Torridjoe,

from the SOS office site for open offices in 2006 Scott Silver (DEM) Fee 02-06-2006 Pending Charles H. Butcher, III (DEM) Fee 02-08-2006 Pending

As I understand it, beyond Chuck and Scott Silver, Carol Viosin of Ashland has also planned to file for the Second CD. Carol is an instructor at Southern Oregon U. and I have met with her regarding her interest in running. Anyway, three candidates - We have a real primary!!

My humble thoughts in the preliminary form -

1. All are welcome, and most of us in the Democratic Party on the better side of the State will do all we can to help all candidates run against Walden. Our vote tracking of Walden clearly shows his positions to be anti-rural, and exposing this to the voting public may well swing a lot of voters to a Democratic candidate.

2. To beat Walden, we have to have the correct candidate. I am sure that the Democrats on this side of the State will in fact pick that correct candidate. We don't need a far left environmentalist - we need a common sense person who understands what life is really like here.

I could rank order the three candidates in terms of my thoughts about their chances of success - but as a County Chair I will remain publicly neutral.

Today is a good day.

Steve,

I take exception to your suggestion that a "far left environmentalist" cannot have common sense.

Wayne,

I have no problem with candidates fitting a district. I'm glad to have Steve Bucknum active with the Dems.

Although I'm sure there are some "far left environmentalist[s]" who lack common sense, I don't think all, or even most, do.

Of course, some folks take "common sense" to mean "that which seems apparent, but which proves false under close examination." If I wanted to be divisive, I might write that that there is quite a bit of THAT east of the Cascades, but I think Democrats should try to get along and not dis' each other when unnecessary.

Carol Voisin plans to run against Greg Walden. She has rented space from The Jackson County Democrats and will announce next week. Perhaps some of you met her at Sunriver at the Summitt. She will be at the grand opening of our new year-round office this Friday, along with Pete Sorenson, Alan Bates, Peter Buckley,Jim Hill, and many others. We may yet have another candidate to oppose Walden from Jackson County. Stay tuned! If anyone is in Medford this Friday from 5:30- 7:00, please come to our party-- 40 South Central. Right across from The Craterian Theater.

Chuck Butcher will have my support in both dollars and words.

I sure don't mind it when people say nice things about my campaign, but there's something I want everybody to think about, when the Primary is over the only candidate bleeding needs to be Greg Walden/Bush. It's been pointed out to me that Democratic resources are scarce out here and more candidates means more drain on them and I'll repeat this, if anybody with a better machine shows me they'll go after waldenbush as hard as I am, I'll withdraw and give them my campaign assets and my help. But here's the deal, I figure waldenbush deserve a bare knuckle street brawl and that's what I'm doing, right out of the gate.

I've told one print reporter and OPB already that anybody who infringes our Civil Liberties is an ally of terrorists and people who run campaigns of fear are by definition Terrorists. Trying to address a huge deficit caused by a tax policy for the top 0.1% on the backs of the poor and blue collar is not only wrong, it's stupid. That's not the money leak. Re: 2nd Amendment, I don't care what Civil Liberty is attacked, when one is they all are, you don't get to have favorites. The waldenbush policy of "staying the course" is code for, "we have no clue," Iraq is an unholy mess, doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting different results is the definition of insanity, we have to have a change of course, by the end of this year more American troops will have died than civilians died on 9/11. Tinkle down economics is good for a warm feeling on the back of your neck now that your head's been tinkled on, this voodoo has not worked, ever. Every shot at it has had the economic disparity leap and created lower paying jobs than the previous ones, what's wrong with this picture?? waldenbush is what's wrong with it.

OK, incumbents have a 92% return rate, the R machine is fat and nasty, no poli-pundit says OR is "in play." So, the only thing addressable in that equation is incumbency, he has a record to run on and I say it's assailable, and I figure a sledgehammer will do. I'm not packin' baggage, if you like this, for now contact me at

[email protected]

If you don't like it, well, somebody needs your support, or maybe the corporations/wealthy already took care of that...

If anybody wants to use quotes from me, feel free. Just use them accurately and credit Blue Oregon.

Wayne Kinney wrote:

"If that's the definition of common sense, fine, but I'm not sure it has a geographic boundary. I swear I hear just as many silly things when I'm west of the mountains as when I'm east of it."

I agree, Wayne, which was really my point. And...I didn't feel personally dissed [who would ever think I were "far left"?]. I was promoting language that would allow Dems from within and without the Valley get along. In politics, to say that someone has no common sense is as bad as calling him a cross-dressing, communist wifebeater.

Chuck-

Good luck! Many around here in the Peoples Republic of Portland wonder how we can change the Concorp's domination of government, and I think you should be giving everyone a pretty good idea--help your district go blue. I like what you have to say, too--keep it up!

Thanks Mark and all. I'd like to weigh in a little on this E/W thing. There's no doubt that it is different out here and there, most places out here are small, you know your neighbors, if your kid does something most know about it, people move a little slower, there tend to be conversations in check-out lines, businesses rely heavily on word of mouth, most places the only issue with traffic is snow or 2 cars stopped and chatting, more blue collar folks. Those things are just are. But we have in common most political and economic issues, they just get aggravated out here. School funding is just an example, but think about the problems in an urban school district and then add in that the rurals have the same programs, but less kids in any one, tranport problems, weather related issues (heat a school at 10F) - we have the same issue, just aggravated. Most of us don't live in Oregon because we have to, we live here because we love it.

This might be interesting as time moves along Chuck for Congress

Not to be contrary to the Democratic cause, but from what I've seen, Greg Walden is a pretty good member of Congress, who does a good job of representing a relatively-conservative and geographically diverse set of constituents. Most recently I saw him speak with Congressmean Blumenhauer about their Mount Hood coordination, and their positive comments about each other suggested (at least to me) that Walden might be an "Oregon Republican" in the old form -- willing to work across the aisle, etc.

Of course, Democrats would prefer to have another member of the House who voted left. But in a representative democracy, is it really atrocious to have a representative that reflects his/her constituency? I would rather that time and money (and good candidates) be devoted to electing more Democrats to the state legislature, and making sure that existing Democratic Reps keep their seats.

Finally, to the extent that it's good for Oregon to have national-level politicians who belong to the party in power (OHSU thanks Senator Hatfield, as should all of us), one GOP house member and one GOP Senator isn't entirely bad.

Having said all that, I'm now ready to be smeared as some right-wing wacko. Ready, set, go!

Jonathan,

Isn't it up to the residents of 2nd Cong. District to decide if (aside from the few things you mention) Walden's actual voting record of the last 2 years is really a rural-friendly agenda? Seems to me in the last couple years he got close to DeLay and thus ruined his squeaky-clean reputation. If there are rural residents who have come to hate all that DeLay stands for, shouldn't they support a challenger?

If you live in the 2nd district and appreciate Walden as a member of Congress, go out and campaign for him. Unless you live in the 2nd district, however, beware of telling the residents there what they think. That has happened in other years with other districts (incl. some who tried to tell 4th Dist. voters how to vote in their 1986 primary as if they had no right to think for themselves, and the candidate these people were pushing lost the primary to DeFazio who most believe represents his district).

The thing about democracy is that the vote belongs to people who actually live in the district. I have come to admire Chuck Butcher based on what he has written here. But if voters in that district choose someone else, that is their decision. As it should be.

Jonathan:

Greg Walden is not a Hatfield/McCall Republican. He may have spoken like one when you heard him, but his voting record is pretty straight party line.

Check out his stance on "strengthening" the Endangered Species Act. Then take his constituent survey to see whether you think the Iraq War is wonderful, great, or better than no war at all. He's also part of the Congressional Immigration Reform Caucus, headed by Rep. Tom Tancredo who is -- how to put it -- insane.

LT: No where in my post did I ever pretend to tell 2nd District residents how to vote. But frankly, we all do that, all the time, right? For example, you presumably think that anyone associated with the Majority Leader of the House should be tarred with him? Come on. I'll admit that I like the stench that DeLay's troubles have brought to the GOP, but when you're talking about issues that a constituent should look at in order to guage their member of Congress, this should be way down the list.
Perhaps my broader point is this -- while I haven't seen any polling, I suspect it would be a HUGE stretch to unseat Greg Walden. And perhaps it should be that way, given the District.

How tough could it be? You may have looked at vote numbers, but I live with these folks and know "how" they are. Give them the right candidate and waldenbush is in trouble.

Just to toss in a different bit of perspective, about half the population of Walden's district is in Southern Oregon--almost 1/3 of his constituency is in Jackson county alone, which is west of the divide. And here in Josephine County (divided between districts 2 & 4), we're further west. Nevertheless, Walden's is the only district that doesn't include part of the Willamette Valley.

I applaud the fact that a number of Democratic candidates are evidently giving it a shot here, but I really think that this is a building year in preparation for a possible shot in '08. It will take a lot of work for a Democratic candidate to get decent name recognition here, much less be heard on some of the issues.

Part of Walden's strength (besides being an incumbent Republican in a red district) is what his membership and connections in the majority party hopefully offer in fighting for us in DC. If we only get about half the county and O&C payments (the current projection beyond FY06), the '08 elections will have given us timber counties (which includes several in Eastern Oregon) a chance to suffer for awhile (and it could certainly reverberate this year). That failure could reflect upon Walden...supposedly connected but not getting enough results going into an election where the presidency might go blue. It would still be an uphill battle...Walden got 71+ percent of the vote in '04.

Gordie is right; Walden has historically trounced his competition. I don't know how much of that is Walden's popularity and how much is the campaigns that have been run against him.

<h2>The Second Congressional District is not inately Republican. Sen. Wyden carried the 2nd CD by a large margin in 2004. That tells me that the right Democrat and the right campaign can win.</h2>