Rogue of the Year: Republican Party Of Oregon

[stevedeshazer]

From Willamette Week, Portland

http://wweek.com/editorial/3508/12027/

Here’s how bad it got for the Oregon GOP in 2008: The “Republican” candidate running for the state’s top law enforcement post in November was a former aide to President Clinton and U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.).

That candidate for attorney general, John Kroger, collected most of his campaign money from groups Republicans love to hate—public employee unions. And in one of his first moves after winning, Kroger named one of the state’s most aggressive environmental advocates, Brent Foster, to go after corporate polluters. Some Republican.

Kroger, actually a Democrat, won the GOP nomination on a write-in basis after Republicans failed to field their own attorney general candidate. As if that weren’t embarrassing enough, Republicans then watched Democrats sweep to a super-majority in the Oregon House and dump two-term incumbent U.S. Sen. Gordon Smith for Democrat Jeff Merkley, who a year ago couldn’t have gotten close enough to Smith to carry the senator’s golf bag.

<snip>

After Merkley sent Smith packing—or back to pea-packing—Republicans’ record of failure in statewide elections is unblemished: They hold no statewide office for the first time since 1859. Democrats—and by extension their primary patrons, the public-employee unions—enjoy super-majorities in both legislative chambers.

more @ link

:)

[gratuitous]

1. The Dorchester Conference promises to be a real rouser this year

The Dorchester Conference, an annual gathering of Oregon's Republicans, was begun by Bob Packwood to help organize the GOP and thump the tub for their programs. I believe this year they may meet in a phone booth. Their leading "lights" are a group of cranks, rejects, and neverweres. Their great white hope is Kevin Mannix, who couldn't even push through a "Lock 'em all up" ballot measure this last go-round.

Their collapse amuses me.

[stevedeshazer]

2. Cranks, rejects, and neverweres

That pretty much sums it up.

There's no Oregon GOP candidate with any appeal whatsoever.

Amusing, yep.

[47of74]

3. If they don't meet in a phone booth...

...maybe they'll meet in a bathroom stall.

:evilgrin:

[Historic NY]

4. I think we should encourge them more....

:rofl:

[Quantess]

5. The Merkley win was amazing.

Gordon Smith was not a terrible senator-- but he seemed out of touch with average Oregonians, he supported Bush too often, and it was the wrong time to be a republican. Even so, it was a very close race. People had thought Gordon Smith was undefeatable. I'm happy to say that was not the case.

[gratuitous]

10. If Smith hadn't lost this time around

Surely he would have been Senator for Life. As you say, he wasn't terrible as far as saying the right thing from time to time. But he was a dependable vote for whatever depradations the larger Republican party came up with. I came to regard him as an acolyte of Senator Grandstand himself, the inimitable Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania. Like Specter, Smith would voice the proper position for the appearance of bipartisanship or something, but when it came time to vote down bad legislation, Smith was almost always with his Republican pals to inflict more damage on the electorate to the benefit of himself and his overrich cronies.

Bill Sizemore remains to bedevil the state, along with the man who pulls his strings, Loren Parks. Every now and then, I think how much fun it would be to sponsor a ballot initiative that requires a ballot initiative sponsor to be current on taxes and court judgments.

And while one party rule isn't good, we could use a little stretch of time to undo some of the damage inflicted on Oregon over the last 25 years or so of Republican misrule.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

6. Does this mean an end to "cut the budget cut taxes" mania, too?

I still recall a Town Hall program in which Bill Sizemore met with a group of Portland high school students, who complained that school budgets had been cut every year since they entered kindergarten, and that their classrooms were so crowded that they didn't always have enough chairs.

And he was standing their denying everything they said.

Good to hear that Smith was defeated and Mannix is in decline.

[depakid]

8. Speaking of Mannix -he lost the primary to this sorry stooge:

Oregon City woman details abortion, relationship with Mike Erickson

Now a "pro-life" congressional candidate, he gave her $300 and took her to the clinic in Northeast Portland, Tawnya says.

http://www.oregonlive.com/politics/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/news/1214184327223290.xml&coll=7

[LynnTheDem]

7. See, Republics? We really really truly honestly

despise you and your George W."all FUBAR all the time" bUsh.

[KitSileya]

9. When they do get proper republican candidates,

and by that I mean Eisenhower, Lincoln, old-fashioned real republicans, they certainly don't support them. A friend of mine ran for state representative in Oregon this cycle - he ran in a safe Democratic district, so he didn't win - and the state party certainly didn't do a good job supporting him. An up-and-coming, decent, hard-working man with visions, and the state party should have snapped him up as the future of the party, but they don't like anyone who's not anti-gay, anti-abortion, pro-fundie, pro-big corporations.

I agree with the author of the editorial that it's not healthy to have only one party represented - one needs a healthy opposition in any political landscape, but the republican party needs to shed itself of the last 40 years and go back to its roots. My friend is exactly what they need, but they'd rather continue doing what they have been doing - and which led them to this point, than to acknowledge that they've failed and start correcting their situation.

[stevedeshazer]

11. That's their problem exactly -- their platform is the old social conservatism and tax cuts

People here have moved beyond all that. That dog won't hunt anymore.