Posted on 04/21/2014 8:52:02 PM PDT by SoConPubbie
It's not often that a candidate for U.S. Senate takes the stage after performing brain surgery.
So it wasn't surprising that pediatric neurosurgeon Monica Wehby was greeted with awe at a recent GOP campaign event in King City.
"Dr. Wehby did two cranials this morning," says moderator Billie Reynolds, beaming at the candidate running for the seat held by Democrat Jeff Merkley. "We're fortunate to have someone with her gifts willing to put herself on the line for politics."
Wehby is used to such welcomes from Republicans in Oregon as well as Washington, D.C., who think she just might have the profile to end the GOP's long losing streak in statewide races here. The first-time candidate is the central figure in the GOP primary and – potentially – in the race against Merkley in the fall.
If the issue of the 2014 election is the evils of Obamacare, who better than "this lady doctor who cares for and saves these little babies" – in the words of former GOP Rep. Jeff Kropf – who also happens to be articulate and attractive?
Wehby's path is steep, however, given that Republicans haven't elected a candidate to statewide office since 2002, and it's clear she's still finding her footing.
Her most serious Republican rival, Rep. Jason Conger of Bend, questions just exactly what her stance is on Obamacare. Many GOP stalwarts are put off by her comments on abortion. Democrats are looking for every opportunity to tie her to the far right.
With the attention of both sides, she'll either find the magic formula to put in play a seat still largely seen as safely Democratic or join a long line of losing Oregon Republicans who fade back into obscurity.
As she campaigns, Wehby keeps her medical career and the new federal health care law at the forefront. In King City, aides pass out "Keep your doctor, change your senator" bumper stickers, and Wehby quips, "Everybody tells me I need to go to Washington, D.C., to do a little brain surgery."She talks about how her high-stakes medical practice – "nobody ever goes to a pediatric neurosurgeon with a minor problem" -- and how it's taught her to listen carefully and "act logically, not ideologically."
Wehby is one of more than 30 doctors running for Congress this year, almost all Republicans. Many talk about being disheartened by the rapid changes sweeping through their profession.
"I just couldn't take it anymore," Wehby says of her decision to run. It's not just Obamacare, she says, but an anemic economic recovery that has made Americans pessimistic.
"I just felt I had to try," she adds. "And you know, there's a never a good time to do it; it's like having a baby."
"Very ambitious"
Friends say Wehby, 51, has long had an eye on politics.
"She's a very ambitious person," says Charles Hofmann, a Baker City physician and, like Wehby, a former Oregon Medical Association president. "She wants to be a United States senator. She's talked about this for a long time."
Wehby describes herself as an inveterate joiner who ran for every student office at her Catholic high school in Nashville. She served on medical association boards throughout medical school and after she began her practice.
"We always joked that she couldn't say no to anything," says her ex-husband, Jim Grant, a Portland anesthesiologist. The two have four children – now 14 to 19 – and live down the street from each other in Southwest Portland, in the Garden Home neighborhood.
Wehby got into politics when backers of a tort reform initiative on the 2004 ballot asked her to serve as a chief petitioner and public face for the campaign. Wehby, who court records show has never been sued for malpractice, passionately warned that high liability insurance costs could drive doctors out of Oregon.
Voters narrowly disagreed, but Wehby dived in deeper. She was elected president of the Oregon Medical Association in 2007. Two years later, she was featured in a TV commercial denouncing the legislation that would turn into the Affordable Care Act.
In 2011, she was elected to the board of the American Medical Association after being urged to run by a group of mostly Southern doctors unhappy with the group's direction.
She supports one of the group's big issues, that doctors should be able to independently contract with Medicare patients, expanding the number of Medicare providers. Groups such as the AARP strongly oppose the idea, saying it would allow doctors to drive up rates for Medicare patients.
Yet her medical practice has defined her career. Oregon has more members of Congress – seven – than it does pediatric neurosurgeons, one of medicine's most demanding fields. One sign of her expertise: in its tax filing, the foundation for the Randall Children's Hospital at Legacy Emanuel listed her 2012 compensation at just over $1 million.
View full sizeMonica Wehby (in red) joined a GOP candidates forum in January moderated by talk show host Lars Larson (left). She was joined by rivals (from left) Rep. Jason Conger of Bend, Salem information technology consultant Mark Callahan and former Linn County GOP Chairwoman Jo Rae Perkins. Calvin Tanabe, a retired neurosurgeon who used to practice with her, describes her as a dedicated doctor and fierce advocate for her patients. Mary Rigert, a Beaverton businesswoman, became a fan after Wehby operated on her 9-year-old son to fix a hole in his skull caused by an infection.
"She didn't sugarcoat anything. She was just straight. She was level-headed," says Rigert, remembering what it was like to look around the waiting room. "We would see children 2 months old, 5 years old, babies with shunts. ... The things that woman saved those children from was amazing."
National contacts spurred Wehby's Senate campaign. At an AMA convention in Baltimore, colleagues jammed a Wehby fundraiser, and a disclosure report showed that more than a third of the $500,000 she raised in her first two months came from doctors.
Five Republican senators also gave to Wehby through their political action committees, and buzz inside the beltway was enough to give her campaign a long brag sheet of national mentions as someone who might give Merkley a fight.
Jim Pasero, a political consultant for Conger, says national Republicans made a snap judgment. "They could see her on Fox with Megyn Kelly," he says with a sigh.
"Not someone who hates kids and women"
Wehby, diminutive and with a trace of Southern accent, has a competitive streak honed by years in the mostly-male world of neurosurgery. For once, she says with a smile, Democrats might not have a big advantage with women voters. The claim that Republicans are waging a war on women won't work against her, she says.
"I'm not someone who hates kids and women and puppy dogs and all the things they say," she adds. She describes herself as a "single mom who has to keep the trains running on time, has to balance taking care of kids and working. ... I think I understand what people are dealing with."
What's less clear is where Wehby is in the Republican firmament. She hits the standard GOP themes of reducing government regulation and reining in spending but walks gingerly through such political minefields as immigration, abortion and gay marriage.
And both Democrats and Republicans question her support of legislation put together years ago by U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., that contained many of the same elements as Affordable Care Act.
"In principle, it's 90 percent there with Obamacare," says Conger, noting that Wyden's bill contained elements opposed by conservatives, such as requiring that individuals buy a government-approved insurance plan.
Wehby responds that Wyden "had a good plan; it was a market-based approach" and adds that she and the senator are friends "and think a lot alike in regards to health care." But she says she was never wedded to all the plan's elements and doesn't think the uninsured should be enticed to buy coverage with tax credits – nor forced to with a mandate.
Wehby has also taken flack from some Republicans for saying she wants to revamp Obamacare, not repeal it, which she has said is impractical in this political climate.
On abortion, she's told audiences that she's personally pro-life as a Catholic, and has worked hard to save babies' lives. But, ultimately, she says abortion is a decision between a woman and her family and faith "and not the federal government."
That position works well in a general election but could be a problem in the Republican primary. Oregon Right to Life, the state's major anti-abortion group, endorsed Conger.
On immigration, Wehby said at a candidates' debate that "we need to find a way to legalize people who are here" but added afterward that she didn't yet know if that meant providing a path to citizenship.
In an interview, she sounds sympathetic to gay marriage but didn't say whether she supports the proposed ballot measure to lift Oregon's ban on same-sex marriage.
"I think families are important, but as a Republican, I think liberty and freedom are important and we should respect that," she says. "I don't think that government again should be involved in personal decisions. I think that they shouldn't be telling you who you love, who you live with, what you do with your health care."
Described as a "centrist"
Those close to her describe her in moderate terms.
"You can stand and throw rocks at your opponent, which is what (Texas Sen.) Ted Cruz seems to do," says Andrew Miller, the politically influential Stimson Lumber CEO who has been linked romantically to Wehby. "If you want to use the word 'centrist,' that might be fair."
Miller was a key financial backer in Chris Dudley's 2010 race for governor, and helped put two conservatives on the Clackamas County board in 2012. But he says he's had little role in Wehby's race.
Although the Republican primary is more than 10 weeks away, Democrats are keeping a close watch on Wehby. They pounced after Ben Carson, a retired pediatric neurosurgeon, appeared at a recent fundraiser for her in Wilsonville.
Carson, who won a national following and a Fox News contract after describing Obamacare as the worst thing since slavery, suggested that the evils of Nazism could return. The Democratic Party of Oregon issued press releases asserting that Carson was comparing the U.S. to Nazi Germany and demanded that Wehby "immediately apologize and denounce these offensive remarks."
"I can't really take responsibility for Ben's remarks," Wehby counters, saying he attended because they are longtime friends.
The political back-and-forth clearly gets to Wehby, who beneath her surgeon's confidence acknowledges being a worrier and expresses a political newcomer's sensitivity to criticism.
"My sons have asked me why you would leave something you have trained until you are 35 years old and everybody loves you," she says, "and get into something where people are always saying bad things about you on the Internet."
-- Jeff Mapes
|
 |
Monica Wehby - Just another Rovian Traitorous Trojan-Horse Democrat pretending to be a Republican.
She’s not principled.
And Jeff Merkley will beat her because she isn’t conservative enough for the base and isn’t liberal enough for Portland.
And you think Merkley is principled?
If you would like more information about what's happening in Oregon, please FReepmail me. I lost my Oregon list when my computer crashed recently, so please send me your name by FReepmail if you were on the previous list.
I wouldn’t vote for her even if she was the nominee
At least he’s on the left side of the issues. And Oregon is still Deep Blue.
Sounds like she and the D have the same principles
If she has a real job and it helps people, why would she want to stop doing that and take a job that is basically evil and helps no one?
She is one of the most skilled types of surgeons in America, and makes about $1 million a year. Meanwhile, the hack from New Jersey that overbills Medicare makes $20 million in taxpayer dollars, because he has political connections.
This is why our country is going broke, the people who truly contribute get shafted compared to the politically connected who live off our tax dollars.
I’m supporting and voting for Conger in the primary and voting for whomever wins the primary.
Jeff Merkley is going to be history.
I’m voting for Conger too.
Iron Rule of politics: Always vote for somebody more conservative than you really need, to compensate for Beltway Drift.
“Dr. Wehby did two cranials this morning”
How about two more. One on Boener and one on Cantor. ANYTHING to stop their drive towards AMNESTY.
DemoRats do not HAVE to be principled!
Look at how long the mayor of San Diego stayed on.
Any way Wehby is toast due to the 2 911 calls by her husband and her boy friend.
http://www.redstate.com/2014/05/19/losing-oregon-does-the-nrsc-vet-its-candidates/
If you would like more information about what's happening in Oregon, please FReepmail me. I lost my Oregon list when my computer crashed recently, so please send me your name by FReepmail if you were on the previous list.
She’s a RINO who is pro-choice. (That means she’s OK with killing babies.)
I will vote for Conger, the real conservative.
All that is blue in Oregon is Portland, Eugene and Ashland. Everything else is red.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.