What great news! Good-o Patti! Another Rush Limbaugh fan bites the dust! This is the district I live and vote in....I haven't felt my interests have been represented here for a long time. Maybe that will change.

Pat is indeed correct that Suzanne is running!

We are working overtime fundraising and getting Suzanne out to voters. I am proud to report that things are progressing very nicely. We are excited that the seat is open and prime for new leadership.

We have a website up and running and welcome everyone to visit. If anyone would like to get involved with the campaign, please drop me an email.

Last cycle, it sounded as thought the House Dems wasted money on big name races when they could have spent a few bucks in places like Fossil and probably won. This time, I want to donate directly to candidates... can someone tell me the candidates who are likely to get little House Dem money but stand a good chance of winning??? Who was that guy in Fossil that shoulda won but for money?

Steve, I have a question about this:

"No, Peter. Last cycle, Republicans wasted nearly all their discretionary funds defending Karen Minnis. Democrats, meanwhile, focused on races they could win and then won them."

First, somewhere on a disk I have saved all the FP emails I got asking for donations. The rotation went something like Brading, Brading, Brading, someone else, Brading, Brading, someone else, Brading.............I saved the emails because there are those of us who don't live in the Portland area who got tired of getting fundraising appeals for a candidate in the Portland area while so many downstate candidates were ignored.

Second, anyone who says the criteria should be "R to D ratio" (as in "your candidate doesn't have a chance because of the lousy R to D ratio in the district" as if no state rep. election was ever decided within the margin of NAV registrants) after the Peralta and Gilbertson results of 2006 deserves to be laughed to scorn and not ever taken seriously again.

Third, what omniscient oracle decided who fell into the category of "focused on races they could win "? Was it one or more people? Was it some kind of spreadsheet or other computer program? Why should those of us in "forgotten " districts (I live in a district which has elected both Republicans and Democrats and one of each party was later elected to statewide office) have any respect for such an anonymous crystal ball to control whether or not we suffer from another term of a Republican incumbent? Rumor has it that in one local district there was some sort of internal political game being played with FP funding so the 2004 candidate got no FP support and thus by a margin of several hundred votes the Republican incumbent won. But the next cycle, 2006, with FP support, the new candidate won overwhelmingly. Both the 2004 and 2006 candidates are old friends of mine and I think the 2004 candidate was ill treated. This is one reason I think we should entertain a discussion of all the PCOL suggestions about changing the election system, including questioning the legal status of pass throughs and debating the concept of nonpartisan legislature.

I helped elect the first Democrat ever in my district--early 1980s, well before the creation of FP. It was a local campaign, locally organized, locally funded, run with minimal staff and lots of shoe leather. It was a true community victory when we won. I do not subscribe to the idea of an omnipotent, omniscient caucus campaign arm which makes decisions not transparent to the general public.

Folks, the original Progressive movement was not about political machines (which some think is what caucus campaign organizations resemble) but exactly the opposite: it was about opening up the system for everyone. In that sense, the ability to recall elected officials was a Progressive measure, and so more recently was vote by mail.

I know many are justly proud of the 2007 Democratic majority legislature. But just think what might have happened if just a fraction of the organizational support for Brading had gone to Peralta, Gilbertson, or some other candidate who might just have won. What if it had been a 32 or 33 majority?

Somewhere I heard that the Rural Caucus of the State Democratic Party was discussing a way to support rural/ downstate candidates which don't get FP support.

I agree with Peter and Stacey. We need to have more open criteria for how "Democrats" support candidates for state rep. If FP is a closed group of state reps (do they all vote on who to endorse or is that just done by a few members and staff using criteria not publicly discussed?) who decide who to fund in a private process, that is the opposite of democratizing that the anti-machine politicians of both parties practiced 100 years ago.

I may not have agreed entirely with my grandfather's politics (he was a Republican elected official in Michigan) but by golly I am certainly proud that he was an anti-machine Republican who helped break his county party machine in the 1930s.

Democrats need to decide as individuals if they support the current system of FP deciding who will win well in advance and then ignoring all the other candidates. Would it be better if everyone who runs for office was treated as someone deserving more respect than "sorry, your district has a lousy R to D ratio so we can't help you in any way"? Not everyone who runs (esp. in downstate districts) has access to an experienced campaign manager, someone they can trust who has the expertise to do C & E reports, organizational contacts to help with fundraising. Do we want a diverse group of high quality members who represent their districts, or only those who meet FP criteria because that is all that matters?

Is Jim Gilbertson going to run again in 59, or did the "smart people" overlook him for someone else?

Suzanne is a great candidate who was a very successful Head Start Administrator in Hood River CO. She had a respectable showing last time and is in a good position for '08. Hood River is a good D county, but the rural portions of Mult. and Clack. Lean R by a clear margin. An attorney from Sandy has also filed as a Democrat.

As for Jim Gilbertson, I was his manager last time and he did think of running for HD 59again, but was unsure. He finally decided to not run when Mike Ahern announced, realizing that Mike really wants it and will be a good candidate. It's a tough but winnable seat, as Jim almost showed us. Jim is thinking of running against Ferrioli for the Senate.