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Coop, you may be interested in this endorsement of Jackie Winters from the Portland Oregonian, Oregon's largest newspaper:

Hooley, Winters for 5th District - Oregonian 4/23/04

Jackie Winters is the best Republican to face Darlene Hooley in what will be a competitive race this fall

Friday, April 23, 2004

Many voters nationwide don't get much of a choice in their congressional elections because of creatively drawn district boundaries that favor certain parties or incumbents. But voters in Oregon's 5th Congressional District get a real competition. Rep. Darlene Hooley will face a Democratic challenger in the May primary and a solid Republican opponent in the November general election.

Voters in this conservative, swing district should nominate Hooley and Republican state Sen. Jackie Winters. Both make a good case for representing a diverse district that stretches from Corvallis to a piece of Southwest Portland, and from the Cascades to the coast.

...(Winters portion of Endorsement)
The fight for the Republican nomination pits Winters, the Salem-based co-founder of Jackie's Ribs restaurants, against Jim Zupancic, 52, a Lake Oswego business and real estate attorney. Both favor President Bush's tax cuts, oppose abortion and agree that businesses are over-regulated. However, their political experience and personal styles are markedly different.

Winters, 66, has served in the state Legislature since 1999, both in the House and Senate. She's distinguished herself as a hardworking, independent and thoughtful legislator, and she recently helped broker a deal on the state's health and human services budget. Her knowledge of the links between federal and state funding would serve her well in Congress. So would her years running a small Oregon business.

Zupancic, a former school board chairman in Lake Oswego, presented himself as a moderate, pro-schools Republican when he ran unsuccessfully for a state House seat two years ago. This time, he's repositioned himself several notches to the right.

He says he opposed the recent state tax plan that was designed to protect Oregon schools and other vital services from crisis. He also repeatedly hammers Winters for her support of those taxes, calling Winters and Hooley "the tax-and-spend twins."

Zupancic is a smart, ambitious and well-funded candidate, but his change of tune is troubling. What's more, we think Winters exercised solid leadership for helping craft a budget and then supporting a bipartisan plan to fund it. Both Salem and Washington, D.C., need more common-sense leaders like that.