Ok, so Nov. 4th is coming up pretty soon, and while I think almost everyone I know has decided who they are going to vote for in the presidential contest, if you take a look at the Oregon ballots, there is an awful lot more stuff on there than just the presidential contest.
So, like I always do, I’ve done a bunch of research on the various candidates and measures, and since I have done quite a bit of work to inform myself, I figured it would be of value to others as well. Here’s the way I’m voting, according to the order of the Oregon Ballot. If you don’t live in Bend, some of this won’t apply to you, but a good chunk of it will apply to anyone that lives in Oregon.
Disclaimer: I am liberal, and my biggest concerns are the environment, global warming, and sustainability. I’m posting my choices here purely for informational purposes – use this information to inform yourself and make your own decisions.
A) National Elections:
1) President: My choice: Obama. Nuff said. If you want to follow along with the polls on how Obama is doing, take a look at this sweet poll tracker. If you click on Oregon, you can see that Obama has pulled out to a double digit lead.
2) US Senator from Oregon: My choice: Jeff Merkley – Democrat. Merkley is running against the incumbent Gordon Smith, who is classified as a “rank-and-file” republican who votes pretty much strictly along party lines. Smith has been running a campaign where he is trying to portray himself as an extremely moderate republican. He has even run ads associating himself with Obama, and has shunned McCain all around. From what I’ve read, Merkley seems like a pretty good guy. He’s endorsed by the League of Conservation Voters (the environmental voters organization that I respect greatly), the Oregon Education Association, The Sierra Club, Planned Parenthood, and the ALF-CIO, plus others I’m sure. He’s very pro-renewable energy, which is a big plus with me, and he’s voted 97% of the time in the interest of working families, according to the AFL-CIO.
Merkley was behind for much of the race, but over the past month has pulled ahead of Smith. Check out this neat poll tracker.
3) Congressional Rep, 2nd district: My choice: Noah Lemas – Democrat. Oregon has five representatives in the house. Four of those come from districts that are west of the cascades. The second disctrict runs from the crest of the cascades all the way out to the Oregon Border with Idaho, and includes Bend, Ashland, The Dalles, and everything east of that. The 2nd district is normally reliably republican, and most people consider is “solid republican” for this election cycle as well. Acknowledging the fact that a democratic victory is highly unlikely, I’m encouraged by the groundswell of support for Obama and the fact that the 2nd district has only a +11 republican rating from the Cook Political Report. From what I’ve read, a +10 rating or less means that the other party might have a chance, if all other circumstances work out for the candidate. Furthermore, there are no polls available to tell me what kind of a lead the Republican has in this race, and therefore I have free license to hope for a liberal upset.
As for the candidate, Noah Lemas is a Bend guy, who has founded two different snowboard shops in Central Oregon. I am tempted to vote for the Green party candidate, Tristin Mock from La Grande, but the glimmer of a possibility that Lemas might be able to unseat the republican by riding Obama’s coat-tails has me throwing my vote his way. Check out Lemas’s website for more information about him. It looks like he did his website himself and that he doesn’t have much experience in web design. Best of luck to you Noah, but if there’s a next time, drop me a line and I’ll help you out with your website…
B) State Offices:
4) Oregon Secretary of State: My choice: Kate Brown – Democrat. With endorsements from the League of Conservation Voters, The Sierra Club, The Oregon Education Association, and Planned Parenthood, Brown is an attractive choice. In this race, there is a Green Party candidate – Seth Woolley, but reading through his blog it seems he is unduly focused on just two issues: taking a stand against campaign finance by not accepting any donations, and removing federal power and granting it to states at all costs. In fact, it doesn’t even seem like he is interested in other traditionally Green causes such as sustainability, environmental protection, global responsibility, women’s rights, and social justice… Woolley even went so far as to endorse Dave Brownlow, the uber-conservative Constitution Party candidate for US Senate from Oregon, mostly because he isn’t fund raising and because he wants to take federal power and give it to the individual states so that they can individually take away civil rights as they see fit. Supporting a candidate who is obsessed with reactionary policies and taking away a women’s right to choose makes me wonder about how “green” Seth Woolley really is, and whether his obsession with just two issues has clouded his judgment on all others. In fact, with her degree in environmental conservation and women’s studies, her certificate in environmental law, her work for family and juvenile rights, and her track record in the Oregon senate, I would say that Kate Brown is as “green” as Seth Woolley. If you’re interested in more info on Kate Brown, take a look at her website.
5) Oregon State Treasurer: My choice: Ben Westlund – Democrat. Basically identical situation to Kate Brown for Secretary of State. Same endorsements, same lack of Green Party opponent. For more info on Ben, check out his website.
6) Oregon Attorney General: My choice: Walter Brown – Pacific Green Party. I fully expect Democrat John Kroger to win this race since there isn’t a republican candidate running against him. Since there isn’t any need to worry that a vote for the Green party would be a vote for the Republicans, I am free to guiltlessly support Walter Brown, a grandfatherly figure who served in the Oregon State Senate for 12 years, and then ran for US President on the Socialist party ticket in 2004. There’s not a ton of info about Walt online, but check out his webpage, and here’s a nice vignette on him from Wikipedia:
Near the conclusion of Brown’s twelve years in the Oregon State Senate, he served as Chairman of the Senate Agriculture and Forestery Committee. At that time Brown and his wife purchased 185 acres (0.75 km2) of land on both sides of the Siletz River in Lincoln County on the Oregon Coast. This land had been clear-cut during WWl. They spent many years of hard work in this labor of love to reforest this land in Sitka spruce, western red cedar, and Douglas fir, all with the express intention of making it a park for all to enjoy. When Barbara passed away in 1999, they had not yet completed their dream. Walt Brown continued to manage this forest alone. On August 8, 2007, he donated the land to Lincoln County, which guaranteed that hunting and logging would not be allowed. Lincoln County, with funding from the Oregon Lottery, will be building hiking trails and an educational center in the near future. The donation of this incredible piece of land defines exactly what Walt and Barbara Brown have stood for all their lives as democratic socialists and conservationists.
7) Oregon State Senator, 27th District: My choice: Maren Lundgren – Democrat. She’s a longtime Bend resident, a public defender, and her only opponent is the republican Chris Telfer. Her endorsements from the League of Conservation Voters and the Sierra Club make this one an easy choice. Here’s her website.
8 ) Oregon State Rep, 54th District: My choice: Judy Stiegler – Democrat. Similar situation to Maren Lundgren; Stiegler is a longtime Bend-ite, has the endorsement from the League of Conservation Voters, and is running against a Republican and no one else. Here’s her website.
9) Deschutes County Commissioner: My choice: Alan Unger. He’s a moderate democrat, and former mayor of Redmond. I’m voting for him because he is running against a Republican incumbent who has taken lots of criticism for doing a bad job as commissioner, and because he came and knocked on our door and I got to grill him with questions about alternative energy and renewables. He didn’t know that much about renewables, but I think he’ll do a better job than Mike Daly…
10) Oregon Commissioner of the Bureau of Labor and Industries: My choice: Brad Avakian. There are three candidates running for the non-partisan position. Brad Avakian is the incumbent, and before holding the commissioner position, he was a Democratic State Senator, and founder of the Washington County of the League of Conservation Voters. He is very environmentally focused, and definitely seems like the most serious and well-rounded candidate among the three. Here is his website. Mark Welyczko is also a democrat, and he was recently running in the democratic primary for US Senator from Oregon’s first district. His platform was an impeachment platform, but he lost in the primary. The third candidate, Pavel Goberman, is just plain insane. He has run for various offices, sometimes under the Libertarian party, but mostly he has just run on crazyness. He’s a Russian fitness coach. Check out his rantings on his website.
There are a bunch of other state and county positions where there is an unopposed candidate, and then one county position that has two candidates:
11) Deschutes Soil and Water Director At Large: My choice: Neither. I can’t find enough information about what these two candidates stand for of what their leanings are to be able to decide between them. Only the Bend Bulletin has anything to say about this race, and I trust the Bend Bulletin not nearly as far as I can throw it…
C) Bend City Council Positions:
12, 13, 14, 15) My choices: Peter Gramlich, Jodie Barram, Linda Johnson, Jim Clinton. For these choices I’m voting pretty much just based on their endorsements by the League of Conservation Voters. I’ve looked up a little information on them beyond the League Of Conservation Voters info, but I didn’t need much more to convince me, especially considering they have all worked for the city in office before.
Matt,
I’m surprised you voted for Kate, given that she and Rick both agree in the only capacity to change that the office provides — the state land board. Both Rick and Kate agree to the 40,000 board foot plan that’s the “compromise position” in the debate. 70,000 are up for grabs, and of course, we’d like to see none of it cut. I’m the only one who has a plan to cut none of it while not taking from the common schools fund (see my plan on my website about the forests fund).
If you think I’m not “green” enough, I’ve put thousands of miles on my bicycles by daily bicycle commuting, at one point I had a fifty mile combined train and bicycle commute. For seven years straight, I did consulting and employment commuting by bicycle and I’ve had my license for about a year, for the purpose of long distance travel to rural Oregon for the purpose of being able to campaign.
The office of Secretary of State doesn’t demand that I tell everybody “I’m going to save the earth through manipulating elections.” That’s simply the wrong way to campaign for that office. It’s best to talk about the issues, and Brown’s another Bradbury, keeping Greens off the ballot and redistricting more gerrymandering.
Furthermore, about my endorsement of Brownlow, it’s clear you don’t know anything about his positions other than his pro-life position. I wrote an article about my endorsement below:
http://swoolley.org/blog.cgi/why%20pacific%20greens%20should%20vote%20for%20brownlow
When Brownlow campaigns, the right to life is the last thing on his agenda. Watch his videos, see him speak. I’ve met the guy on the campaign trail.
I’ve put the above link next to my endorsement so as not to confuse people, which I did here.
Brownlow’s tons better than Merkley on pretty much every issue _except_ abortion. If you’re a single issue voter, that’s fine, vote for Merkley, but I’m not a single issue voter.
But if you’re anti war, anti-drug-war, and more, Brownlow is clearly the worst of three evils.
You’ll also note that in the recent surveyusa polling (they publish it on their website), Brownlow is polling about evenly from the left and the right in Oregon, both by party registration and by self-identified liberals and conservatives.
Merkley is not somebody who deserves the Green Party’s support.
[...] 2008 by Matt Alright, to follow up from my post from yesterday on how I’m voting on the candidates for national and local offices, here’s my post on the vaious state and local ballot measures. All the same disclaimers [...]