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Protesting too much?

This space has not taken much notice of the formation in Idaho's 1st House district of Republicans for Grant - Larry Grant being the Democratic candidate for that congressional seat.

But we've lately begun to wonder why Idaho Republicans have started to take such extensive note of it. Do they know something we don't?

There is no voter registration by party in Idaho, which means that if you say you're a Republican, a Democrat, a Libertarian or most anything else, then you are. Most people are reasonably honest about it, and the people who signed on as Republicans for Grant have to be fairly described as Republicans - all or nearly all (there's one possible exception) have Republican activity, campaign work and in at least one case a major-office candidacy, in their background. We don't think their party affiliation is much arguable. And they are prominent people in the state, leaders in one way or another.

And Bill Sali, the long-time state representative from Kuna who is the Republican nominee, does have an unusual and striking set of weaknesses.

Set against that, three factors. First, all or nearly all of these people have crossed the line before, contributing to or at least openly supporting Democratic candidates from time to time. Their support of Grant is not precedent-shattering. Second, there are no Republican elected officials or leading party officials, or even former elected or leading party officials, on the list - that would be an eye-opener. Third, the "Republicans for" approach is far from new; a long list of Democratic candidates in past years have sported such committees. We can't think of one that proved decisive in a campaign, and some of those included people who were prominent statewide as Republicans. Most such groups faded from memory almost as soon as announced.

This one has not, at least so far. And for that Republicans - for Sali - are responsible.

First, even before the counter-group's announcement, there was Mike Simpson at the state Republican convention, saying there are no "Republicans for Grant," only Democrats for Grant.

Then, repeated low-level snipes at the members of the group. Then, acceleration.

Visits by Vice President Dick Cheney and House Speaker Dennis Hastert to pump up Sali's candidacy - not just to raise money, which would be the norm, but to call for Republican unity. Unity was the text and the subtext.

Saturday, former congressional (and legislative) candidate Dennis Mansfield released an e-mail exhaustively detailing the contributions to Democrats by members of Republicans for Grant. Today, an op-ed in the Idaho Statesman by Mansfield and another former congressional candidate, David Leroy, on the subject of Republican unity. They concluded, "This year we'll all work to elect Sali to Congress — to help the other three members of Idaho's delegation fight for Idaho's interests, and to help retain the all-important Republican majority in Congress. Republican Party members support Sali."

What's gotten interesting is this persistent call for unity, which to these ears has taken on an underlying tone of real concern.

That's what didn't happen in the races Leroy and Mansfield cite as past examples of the party coming together after a contested primary, in 2000 after C.L. "Butch" Otter won a contested Republican primary, or after Helen Chenoweth did it in 1994. In those races, the party did coalesce around the winner, and it was no big deal. It was simply assumed, and no national leaders or op-eds seemed to be needed to press the point home.

Which raises the question: Are these Republican leaders seeing something going on out there that hasn't surfaced yet?

Open rules

After Washington Senate candidate Mike McGavick's multi-headed mea culpa, we heard from a veteran politics watcher and participant (not a Washingtonian) who compared it to a TV news "pledge to be fair, objective and accurate. The assumption has to be that others aren't. His point must be that there are others in politics who are phony, uncivil and secretive. Hard to believe."

McGavick's explicit point was that he'd erred and seen the light. His implicit point was both that he's better than that now, and that he's on a higher moral plane than those who do not similarly throw open their pasts.

McGavick at once acknowledged four events in his history of which he said he was sorry: three relating to a failed marriage, a campaign mistake and a failure as a SafeCoCEO which already were more or less public knowledge, and a fourth relating to a DUI which hadn't emerged. What McGavick did was more complex than the acknowledgement of a single past mistake. He seemed to be saying that these are the things I have done - and now we can close this subject of my personal failings and move on.

For this narrative of redemption to work on a political level, it has to appear clean and total. It cannot be a selective confession, but has to be absolute, witholding nothing; and it has to have marked a clean break with the past, so that the character flaws can be seen as being of the past and not of the present.

He may not have appreciated how high a bar he set for himself. (more…)

Terminology

Many of the voters who have supported term limits for legislative officials have had a bit of confusion: Many of them - according to polls taken in several states, and personal exposure in some elections past - were under the impression that the term limits would apply to members of Congress.

Support for the limits of congressional terms can draw on some indisputable evidence: the obscenely high, soviet-level re-elect rate for members of Congress in the last few decades, for example. The Northwest this year may emerge with no congressional seats changing party hands and just one, and then owing to a retirement, changing its occupant. (Actually, we see close to even odds for change in two seats, and a more distant shot in the case of a third.) The Northwest's Senate delegation has not changed since 2000, and in the last two election cycles only two House seats changed, both voluntary departures. Increasingly, it seems that members of Congress leave when they're good and ready.

The state legislatures, however, are another matter, and that is where the term limits issues on the ballots are targeted - constitutional provisions block them at the federal level.

Oregon voters passed a term limits initiative in 1992. A decade later, the state Supreme Court threw it out on a fairly technical (the "one subject") violation, and there have been no term limits in Oregon since (for the legislature). Under the original term limits, a total of 24 legislators were "term limited" in 1998 and 23 more in 2000.

The new initiative, which appears more stringent than the old, would throw out almost every current Oregon legislator over the next couple of election cycles. (A back-burner issue in the last few weeks, we will be hearing more about it next week; a full press aimed at term limit opponents is on its way, in and apart from the net. Bear in mind as you read about it, though, who has financial and lobbying interests at stake on both sides.)

You get the impression from this that Oregon's legislators (or those elsewhere) have been around practically forever. But turn the question around the other way - as we posed it for Congress - and the picture looks a lot different. (more…)

Filed away

Pigs must be flying, and it must be as cool in Hades as it was yesterday in the Northwest. You got it: Your scribe has become a candidate for office.

Do not expect that anything about this site or any other Ridenbaugh Press activities will change as a consequence. (Possibly, maybe, an iota more sympathy for those who put their names on the line ...) None of what follows in this post is of any broad Northwest significance; but we thought it should be noted here by way of full disclosure. (more…)

Coordinated campaign

Sometimes political campaigns aren't altogether what they're supposedly about. Sometimes you have to makes connections and pull pieces together.

In Oregon, for example, there's Measure 48, and then there's a set of ads that have begun appearing on another, apparently unrelated subject. We're betting they're closely related.

Go back to our post yesterday on 48 - the TABOR-derived spending cap - and the quotes from its Oregon petitioner, Don McIntire. Who does he see as his opponent in the battle over the ballot issue? Not someone most Oregonians probably would cite: "the real leader of the government class in Oregon – Tim Nesbitt, recent President of the Oregon AFL-CIO. I will debate Mr. Nesbitt as many times as he would like between now and election day."

All of that was largely in response to Governor Ted Kulongoski's offer to debate the man most responsible for underwriting the Measure 48 campaign, New York businessman Howard Rich. Kulongoski's move drew fresh attention to the non-indigenous nature of the initiative, that it's a clone of brethern circulating in a bunch of states, all funded by Rich and associations he's closely linked to.

McIntire's comments sounded like an attempt to swing the spotlight in another direction. In Oregon, unions had been peripheral in the discussion about Measure 48 up to that point, but McIntire went well out of his way to make them central.

But in a bigger context, his comments look in no way accidental. (more…)

The mystery senator?

UPDATE: We'll leave the post here intact, partly because the national issue is still worth noting. However, the premise - a question about whether Idaho Senator Mike Crapo is the senator who placed a secret hold on a contractor database bill - appears to have been resolved. His communications director, Susan Wheeler, just sent us this note: "Senator Crapo does not normally confirm or deny if he is the Senator who placed a hold on legislation. However, given that the Majority Leader has asked Senators to disclose such information, Senator Crapo has instructed me to let you know that he is not the Senator who placed the hold."

Could Mike Crapo be the mystery senator? The one the whole blogosphere, left and right, has been trying to track down and wail upon if cornered?

Idahoans may want to know.

Here's the background. Earlier this year two U.S. senators from distant poles, Oklahoma Republican Tom Coburn and Illinois Democrat Barack Obama, got together on a bill to bring some transparency to the federal government. It would set up an online database, accessible to and searchable by the public, of all federal contractors - who gets the money, how much and for what. It would be free to the public. A lot of people from the left and right quickly seized on the idea as a way to monitor spending and possible corruption. It got widespread support in the Senate, cleared the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee with a unanimous vote in favor, and seemed set for a favorable Senate floor vote. But then a senator placed a "secret hold" on the bill - a procedural that freezes it in place for the rest of the term, unless the senator releases the hold. No reason need be given, or was (as is usual in these cases).

Who was the senator? No one would say. So a bunch of national political blogs, some each from the left and right, began collecting, and urging their readers to collect, statements from senators either acknowleding the secret hold or flatly denying having done it.

Over the last few days, senator after senator has been crossed off the list, having issued clear denials. Washington's Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell, and Oregon's Gordon Smith and Ron Wyden, were quickly eliminated. When a caller contacted Idaho's Larry Craig, spokesman Dan Whiting's response was, "of course not."

But then, on the tally web page, there was this: "Sen. Crapo's spokeswoman Susan Wheeler tell us 'It's not Sen. Crapo's practice to confirm or deny any hold on any bill.' So that's a refusal to answer."

Among the 100 members of the Senate, there are four others - Robert Byrd, Judd Gregg, Orrin Hatch and Ted Stevens - for whom answers have not been obtained. Mike Crapo at present is the only senator, according to the tally, who has refused to answer.

We'll be watching.

UPDATE: Coburn has accused Stevens of being the secret-hold senator. Stevens isn't saying.

TABOR debate debate

Pobably there are a few things about the opposition on Measure 48 that its in-state petitioner and veteran initiative organizer, Don McIntire, can't stand. In his current released on the subject, he didn't seem happy about much. But what probably irritated most was the particular place the spotlight was pointing.

It was pointed by Governor Ted Kulongoski, whose re-elect campaign has been getting persistently savvier, and which on Tuesday made perhaps its smartest move yet. (Except that this latest bit isn't yet posted on its website; the material here on his statements comes via Blue Oregon.) Here's Kulongoski's note to Howard Rich, a New York City businessman who has underwritten an estimated $1.1 million of the Measure 48 - TABOR - proposal. (And no, it isn't a "Rainy Day Amendment," and we will keep on noting that.)

Since you are the chief financial backer of Oregon ballot Measure 48, I invite you to Oregon to publicly debate the merits of the measure. You have already put $1.1 million dollars into this effort, so I am certain that you can afford the price of a plane ticket. ...

For too long out-of-state special interests have used Oregon as a laboratory for their failed ideas. As Governor, I feel it is my obligation to stand up to the special interest groups you fund and protect the most vulnerable in our population - kids and seniors - who depend on services you are proposing to cut.

Your subordinates may try to help you avoid the publicity by offering to debate in your stead. I do not see such an arrangement as acceptable. If you are willing to pour millions into our state as a social experiment, the least you can do is come here and explain in person to Oregon voters why the face of our future is so important to you.

I welcome my Republican opponent join me in this discussion with you, but while he opposes this measure, he refuses to campaign against it. Please contact my campaign as soon as possible so that we can finalize arrangements for the forum.

Sincerely,
Governor Ted Kulongoski

Rich, of course, declined. He's not much on public appearances or statements, just likes to drop several hundred thou or a million in a state and watch the fireworks: "I'm happy that I could help out the local group in Oregon--they've faced a real uphill climb against public employee unions and special interests. The fact is, though, that the local group has done all the heavy lifting, and the result of their hard work is that voters will have a say in state spending in the fall. It sounds to me like the Governor is afraid to debate local leaders like Don McIntire, or face up to the 162,000 Oregon voters who have already signed the petition."

But as Kulongoski noted, the heavy financing of petition signature-gathering and campaigning is the reason Measure 48 is on the ballot: It wasn't a home-grown invention. Similar ballot issues have been paid for in Nebraska, Oklahoma, Montana and elsewhere, also underwritten with Rich money. To imagine him as anything less than the prime reason it's on the Oregon ballot is to ignore a lot of external evidence. (more…)

Leading, variously

Two new, and essentially conflicting, polls on the Maria Cantwell-Mike McGavick Senate race. Both show Cantwell ahead; they differ sharply on the spread.

The new Strategic Vision poll gives her a five-point lead, 48%-43%. That's actually up from a four-point lead a month ago. SV polls mainly for Republicans.

The latest Survey USA poll puts Cantwell ahead 56% to 39% - a 17-point lead.

Our suspicion is that the current reality lies in between.

Both polls were conducted during the period when McGavick's confessional (from last week) was making the media rounds.

Power strategies

The Rob Brading campaign seems to be almost on to something - almost. Tactically, it knows it has to do battle with the library Internet porn charge poured down from an ally of its opponent, Oregon House Speaker Karen Minnis. But the strategic element hasn't quite been there. Yet. But could be. May be that Oregon's premier legislative race - and if it wasn't before, it surely is now - hangs on it.

It hangs on a question of power.

Karen MinnisKaren Minnis has been speaker of the House for four years, and she is no figurehead. In close alliance with Majority Leader Wayne Scott, she runs the House; her effectiveness in the role is acknowledged by her critics. Her effectiveness is widely bemoaned, in fact, by many Democrats.

As makes sense, she plays this up in her district (the 49th, in eastern Multnomah County, including Troutdale and Wood Village and part of Gresham). Watch her campaign video for a good sense of how. In a short but effective string of examples, she shows people from the district talking about problems they have faced, and how Minnis helped them through her work in the House. It's cleanly produced and an effective declaration of usefulness and effectiveness. And at the end of it one of the (unnamed) people adds, "They say Karen's in for the fight of her political life. I can't see how that's true. She's never stopped fighting for us."

Rob BradingIt's an interesting acknowledgement, and probably necessary. Two years ago, when Minnis was coming off her first term as speaker, she drew a little-known opponent - Brading - who ran an enthusiastic but lightly funded and organized campaign against her. Minnis won, but it's a tossup which candidate was more surprised at the close margin, just 53.4% for a solidly established House speaker who drastically outspent her opponent, who never seemed to have delivered a real blow of his own.

Or, in a backhanded way, did he? The most notable incident of the campaign came when Minnis, in an unusual acknowledgement of her opposition, suggested that in his service on a library advisory board, Brading should have pressed for more efforts to keep children from accessing porn at Internet-linked library computers. The implication that Brading is okay with kids viewing porn was too much, and he demanded an apology from Minnis, and got one. The subject was not revisited. That cycle. (more…)