Schadenfreude: Allen Alley strikes out again.
Kari Chisholm
It's starting to get embarassing for Allen Alley - the two-time loser that's now in charge of the Oregon Republican Party.
It wasn't that long ago that Alley was trumpeting the ORGOP's decision to invite non-affiliated voters into the May primary election. The idea was that allowing NAVs to help pick the nominees for State Treasurer, Attorney General, and Secretary of State would somehow endear them to the party. (But not, heaven forfend, the presidential race, congressional races, or legislative races.)
Then, on filing day, total failure: Zero candidates for AG. Zero candidates for Treasurer. And one candidate for Secretary of State.
And as the O's Jeff Mapes reported ten days ago, the Oregon GOP can't dial back their stupid open primary - and it's going to cost Oregon taxpayers $200,000. Even some of their best advocates and party officers can't stomach it:
"There's not much benefit," fumed Rob Kremer, treasurer of the Oregon Republican Party, "in taxpayer money being spent to no purpose."
Alley's other big idea this spring? A Republican presidential primary debate, to be hosted by Oregon Public Broadcasting. While I think it would have been great fun to watch those guys make their way through Portland, let's be honest: There's no way that they were going to be favorably inclined toward a debate on public TV. After all, it's darn near religion in that party that public broadcasting should be abolished. And late last week, Mitt Romney pulled the plug - and Rick Santorum followed suit.
Alley's management of the Oregon GOP's fortunes is starting to look a lot like his management of Pixelworks.
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12:51 p.m.
Mar 18, '12
Allen Alley is not crazy enough for the nihilists who are running the GOP. He will not last long.
1:46 p.m.
Mar 18, '12
Allen started out believing that he could move the Oregon Republican Party closer to the center. This actually happened in the legislature, but it is not clear to me what his role in that has been and elsewhere he has had no impact. His other moves demonstrate political naivete in my opinion, in spite of his working as a politician for the past decade.
For the life of me, I do not understand why the Republican party can not find candidates for Treasury or Attorney General. There have to be Republican business people and attorneys who think they can play on the state stage. Is it because they believe they will lose or because they don't want to accept the financial loss or because they do not want to have to sell their soul to win the party nomination?
4:05 p.m.
Mar 18, '12
Nice try, Kari.
When the story won't cooperate, use a quote entirely out of context to make your argument.
My quote was clearly referring to the fact that the Democratic leadership killed the bill that would have fixed this little problem by updating election law that was written for polling place elections.
The only reason the Freedom Primary will cost anything at all is because the statute covering how NAV's receive the ballot hasn't been updated to reflect a vote-by-mail system.
We presented a bill that would have made a simple change to fix it. Even Kate Brown supported the bill.
The Democrat's leadership in the House killed the bill. They preferred that Kate Brown spend $200,000 of taxpayer dollars sending out postcards rather than allow three Republican races to be printed on NAV ballots.
THAT was the money spent "to no purpose" what I was referring to in my quote, and you know it. Yet you intentionally mischaracterized it to pretend I was criticizing the Freedom Primary.
Not very honest.
1:22 a.m.
Mar 19, '12
OK, Rob. The full context is just one click away. I just re-read the story again, twice, and it still reads to me like you were criticizing the "freedom primary". (Stupid name, that.)
In any case, it's become so typical of the Oregon Republican Party to stumble around like Keystone Kops. Really? You couldn't be bothered to read the state's election law before trying this stunt?
Sure, the legislature could and probably should change that law - but why didn't you work on that (or even realize it might be an issue) before changing your primary?
You're actually giving Keystone Kops a bad name.
2:51 p.m.
Mar 19, '12
Kremer also noted that when Republican leaders voted to open their primary, they were hoping to recruit candidates for all of the statewide seats. They were simply unsuccessful, he said.
So, the question I have is, since the decision to open up the primary for these three races was made relatively late in the game, were there people indicating that they might be candidates who backed out?
Republicans like to say that they want government to be run more like a business, yet would a business commit $200,000 based on the hope that they might recruit some people, when they don't have any solid prospects?