Hey Mary

We have a fancy Bus Project office down here in Lane County (on the corner of 6th and Lawrence). I don't think we have met yet, you should drop me a line sometime soon.

In re: political action in our neck of the woods - there will be a BusPAC Bus Trip on June 4th for Chris Edwards and Vicki Walker. Stay tuned for more details soon. I agree with Val: this is going to be one busy summer in Lane County.

Maybe if we closed our borders to interstate immigration, we can stop picking up red voters from California. Or just Californians. Either way, there's not a thing about living in Oregon that wouldn't be better without about 34 million fewer Californians involved in the political situation.

Good to know that I'm perceiving things correctly in the political fortunes of this part of the state. I'm hopeful. It seems like the time to throw the surfboard into the waves and catch what could be a new wave.

Paul, maybe we need to do some outreach to NORTHERN Californians to move here, since I don't think the Great Wall of China would stop their immigration.

There was a vigorous 2nd District primary for Congress that a few years ago no one would have considered possible.

There was an article in the Washington Post which mentioned Republican seats and the possibility they might go D this year.

I wrote the author "don't forget Oregon's 2nd Cong. district", told the story of the primary incl. the role of Blue Oregon, and said it deserved national attention.

Got this email today: Thanks. We'll keep our eye on it.

Dan Balz

Some of us have been trying for quite some time to have attention in areas other than Mult., Clackamas, and Washington counties.

Mary, have you talked with State Reps. Buckley and Roblan and/or St. Sen. Bates?

Do you know that the Oregon House Dem. leadership did a tour of the 2nd District awhile back?

Here in House District 14, the home of Chris Edwards' race against Republican incumbent Debi Farr, we're seeing what Mary is talking about too. Even though the district is very near I-5, parts of it are relatively rural, and interestingly, the district is a political mirror of the state-- both in registration and voting records. Mary asserts that Oregon is a microcosm of the Dems as whole, and I would add that HD 14 is a microcosm of the state.

Here too we're seeing that people are ready for a change and working hard to elect a legislature that will get to work for Oregon families. Chris Edwards is working hard to gather the resources he'll need to win. Meanwhile, it's great to see Blue political orgs like the DPO and Future Pac setting up shop farther down the corridor.

And I echo the above comments, Lane County can be as urban or rural as you like it. The county is the same size as Connecticut for goodness sakes! There are many places to stick a flag in the ground and many rural folks who will rally to it. Down in Cottage Grove there is the Blackberry Pie Society, out in Florence there are many a placard carrier for peace and justice. I've been to marches in Lowell with a plethora of peace flags and anti-Mabon signs. Junction City is the home of Bev Ficek, a great woman with a great message who got beat by big money. Out the Mckenzie are many supporters of good education, health care, and senior services.

For the Portlandites, those towns I named are also part of Oregon...

mary et al, I think the Bus Project, Lane County chapter is doing quite a bit of outreach to those groups. The Rural Organizing Project (ROP) is also a strong force and don't forget ONRC, 1000 Friends, and OLCV who have strong support among people who want to see their forest land and farmland protected from Mr. Demers, Mr. Giustina, Mr. Jones, and Mr. Murphy.

In fact, I'd go as far to say that Lane County is the test case for making a progressive message work in the non urban areas. Marion/Polk, Lincoln, and Jackson County also make good markets. the common link; all have an urban seat with strong organizations that know their own kind in the rural areas. Organizations like the Bus-Lane (what the heck is their abbreviation anyway? BusLane. LaneBus, BusProject-lane?) have done a fair job at reaching out. Also several county groups with heavy Eugene representation have made an effort to get out of the Metro area. (Translation for portlandites: non eugene-springfield)

This is a good thread Mary. I'm glad you started it. Val Hoyle of the DPLC has a good point, lane County has many winnable races, they just require some attention.

We all get a little resentful downstate and across state that every "big" event happens in Portland, and we all get real tired of Portlandites, but "be the change", focus on the bigger objective. Winning Lane County races is going to require some additional foot action from the portlanders who get on the Bus and come to help. The Lane County Bus ( I believe the correct abbreviation is BusLane) has done some remarkable things, but the point is to get across the red/blue divide yes? If so, both the BusLane and the Portlanders need to partner up with those who are already active in HD 14 and HD 10 aand HD 9. I have it on good account that this is happening already in Cowan;s race.

So this is a call to all progressive Oregonians, urban and rural.....go to where the action is: Brian Clem, Chris Edwards, David Edwards, Jean Cowan (who has my eternal gratitude for running again), Chuck Riley.....its time to drop the ipods and join the movement. If the Bus isn't going there, you bet many of us will anyway. However, I have a stinking feeling that the various county Dems and assorted groups are making moves that way now, and I'm pretty sure the Bus is headed in those directions.(they would be inane not to) Therefore, join the infrastructure!

Just a correction, I think David Edwards is a more urban candidate...Hillsboro being about as rural as Eugene.

I think the point is made well though, there is only one hope for the blogosphere - that it translates into action. I saw on the Bus Project website that they are headed to Lane County for Chris Edwards and Sen. Vicki Walker on Sunday June 4th

I didn't see a place to sign up though, but I'm there.

Sorry, I didn't mean to imply the only worthy candidates were rural. yes, David Edwards (and Chuck Riley for that matter, as well as Chris Edwards and Brian Clem) are more sub-urban. Can we say non-metro and get away with it?

Either way, they are important races. But I think Mary's point was that we need to look outside the henhouse and go for the fox's den...I'd say all of the candidates I listed (and more) are fox den material.

Hah! Californians on a whole are more blue than Oregonians. We need more Californians, not fewer.

You are about 16 years too late. When Gov. Roberts was sworn into office having lost 22 counties, an offer was made to her top aide to establish a series of meetings to connect with folks in the southern and eastern counties. The reply: we won with Portland - that's all we care about.

Lots of down-staters chiming in. Great. Thanks! No, LT, I haven't checked in with those races, but will. And congratulations on getting Dan Balz to pay attention to us.

Re: Californians - see my very first post. Walls, no walls, who's an Oregonian? Who WILL be Oregonians in the next few years? I have toyed with the idea that we could sell "population credits" like pollution credits traded by industry. New people can only move in if they can find someone moving out whose place they'll take. Perhaps a new ballot initiative there?

Greg P: it's good to know that history, but I still say better late than never.

Sometimes it takes my breath away - when people don't know what is going on right under their noses.

The Rural Organizing Project has been in Oregon since the early 1990's, with member local human dignity groups all around the State including several in Lane County. ROP is not headquartered in Portland.

There is a Rural Caucus in the Democratic Party. Next meeting will be Saturday June 3rd at the Democratic Party Convention - in Eugene.

The most active group of Democrats in the State right now are not found in the I-5 corridor - they are the County level of the Democratic Party in the Second Congressional District - which is mainly east of the Cascades. We had an invigorating four candidate run for our nomination for the Second CD race. All four candidates made an exhausting tour of nearly every County in the District - that covers 2/3rd's of the State.

So Mary - your contentions seem off base to me --

"It seems like everybody's clustered up around Portland, with discreet trips out to Salem as needed."

"I'm here to vote for not going with the latter outcome, and people in the know have told me we're at a moment in Political Time where the rest of the state is ripe for our message. Can we do it? And can blogging be part of the equation for reaching rural Oregonians?"

I'd like you to know that those of us that live in rural Oregon don't take kindly to the urban folks coming over, "reaching out" to tell us how the cow eats the cabbage. I'd like you to know that we are busy working on returning rural Oregon to being in support of Democratic Party goals and messages like they used to be. I'd like you to know that we are working within the Democratic Party to remove or minimize those elements of the Democratic Party that were previously anti-rural. I'd like you to know that with the passage last July of the Pro-Second Amendment resolution the Democratic Party removed the most serious barrier to rural approachment to the Party.

There is a lot going on here with Democrats and rural Oregon.

And by the way, I'm a blog contributer - here. I live in Prineville - very close to the geographic center of the State. You might want to use the Blue Oregon website to go back and visit some of my prior posts if you are truly concerned about rural Oregon.

The Bus Project is going to knock on doors for Vicki Walker? Since when did the Bus start endorsing Republicans??

Line of the day:

tell us how the cow eats the cabbage. Steve, I am SO stealing that!

Steve: Thanks for the insight. And from reading your posts, I see this discussion has been going on awhile. I hope there are meetings at the Dem Convention that actually get both sides of this debate together so we can learn how to move the ball forward for us all. And I'll encourage you to post more often, so we get the insight from experts like you personally.

Patty writes - "Line of the day: tell us how the cow eats the cabbage. Steve, I am SO stealing that!"

-- If you don't know there is no helping you. (e.g. it's something a rural person just knows, and urban people have to guess at.)

Which reminds me of the joke about Cow dung, Horse manure, and Deer droppings -- but another time.

Thanks Steve

Regular readers have known about the rural issue for months.

I just sent Steve's info about the Rural Caucus meeting to 3 Dem. candidates I know who have rural areas (agricultural, not suburban) in their districts, saying if they are going to be in Eugene they should attend the meeting and sending them Steve's email address.

Steve is right--Crook County residents know more about their area than Portlanders do, as do Lincoln County residents, Marion County residents, etc. Portlanders coming into a district claiming to know it better than the residents of the district (no, spreadsheets don't tell you what it means to live somewhere) generally fail. That is why Wyden is so successful--he actually listens and engages in dialog. What a concept!

good point about the sign-up, Rural Hillsboro. i'm always reluctant to hijack a post to sign people up for trips, but since you asked...you can signup here :)

Steve said: "I'd like you to know that with the passage last July of the Pro-Second Amendment resolution the Democratic Party removed the most serious barrier to rural approachment to the Party."

Well, that's good to know. So, when you go out to rural folks, they can be like "You mean, ya don't wanna take my gun away"? you can say "nope!" and then talk about the real issues.

This does seem like a big deal.

I'd sure like to start building some common ground around gas prices. Sure, if you're not in a city, a pickup truck is a generally useful thing to have. But does it have to get horrible gas mileage? Does it have to run off oil from another country? Or can we regulate into existence pickup trucks that get good gas mileage, as well as the infrastructure and technology to fill them with fuel that's produced as a by-product of normal farm operations?

And how can all of these strategies be used to help progressives get into/hold onto their offices?

All of Lane County is fairly ripe with one exception, Springfield. I was out at Lane County Fairgrounds the night of the election and it was clearly revealed that Mayor Sid Leiken's candidates for election and re-election won. My understanding is he has built a very impressive political machine with a combination of being very politically astute and making sure he spreads the political wealth, regardless of party. The pattern as I see it is that he is either preparing for a statewide race in two years or congress. My guess is it is a statewide due to his close friendship with DeFazio.

Sometimes these urban / rural divide conversations get a little old, so I thought I would throw in the joke after all --

A Rancher is about to go to a Cattlemen’s Association meeting, but like many days for a rancher, life gets in the way. First, he has to mend a break in the fence line on the next section to the west to keep his cattle from wandering over to the water hole on the other side of the County Road, and then coming back from that he finds a steer with its tail combined with a barbed wire fence, and he has to sort that out. When he gets back to the house, he barely has time to change his clothes and throw some stuff in a suitcase before he runs out the door.

He barely makes the 85 mile drive down from the upper country by Paulina to the Redmond airport in time, but makes his flight back to Colorado for the meeting. He’s sort of exhausted, and thinks that the flight will be a great time to relax. Ranchers have to take every opportunity to relax as you never know when the next crisis will happen.

Down next to the Rancher sits a man in a fancy pressed business suit, even cuff links. He immediately sets up a laptop. This fellow sends off a couple emails, works on what looks like a billing spreadsheet (our Rancher notes his columns are laid out a little clumsy, this fellow could use a class in Excel), and then puts the laptop away. This fellow turns to the Rancher and says, “Well, it looks like we are going to be sharing some time together. I’m an architect, and I find that the time on flights passes quicker if we can talk about something interesting. I thought I might tell you about the latest trends in architectural design if you are interested. Would this be acceptable to you?”

The Rancher sizes up the Architect and answers, “Well, I don’t get to talk with many Architects, and a conversation about design styles just might hold my attention. But before I agree to this, I’ve got a question for you.”

The Architect says, “Sure, ask anything you want.”

“I bet you know that cows eat grass, horses eat grass and deer eat grass too.”

The Architect responds, “Well, yes I do know that. Grass is a very common food for the herbaceous species.”

The Rancher continues, “In the spring time when the grass grows best, cows, horses, and deer eat almost nothing but grass.”

The Architect is really getting into this subject, and says, “Well, I imagine so. Grass is a dominant species of low cover in most biomes.”

The Rancher then finishes his question, “So, cows eat grass, horses eat grass, and deer eat grass. Yet, cow dung is a flat messy splat on the ground, horse manure looks like biscuits, and deer droppings are these little piles of small pebble like pellets. If it all starts as grass, why are the results so different?”

The Architect gets a puzzled look on his face and says, “Well, this is an interesting question, I have no idea how this could happen.”

The Rancher then says, “Well, looking at you I didn’t think you knew shit. Now I know you don’t know shit. So, just leave me alone so I can get some rest.”

Steve: LOL. A punchline truly worth the set up. Thanks!

Just as Portlanders can probably do the most good by helping existing groups in the rural areas, BlueOregon could be great for promoting local blogs and bloggers in Eastern Oregon. You guys should sift through ORblogs and LeftyBlogs for quality left-leaning content in rural Oregon, then link the heck out of it and invite the bloggers to post here.

I'll start sifting and maybe post what I find, but I really oughtta start sleeping instead.

Then the architect says, "Well, OK... But let me ask you just one question. How can you make a living raising cows?"

Then the rancher says, "Federal subsidies".

How about asking those that have doanted the legal limit to 'blue' candidates to support libertarian candidates in red parts of the state? You won't sell a staunch redcoat Hillary, but you can easily sell them a libertarian.

Just a thought. (should be a story/experiment unto itself)

Depends on who the libertarian candidate is.

Although there are those like David Frum who claim everyone must have a party policy statement and an ideology, many vote on the person they like.

I live in House and Sen. districts where the incumbents are known to many by first name. I sense the election will not be about party or ideology as much as about the incumbent's voting record, whether it is time to try someone new, people who are friends with one/both candidates, etc.

As far as 3rd parties go, it is wise (as with major parties) to ask candidates whether they support the entire platform or whether they oppose certain parts--and more importantly WHY.

Candidates should be able to think on their feet and answer voter questions--regardless of party.