Hope I can stop laughing by Monday.

If I have to vote for a former Governor to be our next Governor, she's the one I want.

pass

I'm with Nick Wirth on this one. We should be moving forward as a state, not backwards.

"I'm with Nick Wirth on this one. We should be moving forward as a state, not backwards."

That would be news to all the people who would vote for Tom McCall if he was still alive.

She got a bad rap; the GOP took the state house & we ok'd measure 5 the same yr she was elected; more financial stress on the state budget and a legislature (ok Larry Campbell) unwilling to really help solve the problem.

Mike, you are right. But it wasn't the same year, it was the same night. A saying back then was "Barbara Roberts was Gov. for about an hour, and then Measure 5 passed and Measure 5 was in effect the Governor". I was at Barbara's election night party--I had been at her campaign announcement. It can't have been much more than an hour between when the Gov. election was called for Roberts and the M. 5 result was announced.

Oregon Channel has an excellent set of video interviews of former capitol insiders: a former reporter, some staffers, several former legislators. The one with Barbara Roberts shows someone more down to earth than many in politics today.

One of the things she talks about in the interview is serving on Revenue when she was a legislator, and the whole Conversation with Oregon process as Governor. She talked about the educational component--teaching people how the tax and budget system works in this state. Has anyone done anything to compare with that since then? She said she still thinks the final product (defeated by Campbell on a procedural vote) makes sense today.

Does anyone have an equally intelligent proposal fully worked out? Details matter.

Nick, how many "new faces" could hold their own with a former Governor when it comes to intelligent debate on details?

Don't forget that Ben Westlund, the Republican Ways and Means Co-Chair during the last big recession, paid tribute to Gov. Roberts.

An OPB interviewer asked the co-chair in an interview, "Why is it SO hard to balance the budget?".

Westlund's response "Because Gov. Roberts was right about Measure 5 in everything but the timing".

That is the sort of candor we seldom hear anymore in statewide races.

In their own way, Roberts and Kitzhaber both faced the same steep hill--right wing Republican legislature. If you think Karen Minnis was bad, Larry Campbell was even more dictatorial.

Roberts and Kitzhaber, McCall, Straub, Atiyeh all were strong people in their own right. Love them or hate them, they kept in touch with the general public better than Ted K. McCall probably drove his staff nuts the way he would show up unannounced at the Press Room. Atiyeh had frequent press conferences. They were all down to earth people holding office. They worked very hard, and not just in private.

If a "new face" has better ideas than a former Gov., a better grass roots network, a vision for the future and a plan to carry it out, more power to them.

But as I said to a member of a Ways and Means subcommittee today in the capitol, all those members deserve our thanks for their hard work. They were work horses, not show horses.

What has any "new face" done to show they are a workhorse? Is there a member of Ways and Means (current or former) considering running for Gov.?

Bottom line, McCall and the governors who came after him were work horses, whatever their public persona. Read a biography of any of them if you don't believe that.

We could do a lot worse than Roberts, or Kitzhaber or DeFazio--all people I have known for decades. We need a hard working Gov. with a sense of history, a sense of what needs to be done and ideas on how to accomplish those solutions.

I'd bet on either former Gov. to be able to do that before I would trust an unnamed "new face" who does not have a record in major public office.

A "new face" who wanted my vote in the primary would have to convince me that person has the stature, background, maturity, and true grit of either of the former Governors or the Congressman from the 4th District I believe such a strong personality and public office experience is what is needed in our next Gov. If I don't believe a "new face" fits those criteria, someone could have enough money to run ads every hour on the hour and I still would not vote for them.

Money buys many things, but it cannot buy respect. Barbara, Dr. John, and Peter have all earned my respect.

After 4 years in New York, 14 years in Washington DC and 18 years in Oregon, I've been able to meet and know many politicians. And Barbara Roberts is the only one I have a profound respect for.

Okay, here's where I tap my treasure trove of old encounters in the banquet biz to give some valuable insight. I've interacted with basically every Portland politician from around 1978 to when my writing career took off - and many of the national ones.

  I got to know all the governors or former governors from Tom McCall on - incidentally, I thought he was very dignified but preoccupied. I knew him in his last years and he was very serious because of health issues.

  I'd have to say one of my favorites to talk with was Vic Atiyeh, but all of them were impressive in their way. Okay, I never felt the magic that was Bob Straub. Of course, no system is foolproof. I must confess I thought Neil Goldschmidt was amazing. Whoops!

   Anyway, remember when Barbara Roberts was Oregon's Secretary of State? There was a meeting of all the Secretaries of State from around America at a downtown hotel. I was the banquet captain and there was a snafu in the information flow.

   It took the form of a reception moving from one room to another and then back again with time running out, everyone bearing down, and the pressure on. Barbara Roberts had a lot of materials and stuff set up which had to be torn down, moved, and then brought back. In short, we did everything but put her brain in a blender that day.

   The way she handled it made a lasting impression on me. She not only didn't take the opportunity to go off, as so many would have, but she remained completely together, helpful, and steady.

  I mean, don't get me wrong - she was deeply concerned and focused on resolving everything, but it didn't take the form of a head-trip which I really appreciated. She saw I was dealing with some mixed signals from the group and it wasn't my fault or the hotel's fault, but still...We really put her through some stress, and she did not get frazzled.

    So from that day on, I have been a fan. This woman is tremendous. She went on to attend many functions that I worked over the years, including a very emotional one for her husband that we pulled off in a close call as well.

    I never saw anything but class out of her, and she really lights up a room. All these years later, it's fun to be able to point that out and repay her a little for how she handled a banquet foul-up back in the 1980s.

Nick, Obama has the style, grace, maturity, and common sense often not seen in people much older than he is.

That does not mean that an unidentified "fresh face" would win a debate with candidates who are well known and have considerable knowledge of Oregon's history and politics.

Posted by: Bill McDonald | Jun 27, 2009 4:04:55 AM describes the Barbara many of us know and admire.

Anyone who knows her life story knows what stresses were on her, especially her last year or so as Governor. Faced with similar stress, could a young person bear the burden of that stress and continue in the job as well as she did?

Obama is doing an excellent job, but that doesn't mean any 40 something or younger candidate will do as well.

Sometimes, the younger candidate (like Obama) really takes off.

Other times, the younger candidates may be impressive but then something happens which shows the value of life experience and experience in public office can bring.

If there are candidates with "new ideas for the future", I would love to see one or more in the Gov. primary. Then such candidate(s) could debate someone as experienced as Roberts, Kitzhaber, or DeFazio, and may the best person win.

There is a wonderful 1962 JFK quote that "a nation afraid to let its people judge truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation afraid of its people". Iran is proving that right now.

We may well see that open marketplace of ideas in play this summer while AOI tries to collect signatures to refer the corporate tax increase to the ballot. They are bragging about the money they will spend. But if the voters who elected a Democratic supermajority to the legislature decide they don't like AOI telling them to keep corporate taxes low, they don't have to sign the petitions.

Whoever runs for Gov. in 2010 will know just months from now the results of the various efforts to refer the tax bills.

And any intelligent Gov. candidate, regardless of party, age, or anything else, will make it part of the campaign to say "What we learned from the petition drives of the summer of 2009 was.....and, accordingly, I propose that we as a state__".

I don't care how young or old a person is. If they don't incorporate some version of the previous paragraph into a Gov. campaign, I'll tell you right now that I won't support that candidate, even if all of Blue Oregon thinks that candidate is the greatest thing since sliced bread.

What we need is intelligent issue debate. I know that the 2 former Gov. and the senior Congressman from Oregon are capable of that. Would a new fresh face have that ability? Or run a campaign only a consultant would love, heavy on ads which are more clever than substantive, a website where slogans are on the front page and issues in short paragraphs, with any detail hidden somewhere inside the website? Would that candidate have a positive vision of the future or just try to bash any opponent?

Obama ran a campaign managed well from Chicago, but with a strong grass roots component. Hillary Clinton ran a campaign known for hierachy, being consultant driven, lots of peer pressure (like McAuliffe's "train is leaving the station" heavy handedness). The rural legislator from Virginia beat McAuliffe in a primary and a cartoonist depicted that as "Deeds beat words" and "someone just went broke underestimating the intelligence of voters".

A successful Oregon Gov. candidate of any age should run a campaign on Barack's model, not Hillary's.

But Nick, if there is someone in particular who you believe has fresh ideas, I hope for your sake that person runs for Gov. and adds to the debate.

Oregon Channel/Legislative Media do that series of interviews with famous Oregonians, and I saw the interview with Barbara Roberts again last night.

If there is anyone who has fresh new ideas thought out to the level of substance that Barbara Roberts talked about, more power to them.

But I will work against ANY candidate who runs a campaign (or allows supporters to say of the candidate), "Our candidate has fresh new ideas and all good people support our candidate. There must be something wrong with anyone who supports any other candidate because ours has the best ideas".

That is a debate killer. I am tired of shallow politics. If a candidate is truly strong and deserving of statewide office, they can win a tough primary just like Obama won against the Clinton machine, without having to ridicule the opposition.

If I say which candidate campaigns I did not like I would be jumped on----as I was when I posted the same comments about specific candidates here on topics relating to their campaigns.

Here is what I am looking for in a candidate:

Someone with the true grit of Barbara Roberts, the ability to speak on complex topics to an audience of ordinary folks which we have seen over the years from those like Wyden, Westlund, DeFazio, Kitzhaber and others, a positive grass roots organization listening to ordinary folks of the sort Obama did so well.

An attitude of YES WE CAN rather than "well, we are hampered by...". A positive vision for the future which uses Obama's plain language rather than political jargon --someone who will attract the young parents who barely have any spare time in their week, their parents who may well be struggling financially, the folks too busy with work and family to pay much attention to politics, the folks who have once been active but got burned out on politics.

As some folks may have learned last year, I will not be peer pressured into supporting anyone.

We need more details and less ideology. We need someone who understands ordinary Oregonians and cares about all of them.

And it would be wonderful to have a candidate who has spent some time in elective office, preferably representing a very down to earth district.

I don't plan to join a Gov. campaign in the early stages. I would love to just watch from the sidelines and listen to the debate.

I reserve the right to listen to such a debate and say "X made a really good point on ------ and Y made a really good point on _" without being told something stupid like "we knew you were a supporter of X before you understood that yourself".

On second thought, I will name one name. The best campaigns discipline their followers to put forth a positive message on behalf of their candidate, not belittle followers of the opponent.

I have known Steve Novick a long time. He is a very bright guy who has done a lot of good work on issues. But the behavior of the Novickians on this blog and elsewhere was, in my opinion, not doing Steve any favors.

We need more substance than we had in the 2006 Gov. election!

LT, I wish I had your mail address so I could ship you a now musty pint of Left Hook Lager, and then you could leave your frustrations toward Steve and beer behind. "(Unnamed [and implicitly elderly] friend) can't understand what alcohol has to do with elections! Why are those young people so shallow?" Etc.

We get that you're old school, and that's cool. I have no interest in re-litigating the 2008 Senate primary; Jeff Merkley ran a solid general campaign and has turned out to be a very good Senator. But it's been sixteen months since the 2008 Senate Primary, and you're the only person in Oregon who thinks that Steve's campaign's use of beer politics had any effect, bad, or otherwise, on the race. Please let it go.

"First of all, I wonder if you think that I have a particular candidate in mind, which I don't."

Thanks, Nick, that was exactly what I was wondering about. I have been known to drive friends nuts when they talk about generalities and I want to talk about specifics and concrete details.

Has a lot to do with areas of my life (esp. many of the jobs I worked in) where details were essential.

"Second, I don't understand why you keep assuming that someone who hasn't been elected Governor before won't have style, grace, maturity, or common sense."

Not what I meant at all. There may be a legislator out there somewhere (like Kitzhaber was, like Atiyeh was) who would do an excellent job as Governor. I remember McCall's last Gov. campaign. He attempted a comeback after waiting out a term, and I believe that was the year Atiyeh got the nomination and was elected Gov.

I have been thinking of the themes any Gov. candidate could run on which I suspect would inspire my nonpolitical friends the way Obama inspired people one would never think of as political activists. If the campaign were run in a way that attracted the attention of young working parents, people with multiple jobs, and others of the sort who ended up voting for Obama (like a relative of mine who voted for Bush in 2004 and Obama in 2008), that would be an exciting campaign to work on. This next election we should all set a standard of excellence to use in measuring candidates, and tell our friends when a candidate does or does not measure up. That sort of word-of-mouth debate/praise concerning candidates costs no money but is more likely to persuade than ads. Lots of people are either too busy to watch TV or too cynical about all ads and just mute them or change the channel.

Today I was watching the Senate session online and Ferrioli was making cracks like " no one in this building understands how to create jobs". So I called the House Republican office and asked how Ferrioli believes jobs would be created--by tax breaks?

"No, but if only the Back to Basics approach had been followed....according to the Sec. of State report, there are ____ funds in the all funds budget which the legislature could easily use and not have to raise corporate taxes which will cost jobs", said the staffer.

So I said, "Why don't you folks run on 'if only we had been allowed to use the Back to Basics approach, Oregon's economy would be in better shape ' in the next election. If you win majority, that will mean you convinced a majority of voters to your way of thinking. But until then, be aware that there are people whose eyes glaze over when they hear about the "all funds budget" or a Sec. of State report, or other language used by people who work in the capital building. People ARE allowed to ask questions about the details of the plan or whether anyone from Ways and Means was involved in writing it, without being told they must work for a Democrat or don't care about creating jobs. Every time a public employee shops at a store, that helps the store stay in business, thus saving the jobs of the store employees."

At that, the staffer didn't argue anymore and said "I will pass your thoughts on to the Senator".

The LAST thing we want is what I heard this session from some staffers, "Oh, we can't discuss that issue because...". Maybe lobbyists don't want the issue discussed, maybe it was not a priority for some members, maybe the votes weren't there, but can't discuss an issue????

What I would love to see from all candidates next year is an answer to such ideology/ propaganda.

For example: business owner running for the legislature by explaining why Back to Basics would have been a net loss for Oregon jobs because...... Someone talking about how the kicker hurts Oregon's credit rating. Someone who says "We were able to keep all our employees, although some had to take furloughs during some slow months. We have survived because we have a (product/service) people need and get word of mouth advertising from satisfied customers. "

Anyone who has driven by Woodburn Outlet Mall on a weekend (driving between Salem and Portland, for instance) would see a full parking lot. Are the tax increases the legislature passed really going to empty out that lot? If the anti-taxers and AOI were to go there to try to collect signatures to put the tax hikes on the ballot, would they be successful?

One rule of public speaking and writing for a general audience is something McCall and Reagan understood back when the were Governors, that presidents from FDR and Truman to Clinton and Obama understood: Know Thy Audience!

Giving a speech to an Economic Club or a law school graduation is different than giving a speech to a mass rally or a civic luncheon where non-political young people (in the 18-25 age range) may have been brought to such an event for the first time, by an older person who often attends such events.

It is time for Democrats to retake the term "values". The McCall re-election slogan was KEEP OREGON, OREGON. A revised version of that idea (so no one claims that the slogan was plagarized) based on a speech Ben Westlund recently made would be an excellent campaign theme.

For instance, a speech might touch on these ideas: Oregon values include financial common sense. The 2009 legislature finally debated whether to keep certain ballot measures. There was a bill debated on new financial reporting requirements for ballot measure chief petitioners. We need to have more publicity on how much out of state money affects our ballot measure campaigns. It has been almost a generation since this state had a serious debate on Oregon's budget and tax structure.

Having such a volatile tax structure hurts the state's credit rating. And at long last we need to do something about the kicker! It has been a decade since it was put in the Constitution (by a ballot measure in 2000 with the 2nd lowest number of yes votes of any of those ballot measures in that avalanche of measures on the 2000 ballot). If it were such a great idea, surely another state would have copied it. It is time to redirect kicker refunds into a rainy day fund until our reserves are built back up to handle another recession. There are plenty of ideas out there about these reforms, and a campaign year is the best time to talk about them.

The Obama campaign showed that YES WE CAN have an intelligent debate when a candidate doesn't use either insider jargon or treat the audience as if they are not intelligent.

Taylor, if Steve were that candidate, I would be cheering him on.

Nick, I think it would be interesting if someone (from either party) who served on Ways and Means this session(regular or subcommittee) ran for Gov. Such a person could provide a "here's what we did in Ways and Means and here's why" reality check that those like Ferrioli, Atkinson and Kruse don't seem to understand.

Typical hack politics. So why do we keep recycling names? Easy, that one. It supports the notion that there's some skill involved.

Either the system runs well enough that a person can be a good governor, irrespective of politcal machinations, or it doesn't. If it doesn't, none of these people will change anything. If it does, why choose someone that had the opportunity and didn't choose to be real, over party politics?

Name recognition also means early ramp-up on donations. How about, "Full disclosure: my company depends on the high value of political name recognition over substance and results to survive"! Don't EVER riducle Arny. The same banal prinicple that makes him Gov is what you depend on for your daily survival. Just how much of a bottom feeder do you have to be to make a living that way, impoverishing our form of government, while ridiculing those elected on the prinicple. I don't give a fart about how great a person Al Franken is, it's not why he was elected. Banal name recognition did the trick. Look at the power vis a vis an entrenched, connected, monied power primate. Franken wins. You'e got it by the tail (or is that us, in the butt)! Maybe you should refer to campaign contributions as tiger's rather than mother's milk.

I can play too. Had a conversation with Jerry Brown the other day (about how being a Dem is useless, these days) and he could be persuaded to move to Oregon. Sounds like a solid choice for Gov. Get real. Most the readers would make a fine gov, IF they could get any traction, once elected. Until that atmosphere exists, WHY SHOULD WE CARE?

Right. Mother doesn't lactate if we don't care.

Old enough to remember the way the Soviet Union was ridiculed? "They have elections, but there's no choice". The Party of Pelosi vs the Party of Gingritch...now THAT'S a choice! Definitely, having six kids and being addicted to tobacco is much, much different than denying climate change and pandering to traditional agricultural interests. Why should anyone question "a strong GLBT record" from someone that belongs to an organization that proclaims that "GLBT lifestyle will be the end of all human life"? That's the Party of Pelosi! Proud of their hypocrisy. Some call it slime, but we call it character! And did I mention what a great honor it is that a woman presides over the Congress?

It's not April 1st is it?

Posted by: PSC Tony Farkas | Jun 28, 2009 11:45:29 AM---this is a discussion of OREGON Gov., not California.

JL, who do you prefer for Gov? Or are you just making a snide remark because you have nothing better to do?

Been there, done that.

A nice genial person who occupied the mansion for one term.

A governor for a state facing serious challenges, competition from other states, a faltering economy, and concerns about its future?

Sorry. Pass. We need a governor for 2010, not one from 1992.

Let's not forget that Governor's Kitzhaber and Roberts aren't the only former guv's who are contemplating the race.

Word has it that Oregon's first governor as a state, "Honest" John Whiteaker will also toss his hat into the ring.

I think he makes a great (undead) case.

She and Kitzhaber aren't the only two ex-Governors contemplating the race.

Word has it that Oregon's first governor as a state, John Whiteaker, is going to toss his hat into the ring.

He's expected to announce soon.

http://zombiejohnforgovernor.blogspot.com/

<h2>The word on the Democratic street is that Gov. ROberts has been saying that if Kitzhaber runs, she's going to take him on. I hope that spite is not her motive for contemplating a run. She is a popular figure in our party, and I don't know if a run at this point in her life enhances her image in any way.</h2>