprise of GOP political insiders. Sizemore didn't return a call for comment, but he did release a statement to NW Republican saying he was willing to challenge a court order enjoining him from raising or spending money in politics. [emph mine]
"And I promise I will fight this scurrilous double murder charge, AND keep an honest and positive outlook on my race for all Oregonians." You have to go back to Olmert in Israel, with the "If I am indicted, I will resign" line--but hell, Sizemore's gone waaaay beyond simply being indicted. In any case, the line is surely an announcement and epitaph in one, for half the production cost. Carry on.
Senator Atkinson will primarily focus on the health and well-being of his family in the coming weeks and will make an announcement when the time is appropriate.
"Stephanie and I have recently been confronted with some serious health concerns that need to be addressed before I undertake such a massive task as running for Governor of our great state. We ask for your thoughts and prayers as well as your patience as we wade through this difficult time. I am not going away, but need time with my family. We greatly appreciate your strong support and kind words."
As Mapes notes, Atkinson and his family have been cursed with health issues of late, from his accidental shooting to his wife's apparently returning cancer. We certainly wish Jason and his wife good health and full recovery, and it's refreshing to see a politician quit something "to spend more time with their family"---and actually have it be true.
Atkinson leaves the door ajar for a return, but we have to consider the timing here. It's late October, and Atkinson cites "coming weeks" as a rough timeline. That takes us into the holiday season, obviously both a bad time for campaigning and to be away from the family you're trying to save.
So the earliest we might expect Atkinson to return to the Republican primary would be early 2010, which in a number of states would still be enough time to get ramped up before the election--but in Oregon we hold them in May, and people can start filling out ballots in late April. Maybe an incumbent with an existing war chest could pull off something like that, but a generally unknown state legislator who has built almost none of the required campaign apparatus?
Put it this way: Steve Novick started out better known and with a more memorable persona than Atkinson could ever manage, started his race for Senate a full year before the primary--and still struggled to gain recognition by a large majority of the state by May 2008. Maybe if he were a howler/crier like Glenn Beck he could earn the requisite attention (bad or good), but he's more like a Republican version of Ron Wyden--personable, smooth, generally low key.
So let's hypothesize that this is it for Jason in 2010. Who's that leave? Right now, Allen Alley and John Lim. As it stands, the Dem primary is looking like Yankees-Angels...with the Pittsburgh Republican Pirates waiting to face the winner in November. (And if you don't know your baseball, the Halos and Yanks are two of the top four teams in the game, while the Pirates have been cellar dwellers since the late 70s). Not to get too far ahead of ourselves, but I'd take the Democrats and the points on this one.
The announcement was official today, although is was a badly kept secret the final 24 hours: former goobernor John Kitzhaber will indeed run for a third (non-consecutive) term as Beav-Guv.
And just as quickly, the "listening tour" of potential Dem hopeful Brian Clem has gone on pause:
State Representative Brian Clem of Salem will announce his decision on whether he will run for Governor of Oregon this Thursday, September 3, in Portland. Rep. Clem has been conducting a statewide listening tour as he explores running for Governor, visiting communities across the state, sharing his vision for Oregon's future and hearing from everyday Oregonians how they feel we can best move our state forward.
He'll be dropping word (almost literally) from the third floor terrace of the Ecotrust Building in NW PDX, tomorrow at 10 AM if you like your race withdrawal announcements live and in living color. Is it 100% positive that Clem--who had already dropped some broad hints he wouldn't run if Kitz did--will be retrieving his hat from halfway inside the ring, where it's been while he crisscrossed the state listening? Of course not, but I'll buy you a Voodoo Donut if he stays in the race. I think you'll see the field clear with the exception of Bill Bradbury--who, by the way, also made some news by hiring Jeremy Wright as his campaign manager, albeit before actually formally announcing his run. Timing, schmiming! And finally, if you're starving for benchmark data on which to base the race the rest of the way, Survey USA did a run of favorability tests on various potential candidates, and just released them (h/t Blue O). Count me among those in the camp who find the results interesting, but not terribly instructive yet this far out--except that Alley and Bradbury need to learn how to open a bottle with their fingernails, or something, so they can acquaint themselves with the electorate.
Happy day! I regret that I had to be informed of this by national progressive columnist David Sirota, who got the word from the national Working Families Party, whose Oregon affiliate was the spur behind restoring fusion voting in the state, but I'm happy to echo the news. Jeff Mapes had the story last evening, while I was out lubricating my throat with friends:
The governor has decided to sign the bill despite the opposition of officials from his own Democratic Party, who think it gives minor parties too much sway. Anna Richter Taylor, the governor's spokeswoman, said Kulongoski was primarily interested in repealing the 2005 law, which he had signed with reservations at the time because he was concerned it was too onerous on non-affiliated candidates.
The measure now on the governor's desk, Senate Bill 326, also allows candidates to list the nomination of more than one political party on their ballot line. The process is known as fusion voting, and it gives minor parties a new tool to use to gain political power.
Instead of just running their own candidates, minor parties can now offer what amounts to an endorsement that will be the last thing voters will see before casting their vote.
The law that SB 326 repeals said that only voters who had not participated in the Democratic or Republcian primaries - or the nomination process of a minor party - can sign a petition to put an independent on the ballot.
Mapes gives the basic details, but doesn't really highlight what the changes could mean for the future of electoral politics in Oregon. The link above for nat'l WFP has several links at the bottom to educate you on the concept of fusion, which is something Oregon actually used to have 100 years ago, as a national leader in populist voting forms. They do a good job explaining how fusion can give smaller parties and single-issue groups greater ability to leverage their democratic power.
The bill that the Governor signed features a version popularly known as "fusion-lite," because it places multiple endorsing parties on a single ballot line. In other words, it might say "Jeff Merkley (Democrat, Working Families), or Jason Atkinson, (Republican, Libertarian. Constitution), but still with each candidate getting only one line. This is good for voters, to know where the minor parties stand, but it would not have any quantifiable impact on the race--how would we know whether the listing of minor parties made a difference or not?
"Full" fusion, something I hope we will eventually move toward, allows the same candidate to appear on multiple ballot lines. So instead of one line with multiple parties, there'd be one line for each party, and the name of their endorsed candidate on that line--even if it was the same name as that of another party. After the election, all votes are tallied by party, and then summed by candidate to determine a winner.
The advantage to that is obvious: if you know that 10% of the winning candidate's votes came from the IPO or Libertarians or whomever, that's an easy-to-understand reflection of the party's electoral influence--and thus gives the candidate an opportunity to know what issues and causes are important to a significant bloc of the voters that put him or her in office. THAT is when you'll see the dynamic shift, and bring power to minor party members--but this is a good start.
I think the indy-candidate repeal is good policy, but it stands to have less immediate impact. It's great that they can more easily collect signatures to put indies on the ballot, but nothing will change until indies become truly competitive candidates. And that will always take three things in this state: money, money--and also money. Had Ben Westlund made it onto the ballot, would he have won or done anything more than potentially spoil the election for one of the major candidates? Not without the kind of funding that nonaffiliated or small-party candidates just can't muster, typically. But as I said, it's the right thing to do to remove a power-grubbing law from the books, to benefit all Oregonians.
It's extremely disappointing to hear about the supposedly enlightened and liberal Democratic Party of Oregon fighting to keep these laws off the books seek a veto of a bill they just passed. It makes them look petty, short sighted and insecure about their status, when as I said their monetary and incumbency advantages give them little to worry about in the short to medium term. I'm pleased that the Governor took the opportunity to buck his party and do what was right (and OK, what his deputy CoS was probably pressing him on nonstop since the bill's surprise passage). Hooray for democracy with a little d!
Fruit exporters in Washington, Oregon and California have been in negotiations with Japan for years to allow cherry imports without requiring the fruit to be fumigated for codling moth. Growers in the U.S. have argued the pest is not a problem for cherries.
Japan agreed on Thursday to allow cherries from orchards that use traps to control the pest, rather than fumigate for it. Fumigation tends to shorten the cherries' shelf life, so growers have typically shipped them by air. Under the new rules, growers should be able to export more cherries in the future by ship, which is less expensive.
"It's a big deal, not so much because of the volume, but because of the fruit quality," said Jim Archer, manager of Northwest Fruit Exporters, a nonprofit trade group that represents apple and cherry packers and shippers in Oregon, Washington and Idaho. "Fumigation takes a toll on the fruit quality, and it does not have as good a shelf life." The traps use pheromones to attract the moths then catch them with a sticky material.
As someone who considers the July weekend when he and the rest of the Joes go to Hood River to pick cherries to be one of the highlights of the year, I'm excited for our growers. More exports means more financial stability for the orchards, which means they'll be around for me next year, and the next, and the next. I just hope they grow enough for the locals, too.
As promised, Oregon Republican Chairman Bob Tiernan on Tuesday launched a radio commercial accusing Gov. Ted Kulongoski of "intentionally delaying" his signing of two tax bills to make it harder for opponents to refer them to the ballot.
The radio spot, running on five stations in the Portland market and two others downstate, seizes on an issue that has been closely followed on conservative talk radio and in blogs. The governor has until Aug. 10 to sign bills while opponents have until Sept. 25 to gather enough signatures to place the two tax bills before voters (they need just over 55,000 valid signatures for each measure).
Anna Richter Taylor, Kulongoski's spokeswoman, reiterated that the governor is not delaying on signing the bills. "That's a false accusation," she said. "He's not sitting on it."
She said the governor will follow his usual process in handling the flood of bills at the end of the session and will probably sign the bills next week.
Frankly, what if he WERE sitting on it? Totally his perogative, and with "pocket activity" based on elapsed time since passage, clearly the timing of a signing or vetoing action is part of the job, and part of a governor's powers. For a bill that the GOP seems to think is a slam dunk for repeal in a referendum, why the whining about how much time they'll have? That doesn't sound like exuberant confidence. A better radio ad? "Wait all you want, Governor--Oregonians have already made up their minds to send your tax bill packing." But that's not the way the Party of Boo-Hoo rolls, I guess.
Gov. Ted Kulongoski followed through today on his threat to veto the $6 billion public school budget because it claims too much of a state reserve fund.
The Democratic governor also vetoed a line item in a related budget that took $200 million from the reserve fund and applied it to the schools budget.
The moves set up a showdown with the Democratically controlled legislature, which could try to override the veto this week as it tries to bring an end to the 2009 Legislature.
The O goes on to say that a veto is mathematically plausible given the high number of passing votes in both houses--but given the chance to look relevant, the Republicans may seize the moment and try to scuttle the override, and get another crack at the budget apple with the pressure on to pass SOMETHING so they can go home.
There's more subtext going on here however, I think. I wish I could hat tip the idea, but now I've forgotten where I saw this concept broached--the issue of the reserves is one with strong implications for the survival of the tax package the Legislature passed earlier in the session.
The theory goes that if there are significant reserves--such as the $400 million Kulongoski proposes maintaining--then those monies will become a football in any referral of the corporate/high income tax restructuring to the voters. In other words, why would you vote for a tax when the Leg is sitting on $400 million?
It's not a very sophisticated argument obviously, but as we saw in the 2007 session on Measure 61/57, the Democratic leadership tends to run preemptively scared of what might happen to their bills in the hands of the voters. (And we're paying for that trepidation on M57, this session).
Even the $200mil figure is a comeback from the original intent to leave NO reserves vulnerable, so that shows you how scared they are of having it become a bargaining chip. The GOP loves these dumbass kinds of attack, so I have to agree an override is by no means automatic here.
A reader reminded me that there is now polling out on our new President and Senator in Oregon to go with regular updates on our current Upper Houser and Goobernor. I'm glad he reminded me, because they've been out for almost three weeks now--and while I'm not denying any existed, I sure can't find any mention of the results as published by Survey USA on March 27th.
Regular LO readers will recognize the formats; they're the same questions repeated generally every month for the Governor and Senate offices in the state, as well as the President. They're not very good for embedding, because the crosstabs are long and the simple pie chart is not interesting. But I'll link them, and you can peruse them to your heart's content.
We'll start with President Obama, who won handily with 57% of the vote in Oregon, not shabby but not among his best states, either (Washington gave him 58% for instance). We'll call his support solid, at least in late March: he currently has a 62% job approval rating, with just 31% dissenting. Two thirds of women approve, as do two thirds of young voters.
Even Republicans in Oregon are relatively hip to Obama; he has a 30% approval rating with self-identified GOPers. Indies are favorable at 56%, but are notably warier than Democrats. Liberals in particular are ga-ga, 97% approve. (As a fairly left liberal I'd have to say boiled into a single answer I'd respond with "approve" as well, but I feel definite sympathy with the 2%--especially on the handling of Wall Street and Bush torture.) Moderates approve at a 65% clip, and his appeal is essentially the same whether you answered in Portland or anywhere else in the state.
So the honeymoon's still on in Oregon for BO; he won the state easily and has retained some new admirers it seems. In the face of a severe state recession it will be interesting to see how long that approval lasts at 60%+ levels.
Hey, you didn't think we'd leave you hanging after those great updates by Portlandia of DNC Denver, did you? Of course not. And while they may be second-hand, they're still coming from an Oregonian. And with no disrespect intended to our lovable liberal lioness of the Loadednets, the person lined up to tell us about RNC Twin Cities is a LOT more influential and famous:
As this morning began, prayers were answered as Gustav continued to fade. While efforts to help those affected by Gustav will remain in effect, the convention will return to a regular program this afternoon at 4:00 PM PST. Tonight will include a biographical sketch of John McCain - from Midshipman, to Naval pilot, to Senator - and key primetime speakers will include former Sen. Fred Thompson (R-Tenn.) and Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.). Make sure you tune in this evening with family and friends as John McCain is formally introduced to his party and nation.
To victory, Gov. Vic Atiyeh Oregon State Chairman John McCain 2008 [emph orig]
I have to confess that his update is pretty bland and focused on their truly generous spirit, all consumed as they are with hurricane glasses...er, victims. Or maybe they're just toasting the spirit of New Orleans, with the invocation of the phrase "hookers and blow." But in the wake of Gordon Smith's slinking away from both the convention and his high profile support of McCain in Oregon, I found it interesting to see who had taken up the cause. I suppose former Governor Atiyeh, now perhaps best known as "the guy from that rug family," has little to lose at this point, politically speaking. (Not so Gordon Smith, of course.) But I'd love to be a fly at the next family reunion, when Vic chats with Deb and George Atiyeh, both of whom back Obama and will be appearing on his behalf at a Republicans for Obama event in Portland tomorrow.
Stay tuned for Thursday's RNC update, direct from "Hockey (Mom) Night in (Places Near) Canada!"
Not one but two brief items on our good friend Steve Novick today, both from PolitickerOR. First, Steve was captured offering his former primary rival Jeff Merkley some advice: just be yourself, buddy:
"I've told Jeff that everyone should take advantage of their natural strength," Novick said. "And Jeff is a hard-working, honest, geek."
Novick said that geekiness was actually a strength for Merkley, and after eight years of the Bush administration he estimated that Oregon's voters were looking for someone with a little more policy background and a little less polished.
"With the start of school, it's a great time to do a commercial showing Gordon Smith finally coming around on global warming, or the Iraq war," Novick said. "Then you show Jeff on the screen looking really geeky, and say something like, ‘But Jeff Merkley is a guy that's done his homework.'"
The article goes on to note that Novick is looking for a new job this summer--based on the above idea, and Merkley's ads so far, how about media consultant to the nominee?
Former Democratic Senate candidate Steve Novick, who has been mentioned on Oregon political insiders’ short list as a possible gubernatorial candidate in 2010, did not rule out a run Thursday when he was asked about the possibility.
“It has occurred to me that if I am going to spend the rest of my life fighting Bill Sizemore, I might as well do it from a position of power,” Novick said as he left the Oregon Democratic delegation breakfast [at DNC Denver].
I would certainly be thrilled with Governor Novick, although truthfully I think he's the least well suited for that job compared to House or Senate. Mahonia Hall seems like a waste of his prodigious talents, IMO. He could amply articulate a broad vision from the Executive's office, but his passion and his proficiency are most clearly on display when Novick is embracing HIS inner geek, constructing policy at the nut/bolt level. That's legislative stuff. Being a governor is too many dinners, too many task forces, too many junkets. To paraphrase the naive news photographer in Full Metal Jacket, Steve needs to be "in the shit."
I'm still holding out hope for Earl Blumenauer as Transportation Secretary in Obama's cabinet, which would make Steve a Stone Cold Lock for OR-3. But gov is nice, too. Stay (loosely) tuned...
Central Point police were called to Atkinson's home in the 500 block of Blue Heron Street at 8:13 p.m. Tuesday to investigate a report of an accidental gunshot wound, police said today.
Officers found Atkinson in his garage with a gunshot wound to his right knee. They learned that Atkinson was working on a friend's bicycle and had to remove a small bag attached to the bike. He dropped the bag and a .38-caliber derringer inside the bag fired. The bullet hit his knee.
I certainly would never, ever want Atkinson to be Oregon's governor, as all indications suggest he will run in 2010. But he's been a dedicated servant to his constituents and has a repuation for personability. Even if that weren't true of course, we'd still be concerned for his health, and so best wishes to Sen. Atkinson and his family. Hopefully the damage will not be permanent or yield unfortunate circumstances.
As an aside, assuming the story Atkinson tells holds up, what a coincidental commentary on issues of "bike rage," a story that's gotten as far as Newsweek recently, and focuses on Portland. Not sure what issues they're having in Central Point, but you may want to think twice if you're going to engage a cyclist in Southern Oregon!
So there's the Senate race here in Oregon, and the 5th District tussle that Democrats are nonetheless in good position to win...and that's it for major elections this year. The next big office up for grabs is Goobernor in 2010, and names bubble up on both sides--Steve Novick, for instance, on the Democratic team. I don't think the Executive is the best use of his prodiguous talents, and it's another tough office to jumpstart into, but he's built some very positive credits within the party and would draw some support in a relative vacuum of other dominant prospects (Kate Brown just a year or so into an SoS gig? Ben Westlund, ditto Treasurer? A theoretically defeated Jeff Merkley? Susan Castillo? Vicki Walker?)
On the Republican side, from an outsider's view the favored son of the GOP grassroots (such as it is) is state Senator Jason Atkinson, perhaps most notably a sartorial example under the dome, but also one with a fair bit of foreign policy/trade experience--rare for someone in the state Legislature. If you're a fan of his relatively orthodox conservtive "New Republican*" policy stances, combined with that diplomatic experience and positions of authority/dues paying in the Leg at a relatively young age, and you can imagine why state Republicans--seeking a standardbearer to steer them past the political graves of Wayne Scott, Karen Minnis, Ron Saxton and Kevin Mannix--are eager to see what kind of statewide appeal Atkinson might have.
{where that hope dives off the rails for many of us, below}
*New Republican is to Republicanism as New Country is to Country Music. Think Hatfield and Johnny Cash vs George Bush and Shania Twain.
Holding probably the most coveted individual endorsement in Oregon, Governor John Kitzhaber has stayed completely quiet on the Democratic primary. The popular former governor stamps a brand of associative authenticity and Western individualism on a candidate he endorses, and carries continued respect on both sides of the mountains, in cities and the most rural of burgs. He is well liked by many Republicans; immensely so by Democrats. If Kitzhaber's recommending him, at the very least he's worth looking at seriously, right?
It's time to revisit our friends at Survey USA, who staff a fleet of calming but inquisitive telephone robots to ask Oregonians questions over and over in exactly the same way every time anonymously, apparently thus encouraging more honest answers. They have the robots do this once a month, and report back towards the end of it. The news? While the monthly results on Ted Kulongoski, Gordon Smith and Ron Wyden showed little if any substantive movement in job approval rating, that doesn't mean there aren't interesting things to talk about. First and foremost: Gordon Smith remains highly vulnerable to a successful challenge in 2008, and the stability of the numbers over time only solidifies the notion.
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On the Republican side, from an outsider's view the favored son of the GOP grassroots (such as it is) is state Senator Jason Atkinson, perhaps most notably a sartorial example under the dome, but also one with a fair bit of foreign policy/trade experience--rare for someone in the state Legislature. If you're a fan of his relatively orthodox conservtive "New Republican*" policy stances, combined with that diplomatic experience and positions of authority/dues paying in the Leg at a relatively young age, and you can imagine why state Republicans--seeking a standardbearer to steer them past the political graves of Wayne Scott, Karen Minnis, Ron Saxton and Kevin Mannix--are eager to see what kind of statewide appeal Atkinson might have.
Holding probably the most coveted individual endorsement in Oregon, Governor John Kitzhaber has stayed completely quiet on the Democratic primary. The popular former governor stamps a brand of associative authenticity and Western individualism on a candidate he endorses, and carries continued respect on both sides of the mountains, in cities and the most rural of burgs. He is well liked by many Republicans; immensely so by Democrats. If Kitzhaber's recommending him, at the very least he's worth looking at seriously, right?