Posted on 07/18/2009 3:32:37 PM PDT by ThePanFromJapan
Washington County and the 1st District will be witnesses to a major showdown in the fall of 2010, as incumbent Democrat Congressman David Wu is being challenged by a Tualatin businessman for the congressional seat.
(Excerpt) Read more at redcounty.com ...
The challenger seems credible and actually is a good guy.
Hope he’s not a RINO.
I of course respectfully disagree with Wu.
Mr Wu, you will find Klingons on Uranus.
From what I have seen, the guy seems to be a fiscal conservative. Now, I have met the guy personally before, and he’s largely a big person on issues of finance and not as much a big character when it comes to the social issues.
So, I’d say you’re looking at someone who would be pretty good and not “RINO-ish”.
But, then again, seeing is believing (as I like to say).
We need all the good people we can get.
Especially in districts like that one. REdictricted in 2002 to include a very liberal part of Multnomah County.
This is great news. I’m looking forward to voting against Wu.
OR-1 was reliably Republican for almost a century until 1974, and hasn’t elected one from that point onwards. Very difficult to win except under unusual circumstances. The 4th and 5th districts are more potentially competitive, but we haven’t won them since 1972 and 1994, respectively.
The article contains an error. Moderate Republican Wendell Wyatt retired voluntarily in 1974. Had he run, I don’t think that Les AuCoin would have challenged him.
I noticed that, I posted the correction under “comments.” The losing Republican in ‘74 was appointed a federal judge by Reagan.
The 4th depends on whether DeFazio leaves to run for Governor or not. If he does, Sid Leiken is a shoo-in because his opponents are going to be people like Floyd Prozanski or Terry Beyer, who are hefty partisans that the people outside of Eugene don’t like.
As for the 5th, we could have won it in 2008 if it was not for Kevin Mannix, someone who is now officially persona non grata around the ORP for his little temper tantrum. If we get someone good in District 5, we could theoretically knock Kurt Schrader out...mostly because he hasn’t voted with the balance of the district.
Again, we wait and see.
The OR GOP has just had a terrible record with their House candidates for decades (we last won a majority of the seats in 1954). There’s no excuse for us not controlling at least 3 of the 5 seats, and yet we’ve had trouble enough with just keeping the 1.
Take a look at the chairmen before and the issues that came as a result. That will tell you a good piece about why things happened the way they did.
For example, the last few years, Vance Day (former chair-ORP) really didn’t do a lot of good things to help the party get back on it’s feet. It took Tiernan to be elected to do it, and even at that it’s slow.
Before that, there was a major rift in the party due to the battles between the Packwood wing (Liberal/mainstream) and Lon Mabon/Cheryl Clifford/Oregon Citizens Alliance (OR Rep. Assembly)
There was so much infighting in the past few years that there was very little focus on the races because, frankly, no one had their house in order.
Well, now, Tiernan has told Packwood to stop complaining, they have two big names running in 1 and 4, with Walden in 2 who won’t lose his seat unless he runs for Governor (which 95% likely will not happen), and the 5th is a slowly developing district for the GOP again.
Plus, to help things out, the Dem supermajority in the state legislature has effectively killed a lot of their support from independents and leftward leaning Republicans.
I would also think that redistricting in 2002 also didn’t help things at all.
(Largely agreeing with you, just giving my take on what went wrong with the ORP.)
Thanks for your comments. Ordinarily, I tend to lay the blame on the Governor for successes or failures with growing the party, but since the state has been absent a GOP one for almost a quarter century since Atiyeh’s departure, it does tend to shift to either the party chairs or whatever remaining high elected officials left (and now, that just leaves Walden). I was sorry to see Mannix’s self-destruction, he should’ve stuck to running for Attorney General instead of giving it to the Dems without a contest. 11 years since we won any of the statewide offices, inexcusable.
I’d guess that they need to get out there and register people..
Running viable candidates often helps, too.
If only they didn’t stick that chunk of Portland in that district.
I don’t remember why the then GOP legislature wasn’t able to get a better map. Vetoed by the rat gov and decided by the courts probably.
Simple reason:
Bill Bradbury, then Secretary of State, pretty much bullied his way and redistricted.
From what I hear, Kate Brown, the current SoS may just be worse. BUT, we’ll see what happens with the 2010 election.
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