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Posts published in March 2026

Suffer the children

March 31, 2026

Trying to write about our national political activities these days is getting much harder to do.  Used to be you could take the usual issue and the politicians involved in it and opine this way or that in reasonable commentary.

No more.  The amount of misogyny, cruelty, idiocy and just plain B.S. being passed of as political "discussion" these days has made it tough even to consider some of the elected cretins fit to hold the offices they do, much less quote them.

The following two despicable examples appeared on TV "news"  pages within three hours recently.

Rep. Dana Rohrabacher is known for saying alarming, ignorant and quite stupid things on a regular basis.  His latest?  He told a convention of Realtors in D.C. home sellers "shouldn't have to sell to people who offend their personal beliefs."  Meaning buyers who are Black, gay, lesbian, atheist, Muslim, etc..  Next day, to their credit, the Realtors cut him off their endorsement list and, more important, from their PAC.

Then, the always - always - moronic Rep. Louis Gohmert.  His latest?  He told an interviewer Special Prosecutor Mueller had "spent his entire career defending Muslim terrorists."  Even followed up with a national news release.

Of course, there's the House "Freedom Caucus" writing the Nobel Committee to formally push for the next Peace Prize to be given to Donny Trump.  Can you even imagine the reaction within the Nobel Committee when that hit the mailbox?

But, here's one entirely sadistic political story that didn't just reach the bottom of the barrel.  It broke through to new mud and took the current GOP "administration" to a new, much lower cesspool.

This mighty nation - this "shining beacon on the hill" - this nation made up entirely of immigrants - this proud country -  has begun stripping babies and children from their families at our borders.  Tearing apart families whose only "crime" has been to cross our borders, seeking their own liberties in this "bastion of freedom."

Now, we're told, in addition to that cruelest of acts, our "government" has LOST nearly 1,500 hundred of those kids - 1,500!  Authorities - or what passes for "authorities"- have no idea where they went, who has them, whether some are being sold into sexual slavery or other human bondage and, if so, by whom.  Trump's hardline Chief of Staff said they'd be "placed in foster care - or whatever."  "WHATEVER?!"

Trump's people are also trying to "justify" this inhumane family destruction by saying maybe more people "will be deterred"  from trying to cross our borders if they know what awaits  And our Attorney General mumbled much the same thing!

What the Hell kind of people are these?

And now our "government"claims it's "not legally responsible."  "NOT RESPONSIBLE?"

I cannot even imagine the sadistic political "minds" that ordered these crimes-against-humanity.  Much less the actual government employees doing it - reaching out to grab crying children and stripping them from their parent's arms.  Whose "government?"

As I said, it's much harder these days to even comprehend some of the political goings, much less write something cogent about them.  The Rohrabacher's and Gohmert's and some of their Cretin kin are hard enough to deal with.  Maybe - just maybe - a couple elections will send them back to their loyal "bases" and they can enjoy their full taxpayer paid retirements in well-deserved anonymity.

But, I'm sitting here, trying to comprehend what's happening in our beloved country.  My mind wonders  how far we've strayed from being a welcoming nation with a compassionate populace.  I'm trying to find the words to describe the cruelty, anger and rank idiocy so prevalent  in our nation's politics.  Wondering if we'll ever rid ourselves of the mindless, sadistic, lying and corrupt "leadership" currently driving this country further into a huge ditch.

As I search for words, the ones that repeatedly flash in my head are "...suffer the little children...."  Biblically, the word "suffer" meant "let the little children..." or "do not impede the little children..."

Trump, Sessions, their minions and a Congress that stands idly by are using the word "suffer" in its worst application.

What the hell has happened to us?

 

On Vietnam Veterans Day

March 30, 2026

Vietnam War Veterans Day is observed on March 29 of each year, marking the day in 1973 when our remaining combat troops left Vietnam. While it recognizes those 2.7 million Americans who served in the Vietnam War, the focus is primarily on the 58,220 brave souls who lost their lives in service to their country.

Every time I think of those who lost their lives, the more than 300,000 who were wounded, the many thousands whose lives were ruined by drugs, PTSD and ailments like cancers related to Agent Orange, it hits me right in the heart. And, it isn’t just American troops, it’s also the South Vietnamese troops I lived and served with and the kids in the Cao Dai Orphanage that my 4-man group helped. Those memories are why I titled my memoir, “Vietnam…Can’t Get You Out of My Mind.” It is always there.

When the Communists waged their surprise Tet offensive on January 30, 1968, it contradicted the rosy picture being dished out by the top brass and politicians. The photo of a Viet Cong prisoner being shot in the head by a Vietnamese police officer, which appeared on the front page of many American newspapers, further eroded public support of the war.

Americans had a bad taste in their mouths about the Vietnam war and those who had served in it throughout the 1970s and into the 1980s. They grew weary of the Iraq War that was clearly an unnecessary war of choice, as well as the Afghanistan War that started on a justifiable note but turned into an unjustified 20-year slog. We spent an inordinate amount of blood and treasure for both wars, with practically nothing gained from either of them.

You would think that any President with a sense of history and a lick of common sense would not have started another totally unjustified and unlawful war, without at least explaining the necessity to the American people. Neither the President nor his “war” secretary have given a coherent explanation of the Iran War’s necessity or of when and how it might end. That is why that war is very unpopular.

On the one hand, Trump says the Iranian public should rise up and overthrow their vicious government. They might have the inclination to do so if we were not killing hundreds of innocent civilians like the 175 killed in the girls’ school, thanks to outdated targeting intel. Trump claimed we had won on the first day of the war, so why are we positioning up to 8,000 troops in the vicinity? And, why is Trump considering $200 billion in war funding? It looks like we may be in for the long haul.

It was rather obvious that the Iranians would close the Strait of Hormuz, causing the cost of oil and fuel to skyrocket, but Trump and his war planners gave it nary a thought. This crap show is going to get much worse before it is over. And, it’s all because the geniuses who are responsible for the fiasco did not learn the costly lessons that so clearly came out of the Vietnam War.

Those of us who served in that war would feel better for our heartache about its outcome, if the present administration had just spent a few minutes studying the causes of our heartache. Trump made no explanation as to why a war was necessary. He did not even make the pretense of getting Congressional approval. The spineless GOP legislators would likely have given it to him. Both Mike Crapo and Jim Risch have gone all in for the war, fearful of stepping on Trump’s toes. Risch contends the war is a “defensive” war, rather than a “forever war” and that it will “end rapidly.” We’ll see.

For his part, Trump has found good use for a picture of the casket of a soldier who died in his war. The photo is embedded in a Trump political fundraising request. It shows Trump wearing a baseball cap, peering over a soldier’s casket at a March 7 dignified transfer ceremony. As a Vietnam veteran who volunteered to serve, I have a few observations: (1) take off the GD cap, these are the remains of a person who gave his life for his country and he deserves respect, (2) it is revolting to use a soldier’s casket in a political fundraising appeal and (3) for a draft dodger to commit such offenses is particularly appalling. No veteran should ever suffer the indignity of having their mortal remains being featured in a presidential fundraising appeal.

Idahoans should use the occasion of Vietnam War Veterans Day to remember and pay respects to veterans who have served in all of the nation’s wars.

 

The trail and the nut

The trail and the nut

March 29, 2026

On March 19, the Yamhill County Board of Commissioners voted to remove from county transportation plans a rail-to-trail corridor stretching 17 miles near Highway 47 from McMinnville to Gaston.

What comes next could be worthy of note.

But the backdrop of this decision also makes a telling story about the how and why of a political battle. This local conflict over creating a pedestrian and biking trail, a central flashpoint in local county elections this year, may have emerged from an entirely different kind of decision: To grow hazelnuts.

Rail travel from the St. Joe area on the northeast side of McMinnville north to the Forest Grove area dates from 1872, when tracks were laid and Westside system trains began running. Cities including Carlton and Gaston were founded as farm service stops along the way and named for people associated with those stops. After a brief go at passenger trolley service, the line was taken over by Union Pacific Railroad, which decades later, now decades ago, abandoned it. The tracks are long gone, the land mostly weed infested and barely passable if at all.

In 2017, Yamhill County bought the portion of the rail right of way from Union Pacific, the plan being to clear it and turn it into a rail-to-trail project similar to the Banks-Vernonia State Trail a few miles north. The idea had broad support in the area, and the county commission, dominated then as now by a two to one conservative majority, enthusiastically moved the project along.

Public support for it has persisted. A 2021 survey, taken after political pushback began, still found 64% of area respondents in favor of the trail, the number rising to 70% after more information was provided to those surveyed.

Yamhill County at one point received $1.7 million from the Oregon Department of Transportation toward trail development. (That money now has to be repaid to the state.)

In this decade, the project has sunk into quagmire. Opposition developed primarily among farmers operating near the trail, some of whom were closely allied with the commission majority. They challenged the county’s move for trail development to the Land Use Board of Appeals, from where it was returned to the county for action. The commission’s new majority turned sharply against trail development, and currently the property sits mostly neglected as the new commission struggles with dueling use suggestions.

Pieces of the old rail right of way may be sold mainly to adjacent landowners. Once that happens, prospects for a public walking or biking trail in the area probably will vanish forever.

Why the change in official attitude?

No one answer probably accounts for everything, but the key seems to be hazelnuts.

Tristin Shell Spurling, a longtime resident of the Cove Orchard area near the old rail line and a trail advocate, observed changes in farming activity near the rail line that matched with changes from support toward opposition to it. He wrote local government officials last fall with a detailed report.

Spurling noted that until about 2015, many of the farmers and conservative members of the county commission were either neutral or supportive of the trail proposal. At that time, most farmers in the adjacent areas were growing grass seed, a low-impact crop with low costs.

Hazelnut development, a higher cost (and higher risk and reward) crop became a larger factor in the area around 2016 and 2017, which is when opposition to the trail began to materialize, though commissioners remained at first largely supportive.

In the years since, the hazelnut developments expanded and some of the earlier planted orchards began to mature. As those became a larger component of the farm picture, the trail opposition began to coalesce along with it, taking legal action and pressing politically at the commission level to reject the plan altogether.

“The hazelnut conversion boom is well documented in Yamhill County during these years. This aligns with the sudden shift in hostility toward the trail,” Spurling wrote. “It often starts with one or two high-value agricultural conversions that change the perceived risk environment.”

Spurling’s wife and fellow trail supporter, Neyssa Hays, is this year a candidate for the Yamhill County Commission, for one of the seats now held by a trail opponent. (The lone commissioner who supported the public trail in the 2-1 vote is not up for election this year.)

Little of this was mentioned by the commission. Commissioner Mary Starrett said, “The county tried for many years to get this project done. The Land Use Board of Appeals said it’s not passing muster and it just kept costing us more and more money and more and more people filling these rooms and being angry and blaming commissioners.”

The battle may continue. A group called Trails PAC has filed petitions seeking a public vote before disposal of trail land. A referendum petition seeking to overturn the commission decision also is possible.

Politics grows out of many things. Sometimes political battles come out of unexpected places, like that hazelnut orchard you drive past on your next trip into the wine country.

This column originally appeared in Oregon Capital Chronicle.

Ron Twilegar

Ron Twilegar

March 27, 2026

Some people in politics seem to do best when they have the fewest obstacles and a straight shot to their goals. Ron Twilegar, who died at Boise on March 5, flourished when he was - as he mostly was in his elected offices - in the minority, and facing lots of challenges.

In the state Senate (from 1976 to 1982), he served for a time as the Democratic minority leader, and was  among both the best prepared and most resourceful legislative leaders I’ve seen.

One day on the floor he was arguing against a bill  (it might have been a right to work, or something similarly contentious, and partisan)  and didn’t just argue against it, he tried to kill it using virtually the whole roster of legislative rules. The Republican majority was set to pass it but he kept on trying.

Finally, out of maneuvers, he made a motion to send the bill to the second order of business: Prayer. Because, he said, that would be the bill’s only chance when it reached the governor’s office (and a certain veto).

Even the Republican caucus laughed.

He was smart and congenial enough to make friends across the partisan divides; then-state Senator (now U.S. senator) Jim Risch was his Republican counterpart, and from all appearances they worked together well.

His resourcefulness and doggedness could make him a source of aggravation, though, in some contexts.

After leaving the Senate he was elected to the Boise City Council, where during much of his tenure he was a minority voice on the then hot issue of downtown redevelopment. Mayor Dick Eardley had long pressed for a downtown shopping mall, and later took other positions Twilegar and others thought were getting in the way of Boise development. At council meeting after meeting,  Twilegar would nudge and press and make motions and do whatever he could to upset the balance. Watching him then, I kept thinking of a cat gradually pawing at some object to fall from a shelf, the result being a loud crash. Which it was in the meetings.

He drove Eardley nuts. But he also may have been the pivotal political figure in changing the development trajectory of Boise, from where it was in the 60s and 70s to what it became in the 90s and since. He developed a broad coalition backing those efforts, a bipartisan organization that changed the membership of the council and led directly to the election of Eardley’s successor, Dirk Kempthorne.

He was a pivot as well in partisan politics. Before his election from a north Boise district in 1974, no Democrat had been elected to the legislature from Ada County in a third of a century. To see distinctly blue Boise in the last couple of decades is to see a whole different political place from its character in 1974, and that transition didn’t happen by accident. Twilegar’s campaigning - intensive and door to door - and ahead-of-its-time organization rooted the party first in Boise’s north end and over the next generation across the city.

If you still wonder what an achievement this was, bear in mind Twilegar was running that year against a veteran Republican incumbent (his name was Dean Summers) who was a close friend of Democratic Governor Cecil Andrus, and didn’t seem especially happy about this particular Republican loss. That was the year of another obstacle Twilegar had to deal with.

Twilegar later ran for the U.S. Senate, losing to Republican Larry Craig, and his career in politics was lower key after that.

But in his earlier years, Twilegar showed that in politics and agenda-setting, you don’t necessarily have to have a top of the line title or great power to make changes, even large and lasting ones. Smarts, preparation and determination can sometimes do as much, or more.

 

A modest proposal

A modest proposal

March 26, 2026

I am not Jonathan Swift. Though you should read him. Gulliver’s Travels was a hoot. Swift’s ‘Modest Proposal’ is good, so I bring it forward.

Health care is expensive and elusive in this great nation. We could all be better with universal access and better service. But the medical profession fights government regulation. And it has been successful.

When the proposal that all Americans should have health insurance was weakly put forth in the “Affordable Care Act” (Obamacare), the plan was negotiated with the health insurance industry.

So we got the mess we have. It’s just as complicated as it was before the ACA, and now Republicans are chipping away at it.

The ACA got more people insured. And this lowered overall health care costs for a while. Don’t think I’m here supporting it. It’s complicated. Getting more people insured lowers costs for us all. This is a fact.

But the Idaho legislature now wants us to go in the other direction.

Our elected legislators want to get less people health insurance.

And their proposal is that we should be checking if they are working so they would then be eligible for the health insurance benefit.

Let me offer my modest proposal.

All Idaho legislators, who work ¼ time, receive taxpayer funded health insurance. Their benefit costs us Idahoans more than $2M a year. Why don’t we put some work requirements on them?

I live in a district where my State Senator will not attend public forums. And my Representative does not respond to my emails. Are they working? But I’m paying for their health insurance?

I’m getting riled up here.

I can see why the folks in the Marble Dome are riled up. I don’t like sending my money off to folks who aren’t working.

Let me give you an example.

I have served on the Idaho Health and Welfare Board for three years. I have attended every meeting in person. Representative John Vander Woude was also, in statute, a member. He was never in attendance.

But my taxes are paying for his health insurance. And our taxes are not paying for mine.

So just who is working here?

Maybe somebody could tell me.

Here is my modest proposal. If Medicaid expansion health care recipients need to prove they are working, so should our elected representatives.

I could go further. The state of Idaho is the largest employer in this state. And you and I pay top dollar for all of these state employees’ health insurance. Are they working? Did they show up?

In fact, us taxpayers pay a lot more for state employee health insurance than we do for Medicaid Expansion folks.

So let the burden of proving you’re working come down on all who suck at the taxpayer teat.

Well, maybe the burden on all state employees is too much. For now, let’s just limit it to the elected folks.

Brad, did you do 80 hours this last month? Please submit the form.

Raul, can you please have your secretary fill out the form for you?

And all you State Senators and Representatives, yeah, Speaker Moyle too, submit the forms so us taxpayers can be assured. Are you really working?

It’s just a modest proposal. If you are working for our common good, we would be glad to pay for your health insurance. If not, or you somehow don’t find the time to acknowledge our inquiry, sorry.

It really is simple. Do you deserve our money?

That’s what you are saying.

And that is what I am saying.

It is a modest proposal.

Let’s see.

 

Another look

March 24, 2026

Maybe its time to take a another look at what our forefathers expected when they designed our government back in the 1700s. It is clear that the drafters of the Constitution did not trust the average voter. Of all the offices described in the document, only one officeholder  – the member of the House of Representatives—was to be selected by direct vote. Every other office described in the Constitution called for a selection process that did not involve any choice from the general public.

Presidential officers, for example, were to be selected by vote of an Electoral College – a separate body created by the Constitution exclusively for that purpose.

In recent elections, the popular votes have been very close. In several years, perfectly legal machinations in translating the popular vote into the electoral vote has resulted in the Electoral College selecting the candidate with less than a majority of the popular votes as President. This has led to considerable discussion about abolishing the Electoral College.

However, the election of Donald Trump has given rise to a stronger argument: We should revisit the Constitutional issues and invest into the Electoral College more and not less in the process of Presidential selection.

In recent years, the national campaign for President has grown to a process that has nothing within it that relates to the experience and abilities required to service the office. The campaigns of both parties have been taken over by experts. The processes developed are exclusively designed for the election; they have nothing to do with qualifications for the office to be served. The time consumed is enormous, the effort required has become mind numbing and the results are increasingly unsatisfactory. The process has become so complex, time consuming, and expensive that the best and most qualified individuals who might become candidates for office are refusing to even consider running.

Television and modern technology have completely changed the basic characteristics of political campaigns. Presidential campaigns used to be a sincere effort by the candidate to physically show himself in public to the entirety of the electorate, and to strongly rely on the detailed written analysis in the nation’s press to explain in depth all the differences involved.

No longer. With television and modern technology, the processes are now designed by experts to present only a staged version of the individual candidate, which may bear no connection to reality. The days of personal campaigning are over. Reliance on any extensive examination by the press is over. Television coverage is the order of the day and coverage is measured in minutes if not seconds. For the average consumer of news, the detailed exploration of issues is a thing of the past. Campaigns today are by television and computer, structured by experts with everything planned, with nothing left to chance, and with complete insulation between the general public and the actual  candidate.

The single, unscripted exposure that a presidential candidate might suffer may be the presidential debates on television. Under this completely fabricated exhibition the candidate is expected to expound from memory on an unspecified number of topics. The candidate may not refer to notes, is not given anything but broad subject matters to prepare, and must operate under a rigid time schedule that allows only seconds for consideration of the most significant tissues. The campaign debates have absolutely nothing to do with any qualification or expectation actually related to the office being sought.

Far better would be a process where the voters from each state select a set of representatives. The delegates should not be the legislators themselves, as the decision for president is significantly different that the decision expected of legislators. Further, under our Constitution, the Administrative section of the Constitution is segregated from the Legislative section. Keeping the process completely separated is consistent with foundational theory of the tri-partite system of government.

This may sound like the Electoral College that is already part of the Constitutional machinery. Selection of Electors to the College is now exclusively at the local level and could come before any national nomination of candidates. Let the conventions proceed to the selection of candidates after the Electoral College delegates have been selected.

The actual campaign for office, then, would only be by the candidates to the members of the Electoral College. The process would be much simpler and less costly, and could be designed to bring out and examine the actual and relevant qualifications for office of the various candidates.

The process is clearly broken and has to be repaired. The machinery has to be overhauled carefully but the work has to be undertaken. It is going to take years to recover from the mess Trump is creating but things are going to have to change. We must plan and prepare to prevent things from becoming worse.

We should start now.

 

MAGA and the iceberg

March 23, 2026

The MAGA movement is running its course both at the national and state level. Fiscal mismanagement abounds in Washington and Boise. Culture war issues at both levels are needlessly dividing us. They do nothing to put food on the family table or address the serious shortage of affordable housing and medical care. The objective of the MAGA warriors appears to be playing a reversal of Robin Hood–taking from the poor to help the rich. It is not a recipe that will continue to sell well with a majority of voters.

On the national level, we have an administration that inherited a growing economy and saddled it with massive, unsustainable debt and illegal tariffs. We are now in an unlawful and unnecessary war in Iran, with no strategy to disengage. The war has caused a massive jump in fuel prices, as well as fertilizer and many other products essential to our economy. From being the most admired nation on Earth, which helped immensely in making our economy the strongest, we have become the most warlike. Other nations will shrink back from helping the U.S. to continue financing its colossal $38.9 trillion national debt.

Trump grossly miscalculated the impact Iran could have on the world economy by closing off the Strait of Hormuz. Not being a student of history, he obviously did not recall the massive shocks that cutoffs of Middle East oil caused to the world in 1973, 1979 and 1990. Iran can keep the spigot closed, regardless of Trump’s massive bombing campaign, until he cries uncle. The new Ayatollah has Trump by the unmentionables and won’t let go until he gives them a favorable deal.

Both the national and state governments are making it difficult for rural families to keep their heads above water. Medicaid programs that are essential to keep both urban and rural families healthy are being ripped away by MAGA warriors at both the state and national level. When the state and federal spending cuts approved by the Idaho Legislature and our entire Congressional delegation start to sink in toward the end of the year, rural hospitals will close, doctors may have to relocate and people will die.

Farm workers, who are essential to growing our crops and milking our cows, are living in a state of fear. Most of Idaho’s 35,000 undocumented workers have been here for years. The great majority are law-abiding and tax-paying residents. They don’t deserve to be terrorized by masked federal agents. Yet, MAGA warriors in the Legislature continue to use them as punching bags while the workers try to render their essential services. These state politicians should take note that Donald Trump has recently acknowledged the farm worker shortage but done nothing effective to address it. In May 2024, a comprehensive bi-partisan immigration bill was teed up to resolve this and a host of other immigration issues but Trump killed it solely for political purposes.

Speaking of our farm economy, which is the lifeblood of Idaho, the combination of the illegal tariffs and unlawful war is a devastating one-two punch. The cost of fuel, fertilizer, farm machinery and a variety of other essentials is growing by the day. Prices have suffered from the loss of long-time markets as a result of tariff retaliation. Trump’s upping of beef imports has certainly not helped Idaho beef producers.

Idaho sugar beet growers are being severely impacted by sugar imports. Trump and Idaho Senator Mike Crapo, who heads up the Senate Finance Committee, which has jurisdiction over sugar imports, could solve the problem. When I worked for former Senator Len Jordan in the early 1970s, one of my jobs was to deal with Sugar Act issues. Jordan always worked hard, and successfully, with other Finance Committee members to protect Idaho beet growers from imported sugar. Our current MAGA officials could and should do likewise.

Instead of dealing with the real problems facing Idaho, MAGA legislators are tilting windmills on meaningless culture war issues–gay marriage, book bans, vaccine bans, torturing public schools and their teachers, you name it. A growing cadre of reasonable, pragmatic Republicans has stepped forward in the last two years to actually do the job of legislating to make lives better for Idahoans. They will undoubtedly be challenged in the GOP primary by MAGA warriors heavily financed by out-of-state money, but I think voters have had their fill of the culture wars.

By the time the November election comes around, the MAGA movement will have lost much of its appeal. The U.S. House will change hands and, possibly, the Senate. The Idaho Legislature will have fewer MAGA followers. There will be more reasonable Republicans willing to work across the aisle to address real problems facing the Gem State. Amen.

 

An evolving field

An evolving field

March 22, 2026

Last August, I wrote of the upcoming contest for the Republican nomination for governor that legislator Christine Drazan, the party’s 2022 nominee, started in the preeminent position and that “any discussion of major contenders for the 2026 Republican nomination for governor has to start with her.”

In the last couple of months the field has changed, to the point that another legislator who last summer wasn’t even on the radar appears to be claiming front-runner status.

As of the end of candidate filing, 15 Republicans have filed for governor. It’s an echo of the even larger crowd of 19 four years ago. When I wrote, “The race has no obvious frontrunner, only a few names familiar to people who follow Oregon politics, and no statewide election winners and or incumbent officeholders above the county level.”

This year, most have no statewide visibility or organization or financing, and almost certainly will generate few votes. But several of them do, which gives the race more structure at least.

And in one case, an unexpected — to put it one way — survey result.

Rep. Ed Diehl of Scio on March 15 released a poll (which he said was conducted independently, not by his campaign) that showed him with 66.4% of the vote among the 10 Republican candidates for governor. The poll is credited to Predict Oregon, and it was said to have surveyed 1,022 Oregon Republicans from March 3 to 8.

It’s not a traditional poll, by any means. While traditional pollsters call or text to gather a statistically representative sample of the electorate, Predict Oregon instead solicited responses online.

David Medina, a social media influencer from Tualatin who has never won office, was said to have come in a distant second (8.7%), with Drazan (7.7%) and 2010 GOP governor nominee Chris Dudley fourth (7.6%).

Diehl’s campaign statement said “Voters want bold action on the economy, public safety, homelessness, and affordability, and this poll shows I’m the clear choice to deliver it.”

Diehl does have one claim to some statewide fame, as an organizer (as head of the Oregon Freedom Coalition) behind the referendum measure which recently pulled 250,000 petition signatures toward overturning last year’s state law increasing transportation taxes and fees.

Initiative and referendum actions can bring statewide organizational support, but it’s no guarantee of ballot success. While he did lead the referendum effort, many of its supporters also plausibly could support one of the other Republican contenders who also have opposed the transportation finance plan.

Ask Bill Sizemore, a true veteran of the initiative process who lost a governor race in a landslide in 1998, and finished fourth in 2010 and eighth in the 2022 in those Republican gubernatorial primaries.

Apart from that, Diehl is a two-term state representative who until recently had little statewide visibility.

The two former governor Republican nominees currently in the race, Dudley and Drazan, hardly look like pushovers in the primary.

Dudley can point to at least two good data points. First, since the Democrats started their current string of gubernatorial races in 1986, no Republican has come closer to winning (in 2010) than Dudley, when he got within a percent and a half of Democrat John Kitzhaber. Second, he already has significant money, roughly matching the longer-running Drazan, and including a million dollars from Nike co-founder Phil Knight.

Still, Dudley hasn’t been very visible in Oregon since his last run for governor 16 years ago, his fame-making days with the Trail Blazers are far in the rear view mirror, and questions about how grounded in Oregon he is are likely to develop. In 2010 he declared his residence was in Camas, Wash., apparently to cut payment of Oregon taxes. After his close loss for governor in 2010, he moved to California (in 2012) and stayed there until 2020. He reports he now lives in Sisters.

Too, there’s always the possibility someone else in the pack could break out, as to some degree Drazan did in 2024. Marion County Commissioner Danielle Bethell is strongly rooted in the Keizer-Salem area, with a base to build from as strong as some other contenders.

Despite all that, the race at this point still looks most like Drazan’s to lose. She came close to winning against the same (nearly certainly) Democratic nominee just four years ago. She has remained politically active, is in office now (usually a plus) and her partisan network no doubt is alive and well. At most recent reports, she still had the largest treasury of any candidate. She also started her campaign relatively early, before most of the others, and that’s usually a significant advantage.

The Democratic side of the governor primary is almost as crowded as the Republican, but it’s a different story; only incumbent governor Kotek has a statewide profile, organization or financing to credibly run a governor’s race. The only real question seems to be exactly how large a percentage of the vote she gets.

In what looks like a Democratic year in a Democratic-leaning state, the Republican nominee will have a serious challenge come November. But the last couple of months have made clear that the Republican nomination will not be casually gotten either.

This column first appeared in the Oregon Capital Chronicle.

 

Rats

Rats

March 20, 2026

Years ago, we had rats in our house. We brought them there: They were good pets - did you know there is a rat fancy and a whole rat owner subculture? - and they were good pets, smart and inventive, energetic, happy to explore new places, and apt to get into new things wherever they could find them.

Those are not such good qualities in wild rats who are not socialized, healthy or properly fed. The kind of rats, in other words, rapidly increasing in number and infesting the Boise metro area in the last two to three years.

The problem is real. There’s some question now about the role of rats in spreading the Black Death in the middle ages, but (one study said) they were responsible for “at least three pandemics (in the 5th and 6th, 8th through 14th, and 19th through 21st centuries) of plague ravaged civilizations, and the disease undoubtedly plagued humankind prior to recorded history. Also, numerous other diseases are spread to humans by rats; thus, a quote from Hans Zinsser's text Rats, Lice, and History, ‘Man and rat will always be pitted against each other as implacable enemies’ …"

There’s also harm to pets, property damage (even my domesticated rats had a nasty habit of chewing on wire), agricultural loss, and more. With its recent human population explosion, the expansion of the local rat community should come as no surprise, and it should be recognized as a real problem. Private pest control companies can help to a degree,  but the situation is larger than that.

Northern Ada and Canyon counties together have become a real problem area for these Norway and roof rats, and notice has been taken. Maybe most of all in fast-growing Eagle, where one resident has complained about “an explosion of rats.” A technician with a private pest control company said they’ve seen the problem from the Boise foothills to Marsing.

Rats have been brought to the attention of local governments too, but so far they seem not to be a match for the rodents.

Next stop was - and yes, that’s past tense - the Idaho Legislature.

Two legislators from the area, Republican Senator Tammy Nichols of Middleton and Democratic Representative Steve Berch of Boise (and there’s an unusual combination), have been working on the problem all session and pulled together co-sponsors of both parties for Senate Bill 1271, a modest proposal that really only provided for spotlighting the problem and designating the state Department of Agriculture as “the coordinating agency to work with state and local partners using existing authority and resources, without creating new programs or requiring new funding.” It passed the Senate 28-3, but died in the House 32-38. The top complaint toward the end seemed to be that, well, this was a Boise area problem, and evidently not a state concern.

 

About that, at least three things should be said.

One is that the Boise metro area and its outskirts now are home to close to half of the state’s whole population. It’s not some isolated little hamlet.

Second, the state is hardly limited in addressing problems in regions or local areas. The obvious current analogue, as Representative Lori McCann of Lewiston pointed out, is the quagga mussel in the Snake River, an invasive species the state has been fighting (with some success) for several years - but lives only in the river and nearby area.

The third point, and some legislators did point it out as well, is that rats are mobile. (Remember those long-ago worldwide spreaders of disease?) Do you really expect that, if the population in the Boise area takes hold, it will not make its way to Twin Falls or Idaho Falls, or even the Panhandle?

But hey, it’s only Boise, not real Idaho. No problems to see here.

Or as the people of Ada-Canyon might say, “rats.”

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