Ridenbaugh Press

Obama office

Clinton office

The comedian Lewis Black has a great bit about how he discovered the end of the universe, and it came to mind today.

He said that the end of the universe has a specific location on this planet - in Houston, Texas, on a street corner in its downtown. There, one day, he paused on a walk and noticed that he was standing in front of a Starbucks. Then he looked up and saw that directly across the street, on the same block, directly facing the Starbucks, there was another Starbucks! [Pause to catch breath.] And that, he told the audience, is the end of the universe.

Prowling around the political websites today, we saw the startling news that the Barack Obama campaign was opening a campaign office in McMinnville, Oregon, one of 19 (at last count) offices around the state. This was actual news; presidential campaign offices often have appeared in Portland, but not in the smaller communities. McMinnville is a city of 30,000 people, and only 45 minutes from either Portland or Salem. So far as a number of long-time residents we’ve talked to know, McMinnville has never had a presidential campaign office. This assertion had to be verified.

A stroll downtown, on the city’s attractive Third Street, confirmed it. Hand-crafted Obama signage was out on the sidewalk and on the doorway, and on the stairway that led upstairs to an office suite where a clutch of Obama backers (most or all volunteers) were at work, and other volunteers came and went. The square footage there was generous, and the space was donated. It was not especially fancy, but it was quite functional, and more important, busy.

The Obama list of Oregon offices includes some unlikely places - St. Helens, Tillamook (a third the size of McMinnville), Pendleton, North Bend, Oregon City. (And, two in Portland, and Beaverton, Hood River, Corvallis, Salem, Roseburg, Forest Grove, Eugene, Medford, Astoria, Bend, Gresham.)

The Hillary Clinton Oregon office list is a roster that would be mind-boggling impressive under any other comparison: Portland, Asotoria, Beaverton, Corvallis, Bend, Gresham, Medford, Salem, Springfield. No McMinnville.

But on exiting the Obama office and glancing to the left, a familiar-looking sign appeared off the sidewalk. And there it was: Just down Third Street, barely 100 yards, just a block away, on the same side of the street - a Hillary Clinton headquarters, just being opened this very afternoon, boxes being unpacked and signs being posted.

We’ll not call this the end of the universe. But something significant is going on.

One of the places where political contests traditionally have been influenced by individual judgments, community by community, has been the relatively low-key judicial race. If a contest - whether local or for a state supreme court - becomes a cause celebre, it tends to run on normal political tracks. But the low-key ones: How can most people realistically tell whether a judge is doing a good job or not, or whether a challenger might be better?

The traditional rule there is, a lot of people seek out or pay attention to what an attorney they know thinks about it.

That principle may just have gotten a big expansion. The Idaho State Bar has taken an unusual step into a judicial race, which judge may or may not like but which has some real public benefit: They polled attorneys to find out what they think about two contenders for the Idaho Supreme Court this year incumbent Joel Horton and challenger (and 2nd District Judge) John Bradbury.

That race has been quiet, though there are elements of interest: Bradbury, for example, would like to see a prohibition on judges who are appointed to the office - which is most of them - from running for a full term from the position of incumbency. (Bradbury’s web site includes a fine YouTube clip in which he simply explains his reasons for running.) But few voters probably know enough about either candidate to have a basis for judging.

The Bar survey, which is available on line, doesn’t come with analysis: The Bar (wisely) withheld an assessment. It did note that 4,130 surveys were sent and 437 came back from attorneys.

And what did they conclude? The difference between the two was not drastic, but Horton’s numbers were generally better, almost across all categories and regions of the state.

As the incumbent, he probably has an edge anyway. But the survey may give Idaho voters at least some basis for making a decision - some basis that has something to do with the work a judge does.

We’re among those thinking the contest for the Democratic presidential nomination is strategically over - all that’s needed is for the next steps, over the next few weeks, to play out. (Actually, we’ve thought that for a couple of months; only the precise percentages in specific contests, not the overall structure and dynamic of the race, has been in doubt since early March.)

So what does May 20, Oregon primary election day, mean in that context?

Spokesmen for the Barack Obama campaign have said they see it as a big milestone. And it may be, to a point. The Democratic procedure for apportioning delegates, giving both major candidate similar numbers of delegates out of each state whether they win or lose (Pennsylvania did not massively wipe Obama in the delegate count, nor did North Carolina cost Hillary Clinton much margin). Rather, once one candidate early on was able to establish a majority of delegate votes, that majority would become almost impregnable thereafter if both candidates had comparable strength. And since early March, that scenario - no matter all the hoorah in the headlines - has been playing out smoothly. In the next few weeks it will play out again. At this point, Obama has collected enough pledged (elected) delegates that he needs just 38 more to have collected more than half of all pledged delegates - a major marker other delegates are watching closely.

After next Tuesday’s election in West Virginia (which Obama likely will lose decisively) he probably will gain another 10 or so delegates. Week after that comes Kentucky (which Clinton will probably win) and Oregon (probable for Obama), which between them should yield to Obama another 45 or so delegates. Which crosses the line.

This whole thing is psychological, though; Obama will need to continue trudging on after that. And getting the majority of pledged delegates will not translate to the nomination: He will need additional superdelegate votes for that.

But after May 20, those superdelegates may become easier to get. And that may be a mark the Obama forces will want to celebrate.

Today’s recommendation toward more informed voting and citizen participation: Turn off your cable TV news - C-SPAN and some special events like debates excepted. Really. Put a block on those channels. You too can recover from past exposure to this trash masquerading as news: Your take on the world as it actually is will rapidly recover from the endless distortion those operators purvey.

The reasons for that rant are enough to fill several books (and several have been written). Today it is brought to you by one particularly trashy, idiotic and hateful stunt pulled by one of the worst offenders, Bill O’Reilly, one that has a distinct Northwest connection.

It starts [and see this post too from Firedoglake] with two men, business consultants, from the European Union who flew to Seattle to transact business. They’ve been described as appearing as if they might have some Middle Eastern background (to our eyes, based on the photos, they could’ve come from a whole bunch of countries round the globe, including this one). After their business wrapped in Seattle, they decided to have a look around, and hopped a ferry ride.

Their appearance was enough to draw the attention of another passenger, who in turn notified Washington State Ferries officials. Someone followed the two men around, snapped pictures of them (this should start to get a little spooky right about here), and someone apparently concluded they “showed an inordinate interest in the operation of the shipboard systems.” (Tip to ferry passengers: Avert your eyes from the machinery, not that this will be easy since it happens to be all around you.) (more…)

The announcement by Areva corporation that it wants to build a uranium-enrichment plant, estimated to cost $2 billion, west of Idaho Falls, could be a good thing for eastern Idaho. The mere possibility that it might not seems not to have been discussed, pretty much at all. Idaho’s elected officials seem in a permanent come-hither mode as regards businesses moving in; often the news really does signify something good, but the blanket assumption can cover a range of problem areas.

Enthusiasm over the possible plant construction has been ongoing for months, even before the Idaho Legislature passed and dangled a major tax break - let’s be plain, that means a shift in taxes to other, already-present Idahoans - to lure it. The announcement press release went out under the cover of the governor and the region’s congressional delegation - all wanted to get a say in. “Phenomenal news,” “a natural fit,” and so on.

This may be a good thing. Some hundreds of jobs will be created, and they are likely to pay well, no small consideration.

But the public hasn’t seen a whole lot more than that; a lot of obvious questions haven’t been much asked. (Here’s one from the underground.) Areva will be engaging in uranium enrichment; what exactly will be entailed? Might more tasks be added, or changed? What are the implications of Areva’s ownership - which is, in an area not culturally thrilled with France in recent years, the French government? What are the environmental considerations; where will the waste go?

(A shorthand description from Wikipedia: “a French public multinational industrial conglomerate that deals in energy, especially nuclear power. It was created on 3 September, 2001, by the merger of Framatome and Cogema (now AREVA NC). Its main shareholder is the French owned company CEA, but the German company Siemens also retains 34% of the shares of AREVA’s subsidiary, AREVA NP, in charge of building the European Pressurized Reactor. The parent company is incorporated under French law as a société anonyme (SA - public corporation). The French State owns more than 90%.”) It does have close ties to the Bush Administration, which we know because its U.S. subsidiary is now led by former Bush Administrator Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham. What implications all that may have, we don’t know.

Guess we’ll find out.

Calling $2.26/gallon gasoline “cheap”, as the Walt Minnick campaign does, seems a little odd to those of us accustomed to filling our tanks for a lot less. But then, these things are relative.

Which means he’ll probably get plenty of takers. From a Minnick press release:

Tomorrow Bill Sali will sit down to a $1,000-per-plate fundraiser for his campaign, a fundraiser hosted by oil lobbyists.
While Bill is busy raking in money from the very people getting filthy rich off high prices, Idahoans are spending their hard-earned paychecks on high prices at the pump!
“Idahoans are being pummeled at the pump while their congressman ishobnobbing with the very people who are getting filthy rich from high gas prices,” Walt said in a press release today. “Sali should be taking a tough stance with the oil lobbyists, not looking to them for a handout.”
It’s an egregious example of what’s wrong in Washington. That’s why, while Sali is lunching and lounging in D.C. with “big oil,” Walt will be pumping gas in Boise.
Regular gasoline at the Cole Village Chevron is currently $3.59 per gallon. From 10 to 11 a.m. on Tuesday, the station will sell regular for $2.26 a gallon, the price it was when Sali first took office. The Minnick for Congress campaign will pay the difference.

One of the things you can do if you have, as Minnick does, an ample campaign treasury.

Sali is not one of the top recipients of oil and gas money, but he has received substantial funds from that sector. In addition to individuals in the field, he’s gotten money in the 2008 cycle from the American Gas Association ($1,000), Chevron Corp. ($2,000), Exxon Mobil ($2,000), Halliburton Co. ($1,000), Independent Petroleum Assn of America ($2,500), Koch Industries ($2,500), Marathon Oil ($1,000), Mid-Continent Oil & Gas Association ($1,000), Occidental Petroleum ($2,000), Valero Energy ($2,000), Williams Companies ($1,000). In fact, opensecrets.org lists oil and gas as Sali’s top business sector for contributions.

The brief Seattle Times editorial on executive compensation at Fisher Communications pretty much says it all, but we can’t help pointing it out here.

Call it a small, but encouraging, indicator. If others do in fact take enough notice.

The editorial page at the Lewiston Tribune has been - has been literally for decades - one of the region’s newspaper treasures: Uncommonly sharply and brightly written editorials, two of them a day, and a solid roster of columns. They’ve been a mainstay of ours since the early 70s.

The paper’s editorial output (it’s behind a pay wall, which is why we’re not linked to it) will still be a mainstay, but it will be diminished. The page’s editor, Jim Fisher, ran today what he described as his last column. The page’s staff, which has been two people these many decades (not many papers the Trib’s size have had as many), has been cut in half - Fisher’s workload is abruptly increased, though his column is going away, as are half of more of those superbly-written editorials. Editorial writer Tom Henderson (previously of western Oregon), is departing. It’s the widespread story: Industry cutbacks, bad finances. And this wasn’t some greedy out of state corporation doing it, either: The Trib is locally owned, family owned, and the man in charge (A.L. “Butch” Alford) is the same man who’s been proudly running it for a very long time. You can only imagine how he feels about this, or what conditions must be that it had to happen.

What’s happening to newspapers has a real cost. Here’s one of them.

The primary season in Oregon this year has its real points of interest toward the top of the ballot - Democratic presidential, Democratic Senate, both parties in the 5th U.S. House district. But less so down ballot.

There are some notable city and county races; the Portland mayor’s office could be decided in this primary (there’s a growing sense that businessman Sho Donozo’s one-time balloon has burst and Councilor Sam Adams, rising steadily, with good media and heavily endorsed, just might clear the 50% mark in the primary despite the multiplicity of candidates). On the legislative front . . . not so much.

The differences between a lot of these legislative candidates are subtle and stylistic more than on policy. (You probably could say that about Adams and Donozo, too, if Donozo’s views were expressed more clearly.)

There aren’t even all that many legislative primaries: 19 in total, for 75 legislative seats on the ballot with potential for 150 ballot slots. And some of those look, simply, minor, contests in which one candidate clearly will roll over the other. (See for example, in District 4, veteran incumbent Republican Representative Dennis Richardson against Ronald Schutz, a retiree whose political background seems to consist one failed run for the Grants Pass City Council.)

Let’s take a quick look at the contested legislative primaries in Oregon this year, the 10 Democratic and nine Republican (two each in the Senate, the rest in the House: (more…)

Geoff Simpson

Alot of political calculation probably is going on about now in and around the 47th House district, on the subject of Representative Geoff Simpson, D-Covington. He’s got some trouble, the kind that might not be politically survivable.

Only but so many details are publicly available; we do know the case involves an evidently bitter divorce, a meeting between the legislator and his ex-wife, a call to local law enforcement, and Simpson charged in King County District Court with fourth-degree assault and interfering with a domestic violence report. (A police report has bee posted via Sound Politics; sounds like the case in question, but the names have been blacked out.) Simpson has predicted exoneration. Meantime, we learn today, House Speaker Frank Chopp has removed Simpson from his committee chair.

The political issue here involves Simpson’s house seat. So, just a bit of background.

The district is in rural southeast King County, east of the Renton area; the main communities are Black Diamond and Covington, where Simpson has been a visible figure (in city government, too) for some years. Traditionally, this was part of the Republican King County east side, and Republicans did represent it for a long time. In 1996, for example, Republican Suzette Cooke took seat 1 with 62.4% of the vote; two years later another Republican, Phil Fortunato, took it with 52.6%. He lost the seat to Simpson two years later in 2000, in a 50.1%-49.5% squeaker.

In this decade, here is how the Republican percentages for that seat have gone: 49.5% in 2000, then 48.5% (Fortunato losing a second time to Simpson) in 2002, then 46.2% in 2004, and 40.3% in 2006. The trend line is matched on the other side. It’s roughly matched by the other House seat and the Senate seat in 47 as well; in 1998 the district was all-Republican, and today it’s all-Democratic.

Other conditions being more or less equal, you’d expect this House seat would remain Democratic this year. Depending on what emerges next in the Simpson legal case, though, Simpson may or may not be able to maintain that party advantage - this could be the kind of candidate-specific problem that could overcome partisan advantage.

Catch is, there’s not long to decide. Filing time in Washington is just a month away. Simpson has, in other words, some political reason to try to resolve the case in his favor (if he can) by then. Otherwise . . .

Mark Emmert

The theory behind paying those high executive salaries and compensation packages, like the $905,000 for University of Washington President Mark Emmert, usually carries the explanation that top talent needs top pay. Needs it, the theory goes, both as incentive to do a good job (though if they were so good, would such incentive be needed?) and as a loyalty encourager and enforcer: You wouldn’t put any other obligation before the one that pays you so well, right?

Which raises a question of what degree of loyalty two of Emmert’s newest employers - they are paying him for services rendered - might expect. They’re both board positions, but Emmert will be compensated substantially for them: By Weyerhauser $70,000 a year and $70,000 in stock, and by Expeditors International $200,000 a year in stock.

Where exactly does that put him in any dealings those corporations might have with UW?

The story has broken all over the Seattle media; we were taken by this tag on a Post-Intelligencer blog post: “It isn’t untypical for highly paid university leaders to sit on boards. The Chronicle of Higher Education reported earlier this year that the only two public university presidents earning more money than Emmert in the 2006-2007 school year both sat on corporate boards.”

A closing thought: What if we offered to pay university presidents, say, $50,000 a year and reasonable expenses? Might weed out a lot of the money obsession; and our guess is that the level of executive talent wouldn’t change much.

They’ve both got their backers. But in the newspaper endorsement race - for the Democratic nomination for the Senate - attorney Steve Novick is leading House Speaker Jeff Merkley. (Merkley did finally get today a positive story in the Oregonian, but that’s one of the few media breaks he’s gotten in months.)

How the endorsements, so far at least, break down:

Novick: The Portland Oregonian (this is by far the big one), the Medford Mail-Tribune, the Pendleton East Oregonian, the Ashland Daily Tidings, Willamette Week (weekly), the McMinnville News Register, the Portland Mercury (weekly), the Portland Tribune.

Merkley: The Eugene Register-Guard, Salem Statesman-Journal, Bend Bulletin.

Advantage: Novick. His advocates seize on his unconventional style, political and policy smarts and passion; Merkley’s point to a strong record in the Oregon House. Actually, most of the editorials make both sets of points about these candidates, the difference coming in where you put the emphasis. But this has to be said: More often than not, newspapers will go with the more conventional, establishment choice, and the one with the longer resume of public offices. This time, even while offering few criticisms of Merkley, they didn’t. The newspaper editorial boards (at the primary stage at least) should have been a Merkley audience.

ALSO Seems in our review that Illinois Senator Barack Obama has swept the newspaper endorsements in Oregon so far. Or has Hillary Clinton picked up one we missed? (Among the majors and others, we know the Oregonian, the Register-Guard, the Willamette Week have endorsed Obama; the Salem Statesman-Journal plans a presidential endorsement on Sunday.)

UPDATED Edited to add two recent Novick endorsements. And to note here that we’re considering only endorsements by general-interest news publications aimed at a broad community, not a specific interest (and some of those have endorsed in the Senate race too).

No, not so much the number of yard signs in front of houses or on property (though there is that, too). Rather, in this case, the ease with which a supporter can actually go get a yard sign.

That’s often not as simple as you might think. While campaigns may aggressively seek out some prime spots for signage, what seems like a diminishing number of campaigns actually make it easy for an interested supporter to simply get one.

So check this out from the Steve Novick (U.S. Senate in Oregon) campaign: Detailed instructions on where exactly to get signs, and lists and maps of 25 places around the state (spottier in the east, but then most human organization is) where they can be had. Many pointed to supporters, who in turn will help build the organization.

The current dustup over robo-calls - effectively a kind of push polling without the poll - in North Carolina (where state officials have started an investigation) apparently extends much further. As in, to the Northwest.

The same group apparently has sent out a bunch of mailers in Oregon, asking recipients to register to vote. (They screwed up, though: By the time it reached their targets, the registration deadline had passed.) An example has been posted on the Talking Points Memo web site.

Tribal casinos around the Northwest are a varied lot. Some of them are large scale operations, smaller than a large Vegas casino but still big enough to support large hotels (the Grand Ronde, the Coeur d’Alene, among others). But some of them are small-scale operations, like the little (and barely remembered) casino at Burns.

Fort Hall in eastern Idaho, between Pocatello and Idaho Falls (close to 200,000 people live within 50 miles or so), is on the smaller side, its casino near the reservation’s main community focusing principally on bingo. You have to figure tribal leaders have been thinking expansion for some time. Apart from the nearby population base, there’s solid road transport (it’s near the merger of Interstates 86 and 15), and the nearest sizable casinos are about 150 miles away, at Jackpot, Nevada. If it became more of a destination point, it could draw strong Utah traffic.

The tribe said today that it plans a major expansion of just that sort - an 80-acre resort including a hotel with 200 rooms (which will make it one of the largest in eastern Idaho), a golf course, a water park (out in the desert) and more. Work on it is expected to begin in a few months. (Since this is all happening on reservation land, regulatory hurdles should be minor.)

This may be on the short list of big stories of the year for eastern Idaho. It could change the dynamic of the reservation and its relationship with the communities in the area.

Jim McDermott

The Jim McDermott legal case is done, with McDermott’s payment of a $1 million court judgment to John Boehner, the House minority leader. (The suit had to do with Washington Representative McDermott’s release of a recording of an overheard phone conversation.) The case was a civil lawsuit between two private parties, meaning that Boehner legitimately could have pocketed the money. Instead, he said he will donate it to Republican candidates - which would seem to sting McDermott.

A Boehner spokesman was quoted, “I wouldn’t expect he’ll receive a lot of thank-yous come November.”

Maybe not, considering how appreciated an extra million will be to the various Republican campaign funds running hard-up this year.

Although and unless: McDermott, who has had a legal expense trust fund in place for the case (part of the money for the settlement came from it, the rest from his campaign treasury), could do a make-good by setting up another fund: One to counter the money he just game Boehner.

Just a thought.

The recent raft of stories about shifts and increases in voter registration in Oregon - especially the pickup in Democratic numbers - have tended to look at the short run of the last three or four months. Which has generated some interesting stats, but we thought we’d take a little longer look - the numbers from March 2007 compared to March 2008.

The Oregonian reported a couple of days ago, for example, that “Oregon Democrats, who began the year with about 70,000 more registered voters than Republicans, have doubled that advantage, which stood Friday at 826,984 Democrats to 685,344 Republicans.”

So what over the course of a year?

In March 2007, Democratic registrants in Oregon totaled 767,214, and Republicans 703,564 - a gap of somewhat over 63,000. In March 2008: Democrats, 803,042 (a gain of around 35,000), and Republicans 685,469 - a loss of about 18,000. Two points: A Democratic gain has been underway for an extended period, throughout the last year; but about 22,000 voters of it - a big portion - has emerged in just the last few weeks. (But might some of those be primary election switchers? The March-March count comparison does control for that to a degree.)

As of the Secretary of State’s March reports, Democrats are in the majority in Benton, Clackamas, Clatsop, Columbia, Coos, Hood River, Lane, Lincoln, Multnomah (approaching 3-1 there), Tillamook, Wasco, and Washington. In March 2007, Clackamas and Washington were majority Republican.

Even in the smaller counties, you see some fallout. Baker County Democrats went from 3,009 to 3,013, and Republicans fell from 4,809 to 4,749 - down 60, in a county with fewer than 8,000 voters and very little Democratic official presence. (In Multnomah County, Republicans lost about 4,000 registrants.)

Another point worth making: The number of non-affiliateds dropped from March to March, from 441,491 to 431,773 - about 10,000.

One more thing. Oregon’s most heated major contest this year looks to be the U.S. House race in District 5, and the party registration shifts may have something to say about that. Not much noted so far has been the shift in registration in the 5th, which usually has been described as a very close or maybe Republican-leaning district (and understandably, when you see that most of the legislators there are Republican).

However. In March 2007, Democrats there numbered 143,301, and Republicans 149,474. Last month, Democrats totaled 149,377 and Republicans 145,692 - a gain of about 6,000 and a loss of about 4,000, respectively, and a switch in preference. (Non-affiliated lost about 5,000 in the 5th.) That could be enough to make a difference in an otherwise close race, as this one prospectively could be.

The metric shouldn’t be overstated - we say here over and over that while money is important in political campaigns, it isn’t all, and candidates outspent by their opponents win more often than you would think.

Still, a chart of House races - races involving an incumbent seeking re-election, not an open seat - comparing candidates’ cash on hand (according to the most recent reports), got our attention. (It was compiled at the website Swing State Project.) That’s partly because of the race at the very top of the list nationally, the number one race for a challenger with much more cash on hand than the incumbent:

Idaho’s 1st District, where Democrat Walt Minnick has $327,909 on hand, to incumbent Republican Bill Sali’s $124,191 - 264% more. Only one other race in the country (in a Texas district) has nearly so large a challenger advantage.

However, in fourth place on the list, we do find another Northwest race: Democrat Darcy Burner, with $921,615 on hand, to incumbent Republican Dave Reichert’s $698,035, in the Washington 8th.

There are just 10 races in the country featuring an challenger who has more money banked than does the incumbent; those are the only two in the Northwest.

We wrote a bit last week about the departure of Dave Ammons, the dean (is that still proper terminology?) of the Washington statehouse press corps, from his perch as head of that Associated Press office. But another remark seems worth note here too.

That comes from David Goldstein of Horse’s Ass, who reflects on his interactions with Ammons over the years. A view from the inside - an inside - worthy of a look. And an indicator, buried within, of the power of the AP.

There’s a temptation to just sort of forget about the Republican presidential primary in Oregon. All the main party organizational backing has either coalesced behind Arizona Senator John McCain, or at least isn’t standing in the way. McCain has, among other things, the newspaper endorsements and something more powerful: Enough delegate votes to essentially ensure his nomination for president. He will sweep the Republican primary in Oregon; that is not in doubt.

All a given. But.

Traveling around the Willamette Valley last Friday, we noticed just two presidential candidates with signage along the highways and some of the far-flung residential areas we saw. We spotted some signs for Democrat Barack Obama. But those were heavily outnumbered by the front-running sign-placer in the region: Republican Ron Paul.

Paul’s supporters seem not to be giving up, even if their guy obviously isn’t going to be the nominee. You ee the indications all over; a news story from Nevada today, for example, led with this: “Outmaneuvered by raucous Ron Paul supporters, Nevada Republican Party leaders abruptly shut down their state convention and now must resume the event to complete a list of 31 delegates to the GOP national convention.”

So, what of Oregon . . .