After switching to the Republican party after a bitter loss in a Democratic primary race for state Attorney General, he was appointed to a state House position, and subsequently he has run as a Republican for Attorney General, Governor (twice), and most recently for Representative in US Congress. Lost every time.
But dig this - he has actually been appointed to and served though a couple election cycles as Chair of the Oregon Republican Party!
The papers all call him a conservative still, but as I said he is nothing but a big government authoritarian who loves high taxes, regulation, and gun control, and that is NOT conservative in my view.
Finally he is out of the party chairmanship, but I wish he would go away altogether. He keeps sticking himself into statewide or national office races, where he runs as a more or less pure lock up all the druggies and kill all the queers so-con, and there are plenty in the left and the right (anyone above the authoritarian/libertarian dividing line) who will not stomach the idea of him having that kind of power.
Ya this is not the exactly same thing they have in Va (yet) but anyone once elected as a Democrat needs first to be NOT made out some kind of hero but examined with plenty of skepticism.
Dang I said Va meant ‘bama.