For Democrats, Hass Top Pick To Replace Deckert October 29, 2007

Tonight, the Democratic precinct committeepersons (PCPs) from Oregon’s Senate District 14 convened in Aloha to nominate a slate of Democrats for the vacancy created by Sen. Ryan Deckert’s resignation yesterday. As you may have read here before, Senate District 14 mostly consists of central eastern Washington County, stretching from SW 209th Ave in Aloha through South Beaverton and into Portland’s West Hills.

Of the 25,204 registered Democrats in SD 14, 23,867 reside in Washington County, with the remaining 1,337 over the border in Multnomah County. The voting members divided up each county’s share of Democrats by the number of PCPs attending from their respective county. With 51 PCPs from the Washington County part of SD 14, each voting member from Washington County at the convention had 467 total votes to cast. Multnomah County’s portion of SD 14 only had one voting member at the convention, which means that he was allocated the full 1,337 vote share of his county.

The convention decided to send all four nominees to the joint Boards of Commissioners of Washington and Multnomah Counties, but with a weighted ranking according to the number of votes each candidate received.  Democratic National Committeeman Wayne Kinney advised the convention that usually such conventions narrow the field of candidates down to three.  But, either in the interest of time or of giving the joint Boards more choice, the convention elected to send all four but advise the joint Boards of its preference by ranking them according to number of votes received.

The candidates standing for nomination at the convention:

-Betty Bode, Beaverton City Councilor

-Mike Bohan, high-tech sector veteran and math/science teacher

-Mark Hass, former state representative (2001-2007) and journalist

-Shantu Shah, electrical engineer and former candidate for the Democratic nomination to U.S. Congress (2006)

After each candidate gave a speech, the convention went into question-and-answer mode, involving questions relating to health care, Measure 49 andeven what kind of tree each would like to be. (Mark Hass’s answer: a Douglas Fir, of course).

The result of the weighted vote:

Mark Hass 12,905 (51.2%)

Mike Bohan 6,746 (26.8%)

Betty Bode 4,662 (18.5%)

Shantu Shah 839 (3.3%)

Because the convention elected to send all four candidates to the joint Boards of Commissioners with an advisory ranking, the result of this vote is non-binding. The joint Boards of Commissioners may pick any of these four candidates to serve as the next Senator for SD 14, or they may choose not to pick any and let Governor Kulongoski appoint a willing Democrat from the district. Of course, the allocation of votes to the members of the joint Boards will be similar to that of the convention, except that the Washington County share will be split 5 ways instead of 51 ways, and the much smaller Multnomah County share will likewise be split 5 ways between each commissioner, rather than having just one person with that share.

The joint Boards have not yet picked a date at which to choose from the four nominees.

For context on this story, see earlier articles at beaver boundary:

Date Set for Democrats to Replace Deckert

SD 14: Return of the Hass, or a New Hope?

OR GOP: Out of Touch with Time and Distance October 29, 2007

Doomed missionary Marcus Whitman often has this quote attributed to him: “My plans require time and distance”.

It’s an expression that’s doubly lost on the Oregon Republican Party and its erstwhile digital mouthpieces, Oregon Catalyst and NW Republican, in a botched attack on a Democratic candidate.

First, the OR GOP fumbled a rudimentary understanding of geography and distance. In a press release issued earlier this month, Vance Day and his minority party wrongly criticize U.S. Senate candidate Jeff Merkley for failing to take his campaign ‘east of the Cascade Mountains’ during its inaugural phase. In fact, Merkley and his staff had visited Deschutes County before the break of the GOP’s press release. Twice.

But apparently we were all supposed to know what they meant–not ‘east of the Cascades’, as they originally stated, but ‘Eastern Oregon’. Talk about literally moving the goal posts a hundred miles or so just to make a stupid press release seem consistent. Maybe the OR GOP can’t afford a proofreader in these tough times for the ultra-right wing?

Not content to call ‘Mulligans’ on the first foul-up, the OR GOP had to come out all wrong on time, too. Today the Catalyst and NW Republican blogs chastise Merkley again for failing to come to Eastern Oregon, instead of just ‘east of the Cascades’. Problem is, both articles came the very day after Jeff Merkley announced his extensive tour of Eastern Oregon! Perhaps before issuing an attack article, the OR GOP and its blog spots would do well to make sure that there are in fact grounds, or at least facts, for such an attack.

It’s obvious that the OR GOP directed the Catalyst and NW Republican to post this–NW Republican even has a graphic that says “Authorized and Paid for by the Oregon Republican Party” on its post. It’s a coordinated effort, and since it’s so badly botched, it has the fingerprints of party leaders Shawn Cleave and Vance Day all over it. Such incompetence is standard from both blogs, but the synchronization of this attack’s execution clearly points to the blundering leadership of the Oregon Republican Party.

With the OR GOP seriously screwing up an early attack, as it has with both attempts of this geography gaffe, it suggests that there are some serious gaps in the Party’s research abilities. Is the OR GOP so worried about Gordon Smith’s weakness in Eastern Oregon that they need to stoke the base with such flimsy material? Smith’s re-elect numbers are surely swirling in the toilet, but that definitely isn’t helped by Cleave’s butchering of an attack that was lame to begin with.

Take a look at Jeff Merkley’s Eastern Oregon kickoff agenda over at new blog Lefty Lane. It’s an extensive tour that undoubtedly went into planning well before the GOP’s first press release.

We’ll have to wait for Shawn Cleave’s next gaffe, but probably not for too long. Unlike Marcus Whitman, he’s too impatient for time and too ignorant to understand distance.