the GOP needs to be very careful in Oregon. It is close to losing the state almost completely. Now that people like Smith are gone the hard right wingers appear to be running the show.

This is actually a bad thing for Oregon. We need vigerious debate, and i do not think it is something we are going to get with the current crowd in the GOP.

Honestly this might be a time to start seriously debating changing to a proportionally representation system just to ensure that real debate happens. As much as i do support the Dems, one party rule will not be a good thing for the state.

I like this trend of reality based citizens leaving the party of insanity. The extremist ideological entrenchment of the Republican Party in response to the past two election failures continues to take its toll. Rush Limbaugh is the ideological supreme leader of the national party and Lars Larson is the supreme leader of the Oregon party. They are the respective primary sources of hate speech in their media markets. They both suffer from the same disease, diarrhea of the mouth.

@ Kevin

Changing the electoral system is not going to change the Republican Party. The base of this party are the dead-enders. They are circling the wagons and still fighting modernism. My father, who was a life-long Republican, got out of his sick-bed two weeks before his death in 2004 to change his registration to the Democratic Party precisely because he saw the destruction of the Republican Party he once knew as final and complete and beyond redemption, taken over and trashed by the haters. When Norma Paulus said there is no one left in the Republican Party in Oregon she can talk to, she meant it. People like Norma Paulus, Dave Frohenmayer, or for that matter, a Tom McCall or Mark Hatfield are no longer welcome. The Republican Party has become a party of abortion clinic bombers and their sympathizers, right wing militias, Hispanic haters, flat earth and end time believers, and promoters of Dominionism. They hate government, worship at the altar of Rush Limbaugh, and sign petitions by people like Don McIntire (who doesn't believe in public funding of schools.)

The GOP should be on life support because it put America on life support. The spin was that government is bad, but I've never felt so governed as during the last 7 years. That's because this anti-government spin was really used to replace our Constitutional system with a dictatorship as the recently released memos prove. The notion that we lived or died based on the whims of George W Bush did not work for me. And now the same people who sold us that mess are howling that America is going socialist. Where were they during the dictatorship years? Recently they met at CPAC to profess their pious love for the Constitution with their leaders being Rush Limbaugh, Newt Gingrich and a 14-year-old. Are you kidding me? First, Rush and Newt are just two sides of the same buffet line, and the kid is...well, actually the kid seems kind of bright. But that's all they've got? The vacuum of GOP brains was so great that a 14-year-old could dazzle the crowd?
Just listen to Senator Shelby of Alabama discuss anything. It would be easier for an electron to traverse the Milky Way than to make it through his brain. The GOP deserves to go extinct. Bring on a new party to battle the Dems and let the GOP take its rightful place with the Whigs and Tories in the Out Box of History.

Oregon doesn't need to have a GOP. They are too backward, dysfunctional and destructive to play any positive role in helping to solve our problems. The only ones left in the party are like those stranded, isolated Japanese soldiers they used to find on some of the islands in the Pacific, armed to the teeth and still fighting WWII to the death even though it was the 1950's and early 60's.

Oregon does need other political parties but it doesn't need the GOP.

i know changing the election system will not save the GOP

It will bring different people to the table though.

I would much rather have a few Greens, Libertarians, Socialists, and god forbid Constitution party people in the Oregon Legislature then have it essentially dominated by one single party.

If we do not have a viable two party system, then we should make reforms to ensure ALL voices are at the table.

Before you all get to excited about the post. We are talking about a 74 yr old man who is Mayor of a city of 2100. zzzzzzzzzzzzz!!!! If we were talking about a 40 something year old of a city of 60,000, then yes this would be big news.

@Josh Reynolds:

Before you all get to excited about the post. We are talking about a 74 yr old man who is Mayor of a city of 2100. zzzzzzzzzzzzz!!!! If we were talking about a 40 something year old of a city of 60,000, then yes this would be big news.

To be blunt, you've missed the point.

Actually I would agree with you in as much as since he's 74, he's senior citizen, and we as a society don't pay much attention to our senior citizens. We toss 'em on the heap and give 'em a hobby.

In my mind, he may not be a youngish mayor of a bigger town, but he probably thinks circles around younger mayors of bigger towns.

I think it's important in as much as he has power and a visible position (only 242 men and women out of a state population of 3.5 million are Mayors) and his life experience (he became a Republican back when it was still the party of Ike, one of the last decent Republicans) suggest that he would be one of the last Republicans to leave the building. Moreover, small town Oregon is Red, Red Oregon, as the last election showed.

If a "rock-ribbed" Republican of a small town in Red Oregon has the guts to at least leave the R party behind for the big-I-independents, then this suggests to me that the quality of what's left behind is just getting lower and lower and lower.

And don't think the spite of what's left of the Republican party cares about the size of the consitutency. Never underestimate it. I'm sure, somewhere in Republican Craniorectal Inversion Central, some bull head just saw a red cloth being shook. They may very well gun for him.

Looks like, if this is an example of what is going on towards the future, the GOP is going the way of the Whigs since thw Whigs died a simular, if not a comparative, merciful death.

...and since the GOP is dying....is this the gateway for that new party? The Modern Whigs?

Bill R,

Dictatorship?

Talk about worn out.

Is that the best you can do? You must not understand the meaning of the word. Probably that public employee provided education you received.

You do realize that even during the Bush years, there was a Congress and Senate. Contrary to the crazy, off balance comments at this site, the legislative branch wasn't disolved. Senator Barney Frank was actually in charge of overseeing Fannie Mae and Feddie Mac.

The laws enacted couldn't have went through without Democrats on board. Now go out, enjoy the snow, and think about how you want to mandate winners and losers in energy production via Obama's CO2 taxes for Global (hahaha) Warming.

There was no house or senate during the Bush years. Bush ran things like a business corporation and items from those two brnaches were only 'suggestions' to be delegated to whomever was the point person for those issues.

It was how he became 'the decider'

Scott J, Congress was not dissolved, just made the lackeys of the White House. Denny Hastert didn't want to talk about the Constitutional role of his office as Speaker--first mentioned in that document, in line of presidential succession. He said he wasn't Speaker of the whole House, and would only let bills on the floor if they had the support of "the majority of the majority". But that isn't dicatatorship because he's a Republican?

Believeable people check their facts.

the legislative branch wasn't disolved. Senator Barney Frank was actually in charge of overseeing Fannie Mae and Feddie Mac. <<

Congressman Frank is a committee chair--the 2 Senators from his state are Kennedy and Kerry.

The legislative branch could be overridden by signing statements which Bush did hundreds and hundreds of times. Often dictators have little show legislatures. You remember the pics in the Rose Garden with Bush signing the bills into law? Well, he'd go back into the Oval Office and sign a statement saying he would ignore the law. This also prevented any overrides of vetoes. It was tyranny. Deal with it.

The Modern Whig Party has attracted thousands of moderate Republicans and moderate Democrats. In fact, they recently announced a huge membership spike related to the Limbaugh/Steele controversy. Founded by Iraq and Afghanistan vets, this movement is 30,000 strong and growing.

Modern Whig Party

I know and work with Mayor Welch in my role as a county commissioner. He was a city councilor in Waldport before being elected Mayor, and he's been an effective leader in both roles. I applaud his move.

I wouldn't really characterize Waldport as being part of Red Oregon. Lincoln County maintains a strong D edge in registration and elects Democrats pretty consistently to partisan offices, though Republicans have won some posts that are officially non-partisan.

It is a sad sign for the Oregon GOP, the party that could once boast of leaders like Tom McCall, Mark Hatfield, Clay Meyers, Norma Paulus and Dave Frohnmayer. The party drove out irs most enlightened leadership long ago. It's sad for a viable two-party system, but not surprising, to see the same thing happening at the local level.

Kari, I'm disappointed you could look at the Bush administration's legal positions as anything but tyranny. It isn't a "stupid" charge. A 7th grade social studies class could get this. It is however a chance to use a trope: The one about not getting the memo. In this case you didn't get the Bush memos.

Lay off folks? This, imhe, is appropriate triumphalism. Our ideas are better, q.e.d. How can you argue with that? I'm serious.