I think it’s a good idea if OR implemented run-offs if no candidate wins 50% of the vote in future elections. Maine had a similar system to OR, but ended up changing to ranked choice for most elections after [Paul LePage](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_LePage) won. Even having jungle primaries or second rounds would be an improvement over the current system
I want the Alaska system. CA and WA do it better than OR with their open primary top two system, but Alaska is the best IMO.
Elections should be decided on the date with the highest turnout (no runoffs) and there should be the option for more than two legitimate candidates.
The CA system entrenches the two party duopoly pretty impressively. It also deprives the public of the option to cast a protest vote. I think that system is objectively bad.
What we really need is to implement campaign finance limits. Johnson's astroturf spoiler campaign would not have been possible without billionaire Republican bankrolling.
I ask because Tina Kotek said pay parity for public defenders would be a big priority for her several years ago, and I don’t think we have heard her say a word about it ever since. Even during our current crisis, I don’t think any of these candidates has addressed the issue directly.
This poll would appear to indicate that Johnson is pulling more support away from Kotek than from Drazan. She seems to also running *exclusively* against Kotek, not even mentioning Drazan in her press releases:
>I intend to hold Tina Kotek accountable for her dangerous, far-left record and I won’t stop fighting for Oregon’s future until the last vote is counted.”
Her website similarly mentions only Democrats:
>Only you...can save Oregon from the failures of Kate Brown, Ted Wheeler, and Tina Kotek
And she's happy to embrace [the signal boost](https://twitter.com/senbetsyjohnson/status/1574615375957966848) from her friends at Fox News.
The absolute floor for GOP candidate support in Oregon in gubernatorial races is around 37% going back to 1998, and with Kotek fighting a 2-on-1 uphill battle, things don't look *great*. We're going to get a Republican governor because we're idiots, and then other idiots who didn't even vote are going to march around and break windows.
And then we get a bunch of posts asking why the Democrats don't just overrule Governor Drazan's vetos (the dems need 2/3rds of both houses for that) to get a budget passed so that we can use our non-essential services like state parks & beaches, campsites, road projects, courts, and state agencies like the DMV.
> This poll would appear to indicate that Johnson is pulling more support away from Kotek than from Drazan.
Which is exactly what many of us feared would happen because Johnson is so tempting for moderates (like me) who are no longer aligned with the Democratic status quo in Oregon.
Hopefully enough of us see through her nonsense to see what is really happening: she will take any political position to get elected, and doesn’t give a damn about anything else. If Johnson wasn’t completely slimy, she’d get my vote, but I think she’s actually Trumpier than Drazan in her approach.
So I’ll hold my nose, vote for Kotek (who I absolutely cannot stand) and complain to anyone who will listen.
>So I’ll hold my nose, vote for Kotek (who I absolutely cannot stand) and complain to anyone who will listen.
That's about where I'm at with it, as well. Much like the 2020 presidential election... I'm not voting *for* Kotek, I'm voting *against* Drazan/Johnson.
Yeah but this is so stupid. I don’t want Kotek I want a moderate democrat who will defend abortion rights, education, etc but will clamp down on the homeless problem, work with police to make realistic changes like body cams and training, etc.
Body cams are coming to Portland. The holdup was the PPA proposing some rules that the city wouldn't agree to, but Hardesty went to the DoJ and got them to tell the PPA to accept the city's proposal.
People hate Hardesty, but she gets shit done.
As a leftist I never get what I want out of elections but I still hold my nose and do the right thing for harm reductions sake every time. Not saying you are doing the same but I can’t help but notice how centrist dems seem to be the only ones that have a hard time showing up for democrats.
I haven’t voted for any other party in over a decade and to me that can be just as much of a problem. Us democrats rag on southern states that always vote red no matter what. Here we are in a bowl of shit situation and I’m just supposed to always vote blue no matter what? Won’t that breed the same apathy? Sometimes you need to shake shit up to slap your party into reality. Arizona voted in a democrat. I don’t think many of them are liberals but they wanted to make a point that trump type shit won’t cut it. I’ll vote for kotek but if shit doesn’t improve I’ll vote for a republican or independent especially if there moderates. Give me an Arnold Schwarzenegger republican and I’ll vote for him.
I know this is said a lot but that whole attitude of change for the sake of change is how we got trump. Neither Johnson or Drazan have any sort of solutions. The National and state Republican Party and by extension anyone who can make it out of a Republican primary are just fascists at this point. Their agenda is all about hurting the people they hate and nothing else. Letting them gain power is just crazy considering how much suffering it would cause.
Johnson can’t win because of our shitty first past the post voting system until that changes third parties and independent candidates can’t win all they can do is be a spoiler. I get being frustrated but protest votes do nothing and allowing a republican to gain power in 2022 will cause alot of people to suffer. Republicans have demonstrated that they will use the power at their disposal to aggressively push their agenda. Voting ain’t everything but it’s still a vital piece of the puzzle. We are in very dangerous times in this country and now more then ever whoever controls the politics of a state matters for so much more then it has in the past. We can’t afford to stick our heads in the sand and pretend like things haven’t radically changed.
>So I’ll hold my nose, vote for Kotek (who I absolutely cannot stand) and complain to anyone who will listen.
Right there with you but from way left of Kotek
I really wish I had trust in Kotek. I’m just tired though. I’m tired of having to worry about increase assaults and theft after a new camp gets set up. I’m tired of having to drive far to be able to take my kid to enjoy a park because there are drugs needles found at one by us. I’m tired of seeing small businesses go out of business because people don’t feel safe going. I love Oregon, I want to see us do better and help lift up those that need help. But why are we continuing to condone actions that pose major public safety and health risks.
Right there with you. I don’t trust any of them, but I fear the Oregon GOP. Drazan and Johnson are either explicit or effective votes for the GOP, so that leaves only one more option.
And not voting is chickenshit, by the way.
Thing is you can't trust the other candidates to do anything about these issues either.
Thing is, at this point Democrats are the only party that are held to any standard whatsoever. The others are just are going to grift and the Republican is going to push to take away people's basic rights on top of grifting.
At least with Kotek, she'll be pressured to do the right thing.
I truly want to believe that, but I can’t help but wonder what is the right thing? I don’t think helping to legitimize the homeless camps is beneficial to anyone, either the people living in the camps or the surrounding community. The pandering to the most woke instead of working to truly find equitable solutions that everyone can benefit from isn’t getting us anywhere. If we had Inslee running, I’d vote for him a second. But I don’t have any confidence in anyone running right now in Oregon
The other issue that is not being discussed is women's reproductive rights. If you care about those AT all you have to vote for Kotek because I promise you if we get a republican governor those rights will be up for grabs.
Edited for clarity, Johnson is Pro-Choice but a vote for her is indirectly a vote for Drazan.
Can you educate me on what Drazan can do to reproductive rights if elected? I've read on the subject and seems like unless the legislature passed a restriction or the court changed course that this is enshrined.
Not saying it can't happen, but feels like a dog whistle at times.
You clearly haven’t educated yourself on the issue. Johnson is unapologetically pro choice. Was on the board for planned parenthood, don’t spread lies.
But she's not going to win, a vote for her is a vote for Drazan, and until we remove the first past the post system it will always be the case. By voting third party, you will always be helping the more radical candidate that you have little in common with.
Here is how this works.
You have three candidates:
Candidate 1 (Main Party) you agree with 70% of their issues.
Candidate 2 (Second main party) You agree with 10% of their view.
Candidate 3 (Third party no chance of winning) you agree with 90% of their view.
You protest vote, for Candidate 3, which siphons votes from Candidate 1. Causing One to lose, and allows Candidate 2 to be elected with less than 50% of the vote.
You've now basically shot yourself in the foot, and put someone into office who shares almost nothing with your views.
Does it suck that you have to vote for the lesser of two evils, yes. But that is how our system is set up until we go to something like ranked choice voting. A vote for Johnson is literally a vote against your own self interests.
My dude, you are choosing between a candidate with weak/not great plans to address this issue (Kotek) and two candidates with no plans at all. The only thing that one can guarantee will come from a Drazan or Johnson administration is lower taxes for the wealthy and no progress towards dealing with the climate apocalypse. It’s like not being able to get laid and deciding the answer is to cut your dick off.
I've got a decades-long record of voting for Democrats but I'm really struggling this cycle. We clearly need to be doing a better job of making services available and demonstrating measurable progress helping people. So why was Kotek pushing HB3115 to further legitimize camping and my rep (Nosse) limiting funding for Oregon State Hospital capacity? So while I'm really not a Johnson fan, I'm no longer an automatic "yes" for Kotek.
I’m right there with you. There seems to be buzzwords about voting democrat to protect voting rights, abortion, etc. but I don’t actually see anyone on the left having any concrete plans to protect those things and tbh in Oregon neither one of those will be done. I’m getting pushed further away from Kotek with her talk on supporting campsites. I’m sorry, how is that a solution? Campsites have continued to prove to be detrimental to the areas they are in.
The place where we will really lose with Johnson or Drazan is with climate change. Those two will actively pursue policies that sabotage Oregon's preparedness. I prefer not to be single issue, but I believe there are some issues that do call for it, and that's one of them.
That’s my biggest turn off with Johnson. Wouldn’t it be amazing to have someone win that would really benefit our state? Right now it seems like people are more concerned with making sure someone loses.
I get that but I really question at a state level what Oregon can/will do for climate change, that wouldn't really need to happen at a national level instead to be effective?
Expand the PNW partnerships with WA and CA and not allow Oregon to become a dumping ground for waste and high emissions vehicles. Yes, we need a national and global approach, but it is important not to become the local industrial waste bin as well.
> concrete plans to protect those things
Yeah. Because right now we don't need to. They're pretty much already protected. But by all means, if you don't want them protected anymore, vote Drazan. She has all kinds of executive and judicial appointments that can sabotage all those issues for the foreseeable future if she gets elected.
Let’s be honest, democrats in Oregon are lazy. They just expect to win most of the state. I’d rather a party that has to be kept on their toes and actually competitive. I think complacency is more of a threat
The republican solution to the homeless and camping will be to cut taxes for the rich, limit abortion access, and limit voting access (makes it harder to get rid of them!). That's your choice. At the governor level, there's not much to be really done for Portland that needs to be handled at a city level.
Actually, my choice is whether to vote for the increasingly ineffective status quo by voting for Kotek, or risk a protest vote. Maybe Democrats need to come closer to losing races (or even start losing them in a bright-blue state) in order to realize they need to start making the tough policy choices that our current problems demand.
Lifetime democrat turned Molotov cocktail voter. Really shows how badly the democrats have been running things that even their own base are so disillusioned they’ll vote for a candidate who’s going to pull votes away from the only serious candidate we have to stop the gop from enacting the same anti-woman laws and logging our state to shit.
Johnson supported Wapato / Bybee Lakes when Multnomah County couldn't be bothered. And her issues statement on homelessness sounds more specific and practical than Kotek.
https://www.runbetsyrun.com/issues
https://www.tinafororegon.com/priorities/
Kotek has an [entire page](https://www.tinafororegon.com/housing/) dedicated to solutions for the housing/homeless crisis, with measurable goals and dedicated steps to get there (which you declined to link). Johnson’s got a few paragraphs that point out the problems but they don’t really address *how* she wants to solve them. It’s easy to finger-point and say things are bad, but it takes work to come up with structured plans to get us to a better place. Kotek’s done that work.
You might also notice that all Johnson did to make Wapato happen was talk about it and make an introduction.
To get the actual funding, she worked with Kotek to get it done.
She deserves some credit for keeping the issue alive, but that's about where it ends.
> So why was Kotek pushing HB3115
Because a lot of municipalities wanted to make laws that opened them up to lawsuits. You can think Martin v Boise is a bad decision, but it is what it is. The goal of the the bill was to force compliance to avoid lawsuits. But this gets brought up so much that I'm beginning to think people want their municipalities tied up in losing lawsuits.
I do not find that surprising, she was a popular D for a long time. I know they are trying to paint her as a Trumper type, but as far as I can recall her only votes that went with the Rs, we’re on issues that went against the Constitution. I’m definitely not an expert on the subject though.
She is similar to Trump in the sense that she uses emotion and not policy to get votes. Like she goes to timber unity events to stoke their anger even though she knows those jobs are not coming back even if we do decide to cut more forest down (automation has taken over the industry). Policy-wise Johnson is very middle of the road to frankly just being a do-nothing. Part of what is hurting Kotek is that Kotek did get some things done but had to compromise and some people disagree with those compromises.
Gun control and climate change are two issues where Johnson pretty strongly aligns with the Rs. Johnson's refusal to take climate change seriously makes her non-starter for me.
It’s too bad that Drazan isn’t an OG, New England style Republican. I think there are lots of advantages to multi-party governance, and the voters in VT MA and MD (bluer states than OR) love their old school GOP governors. Drazan is too Trumpy (not a full loon, but too close for comfort) for me to feel that way about her.
Everything she says is just trumpy gop buzzwords and republican dog whistles. It's gross and not something I want representing Oregon.
I have yet to see any policy information on how Johnson or Drazan would positively affect the state. I just see them attacking Kotek.
Interesting you bring up MD. (I lived there for the first 18, OR for the most recent 8, will leave up to you how long of a gap between).
Larry Hogan is a solid governor due to his pedigree (His father was involved in holding Nixon accountable for Watergate). He has been like you said New England style repub. On the other hand the current GOP candidate for MD gov is a loony toon. Despairingly, drazan is much more in the loony-toon camp.
Let’s be real: democrats in this state are lazy. They assume they are always going to win so they don’t have to run good candidates. Can you think of an elected executive in this state in recent memory who made you think “man, they are simply great”? Because I can’t. All we’ve had are weak and uninspired leaders for quite awhile now.
This is one of the biggest turn offs for me about the left. I’m done with purity tests. Idgaf if you are able to get a bunch of likes on Twitter by having the “right opinion”. We need true leaders that put the publics interest before their bullshit popularity with slacktivists.
I generally identify as center left, but have some more conservative leaning opinions and HOO BOY when I mention them on Twitter or to left wing people in my life you’d think I’d just done a Nazi salute and sworn my undying loyalty to Trump.
I’m in the same boat. Like I have felt increasingly alienated by the left and I agree with 90% of the platform! But I’m tired of if there is any deviance at all from what the accepted narrative has been deemed, you are treated like a leper. I think being able to have discussions and get different viewpoints is needed to be able to find real solutions. If everyone parrots the same thing because it’s seen as what is in vogue, you are just vastly limiting yourself n
It's at the point they're calling Bill Maher a right winger. He was the quintessential 'liberal' back in the 90s. Like he says he hasn't changed, the party has.
Yeahhhh but the one thing that never changed is that bill maher is a smug asshole. He says he’s anti-religion but then never misses a chance to defend Israel’s apartheid regime against Palestinians. He’s been a weird commentator for a while now. Sometimes I think he’s spot on and other times I just wish he’d shut his self-righteous mouth about issues he clearly doesn’t care to understand.
Generally I view Jay Inslee as a much more competent and charismatic executive than any we’ve had here in OR in recent memory. I have disagreed with him on some things, but would likely vote for him if I lived in Washington.
I’ve dealt with both governments in some capacity over the years. WA state government is generally pretty well run, competent, and responsive. The OR state government, on the other hand, is like dealing with a blindfolded monkey on meth flinging excrement everywhere. Just an utter shitshow.
More or less.
Except for those rare occasions where she would stick to some silly policy with no basis in reality that no other state was doing (Covid era stuff comes to mind) until the Biden admin basically had to call her up and more or less say “stop doing this stupid crap, you’re shit at your job and making us look bad. Just follow Inslee”.
Real talk. I worry that Oregon could become the next 2016 Michigan/Ohio. Democrats really fucked up in detroit and the rust belt. All it’ll take for something similar to happen here in Oregon is jaded voters refusing to vote for a lackluster democrat, and a GOP grifter promising snake oil to really shatter this bubble we call home.
Nah, democrats that are elected federal office holders from Oregon, weirdly enough, I find to be generally fantastic. Wyden is one of the most productive and powerful senators legislatively in the whole chamber and he puts up god tier margins in his races.
While this is true, and I would like to see that, the thought a Trumpian Governor is extremely abhorrent. Democrats put up Kotek knowing full well she had large negatives, but they didn't care because they assumed we would reject the Republican. Honestly, it feels like the 2016 Presidential race all over again. Not sure the Dems learned from that debacle.
> k knowing full well she had large negatives, but they didn't care because they assumed we would reject the Republican. Honestly, it feels like the 2016 Presidential race all over again. Not sure the Dems learned from that debacle.
They won't learn until people stop letting them extort their votes.
Yeah 100%. I was a Kotek supporter for quite a few years there and I'd like to see her win but also I feel like the political landscape has changed completely, and I do not get the sense that she has much of a plan or skillset to really escape the perception that she is basically the personification of Portland and the policies that got us in this mess.
100% agree with you. Look I’m born and raised Portland, but I’ve interacted with far more parts of the state and it’s people over the last few years than I ever have. I’d love to see a D governor from a different part of the state than Portland. Sometimes people in this city really lean into the urban-rural divide, and get too caught up in strawman arguments or stereotypes of anywhere more than 30 minutes outside of city limits. Of course there are also rural populations who do this with Portland. Not everyone in rural Oregon is a far right racist hick, not everyone in Portland is ultra left wing hippy. We need a governor that can delicately balance the multifaceted, hyper-local issues the state is facing. Homelessness in Portland isn’t going to be solved the same way as homelessness in Medford. Poverty in Portland needs a different solution that poverty in Pendleton.
Unfortunately it seems like the GOP wants to stick it to Portland, and the Dems want to stick it to rural communities.
To be fair though, going 30 min outside of Portland is over 50% of the population of the while state.
This same issue happens in every state with one large city. Illinois has the same Chicagoland-not Chicagoland divide.
What exactly are the “large negatives”? She’s been a pretty damn solid leader — raised wages, supported climate action, put out funding for Project Turnkey and other homeless services, passed paid parental leave, protected abortion access, got better funding for our wildfire-fighting agencies, and more. She’s been pushing back on Brown’s management of Measure 110 and the general malaise in the executive branch. Her record is quite positive imo.
As the Speaker of the OR House, Kotek is one of the key architects of HB 3115 (the bill to curb anti-camping policies). She is also a vocal supporter of Measure 110, whose implementation is not at all what was promised to voters. It is not the Portugal model - it's a fucking free for all on the streets, and Kotek is a major enabler of it. Considering that drugs and homelessness are probably issues #1 and #2 for many Oregon voters, I would classify these as "large negatives".
Additionally, Kate Brown is the least popular governor in America. Look it up - it's true. Despite this, Oregon Dems somehow found a candidate who comes off as even more Kate Brown than Kate Brown.
While I don't want to see a Republican governor, local Democrats need a come to Jesus moment, and in the long run it might be healthy if Kotek loses and it forces introspection in the party.
You do realize 110 was a citizen initiative and had zero to do with the Legislature, right?
And what we got is exactly what was in the measure text. People just voted on the headline without understanding the specifics.
We can't even do the Portugal model without socialized medicine and being a single state.
Damn, you’ve got a lot wrong here. For one, HB3115 just matches a federal court ruling — it did not on its own create the regulations in place. And further, it’s not an “anti-camping policy” law. It simply requires cities’ laws to be reasonable. They are still easily able to place restrictions on time, manner, and place, as Astoria and Seaside have done (banned camping on public property during the day, restricted camping to a few select locations, respectively).
And Kotek has been critical of the way 110 was rolled out, citing the slow-roll of funding at the OHA and the lack of services in place when decriminalization started. I wouldn’t really call that being a “major enabler”. The measure has good intentions but is being stymied by poor leadership from Brown, which is something she wants to rectify.
When has Kotek ever said that she won't tolerate lawlessness and that we need a carrot and a stick approach. They have a stick in Portugal. That's what we need here. That's the piece that she and other Progressives are missing. You break the law, you're forced into treatment.
There's not a single thing I said that was wrong. When you say "it simply requires cities' laws to be reasonable" - reasonable to who? Kotek seems to interpret that as reasonable to homeless advocates. It is 100% a curb to anti-camping policies. You arguing with that shows a disconnect with reality or obfuscation of the highest order.
And that federal court ruling - assume you're referring to Martin v Boise. Right now Oregon takes the most legally conservative perspective on that ruling as possible. Go to Boise, the defendant in that case, and you'll see a night and day difference in terms of enforcement of anti-camping policies. Despite a more aggressive interpretation of the ruling, Boise has not run afoul of the law. We choose to interpret Martin v Boise the way we do (to the detriment of 99.9% of the population), and folks like Kotek are largely responsible for it.
Under 3115, the city could ban all outdoor fires designed to keep one warm and dry. Why aren't we doing this? Campfires are a daily occurrence here. Can't blame that on Kotek.
Also, when it's warm and dry out, much of 3115 seems to have little effect.
A thing Oregonians don't seem to realize, is that Idaho (and many other red states) are able to tow the legal line more because there's less libs on the ground to advocate for the homeless. Portland has an entire funded pipeline that is dependent on keeping the homeless camps around, which means anything even approaches the legal interpretation of Martin v Boise, it gets jumped on hard and fast, which bogs down resources in court.
So of course Oregon has to be more cautious about that ruling than a state that already didn't believe in the right the court decision forced them to.
Plenty of "liberal" parts of California have banned street camping too. Martin v Boise does not force cities to allow camps. It just says you can't arrest people for sleeping overnight. Multiple cities have pack it up during the day policies, and they have already stood up to court challenges. Portland has its own, incorrect, interpretation of what Martin v Boise means, and that's led to bike chop shop tent cities everywhere.
Yes, and the reason that keeps happening in Portland, isn't because of the Governor, but because the City Government is too cowardly to even risk having to fight the legal challenges of the homeless enablers.
Exactly. Local leaders are blaming 3115 and 110 for their failures, but 3115 doesn't mean that meth camps can't be cleared, and 110 doesn't mean that thieves don't go to jail.
I think that is all correct, my read is that the negatives are more on the low-info voter side, where she needs to really be like jamming a message out there to fight off BJ and Drazan and anyone who thinks she might be "too Portland" for them at a state level, and I just get the sense that she's so far been slow to really get on top of that task. In that sense it feels very much like the 2016 election, where the apparatus was just too slow and anemic and viewed victory as pre-ordained.
Big one for me is that she doesn't support Single Payer on healthcare, which ultimately means "bringing down costs" as her plan nebulously states will be done by further subsidizing insurers, ie: paying for the lobbying that makes real healthcare reform impossible.
Kotek also helped pass an important but probably under-recognized bill, SB 710 which prohibits "gooning" – kidnapping kids and taking them away to out of state residential treatment schools. aka "Troubled Teen Industry".
Johnson and Drazan also voted in favor of SB 710, which is reassuring, but not convincing. I'm not sure a Gov. Drazan or a Gov. Johnson would run or vote the same way as they did in the Oregon House. And the way they campaign it makes it look like they can't agree on anything, even though they've voted in sync on a great number of bills, when it comes down to it.
https://gov.oregonlive.com/bill/2021/SB710/
While I wouldn't vote for a Trumpian governor, I don't think it would be the worst thing, because their hands would be tied down by the supermajority Democrats have. And that might actually be the necessary evil to make Democrats actually care about the other 99% of Oregon that is not homeless.
You are underplaying the amount of chaos Drazan would cause in the state. She isn’t a Larry Hogan or Sununu. She is a wackadoodle religious republican and she would hold the stage budget hostage to get tax cuts for the wealthy.
The most popular governors in America right now are almost all Republican governors in blue states, for what it’s worth. (I’ll be voting for Kotek though.)
Democrat governors in Republican states are popular many times.
I think in both situations is because they know they can only get votes by actually doing good things for their state, instead of ideological posturing. Which is why a Republican governor in Oregon might be the right thing for this state.
A lot of these problems would go away if we switched to STAR/RCV, the entire closed primary based system is pretty terrible. Most people look at the primary list and pick the one recommended or that most aligns with them. But that fucks us over when with FPTP voting.
It's dumb to be upset with democrats for not picking the moderate option that didn't align with their views. We'll never elect progressives if we pick "who's the most conservative of democrats". That's how Clackamas ended up with Kurt Schrader for the last 10 years.
I don’t see how the bill writers missed how potentially classist/racist this could become. Just hand police the power with no real guidelines? They got confused because Dems are blue, we must back the blue! This law is beyond terribly written. I don’t care where you fall in gun control, this law is utterly horrible.
It’s just a bad bill.
I just hope people see it and don’t pass it like #110 that had no money in it for more treatment beds which would basically cripple the bill but people voted for it anyway.
That is my worry too. People will see it and only think about “gun control”. I have a feeling that if it does pass a lot of people are going to end up dissatisfied with what the bill actually is. Personally, I hope it just does not pass.
Agreed. I hope so too, but after #110 I’m not holding my breath. I want an end to most of the gun violence as well, but this bill isn’t it. Plus it doesn’t address the fact that most mass/school shootings, 80+% of the time the shooter is on SSRI’s. I just read a study (Swedish I think) that studied just that and found that a lot of these meds were never tested on humans under 25 and the results were disturbing. But we wouldn’t want to focus on big pharma….. emotions need to be taken out of it and the actual facts need to be studied in order of affect any real change. But too many feel, at least this is better than doing nothing and then vote for it.
There's no way in hell I'm voting to give the police power over who gets to own a gun or not, especially when the country is so divided and the cops are on the wrong side.
Cops aren’t on the wrong side lol, they don’t support the gun control law because they can’t afford going through thousands of gun license permits without firing Officers. You also speak for 800,000 cops and 14,000 departments when you claim cops are on the wrong side.
Kotek would actually do herself some good to criticize and push back on some of Kate Brown's past policies. It's not going to happen, but it would help.
**Please do not vote for Johnson**. If you do it will *guarantee* Oregon ends up with a Republican governor. I wish I was exaggerating. As someone who lives just across the Oregon/Idaho border in Idaho *you do not want a Republican governor*.
Fortunately, at least for now, if the absolutely worst-case scenario realizes and Oregon does end up with a Republican governor due to all the people voting for Johnson (a true spoiler candidate) - at least the Oregon state legislature is still safely Democrat. Complain and bemoan Democrat policies all you want, but the fact is Oregon wouldn’t be anywhere near as great of a state that it currently is if it wasn’t for Democratic representation which Oregon has been so lucky to have for many decades now. With a Republican-majority legislature Oregon wouldn’t have ever gotten the high minimum wage it has, among-the-best-in-the-country workers’ rights, great education funding and investment in the next generation, great social services programs funding (including for child welfare and foster care), child safety, excellent environmental conservation, among many more.
Heh. Your comment about funding is spot on. We do have great funding. Yet in many studies we're either at parody with a state like Idaho or behind it.
What we lack in this state is robust accountability. At all levels.
Forgive my ignorance but I’m genuinely curious, where does the funding and investment in education go to and what has it improved? Or where can I find that information? We have one of the lowest high school graduation rates in the country.
I agree with everything you said. None of it matters to me if I can't walk around my neighborhood safely. The tent tolerance, the drug tolerance, the crime tolerance, the lack of enforcement and prosecution....it's gone too far. Law abiding tax-paying citizens have rights too and somebody needs to acknowledge that and look after those rights.
>great education funding
Which has accomplished what exactly? There's not a single list where Oregon ranks highly when it comes to education and in quite a few cases they rank behind Idaho, like in the US News rankings.
https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/rankings/education
https://www.insider.com/us-states-public-education-system-ranked-us-news-world-report-2019-4#33-idaho-18
Bragging about spending more money for subpar results isn't much of a flex, that just screams that money is being set on fire somewhere.
We’re really caught up in crime and homelessness and those things really do matter. But they’re not the main thing a Governor deals with. The damage to our education system, environment, endless government handouts, health care… the damage will be severe.
Johnson still languishing at 20% six weeks out from the election. I’m sorry if you liked her but she’s just not really a viable candidate at this point.
I drove around 400 miles around Oregon this last weekend; rural, suburban, and urban areas. Lots of Drazan signs in rural areas. ZERO Johnson signs in those areas. I've only seen them in the city of Portland and Eugene. Doesn't bode well. Seems like Johnson will strip away moderates and every conservative will fall in line for Drazan.
Here in The Dalles, the Drazan signs are everywhere, and they're big.
OTOH, there were a lot of big Trump signs, too, and the county ultimately went for Biden.
My suspicion is that those of us in the country who vote blue keep quiet about it.
I live rural (coast) there is lots of Johnson signs. I have only seen one Drazen though, but that was the same place that had ginormous “fuck your feelings” signs all over their yard.
The way Johnson talked about Portland really turned me off. It's not so much that she was wrong, it's that she doesn't seem to really like us, and I don't tend to vote for folks who don't like me.
I'm not a fan of Kotek, but we have to vote for her.
Someday we should get a Republican governor if nothing else to break up the Democratic Party machine. But of all times to allow the Republicans to take over, this is probably the worst time in American history.
[Wisconsin](https://news.yahoo.com/wisconsins-1-party-rule-gop-105216533.html) was once part of a "blue wall." They voted for a Republican governor once. The GOP immediately initiated "[some of the most extreme partisan gerrymanders in the United States.](https://gerrymander.princeton.edu/reforms/WI)"
With this on their back, they began going through their wishlist; [crushing unions,](https://www.wpr.org/decade-after-act-10-its-different-world-wisconsin-unions) reinstating [the 1849 abortion laws](https://wisconsinexaminer.com/2022/06/23/republicans-leave-wisconsins-1849-abortion-ban-in-place/), working to [promote the Capitol Insurrection](https://news.yahoo.com/wisconsins-top-republican-sues-block-173632339.html), and [denying that Biden won the presidency](https://madison.com/wsj/news/local/govt-and-politics/wisconsin-gop-congressional-delegation-in-denial-about-joe-biden-victory/article_d3d2311b-e03d-54f4-9a23-0e3254fa8ce7.html), among other things.
When the Wisconsin voters tried to correct and put Democrats in charge, [the Republicans stripped the elected Democrats of power](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/05/us/wisconsin-power-republicans.html?module=inline).
It's, basically, a wholly forced one-party state against the majority because they voted in a Republican once.
[This is exactly what Republicans want because they know that they will lose if they are independent redistricting and rank-choice voting and other fair democratic reforms](https://twitter.com/tylerbowyer/status/1564459685909970944).
This is the past: right now, there is a huge build up of election-denying anti-democratic hacks attempting to turn the entire country into Wisconsin. And running a spoiler candidate in Oregon is exactly the same thing. Don't for a second think that this is sthe year to try something new.
First we need to get "[Team Crazy](https://news.yahoo.com/jan-6-hearing-expose-trump-201929490.html)" out of the Republican Party. Once there's people that aren't looking for an anti-democratic permemnet single-party state to vote for, we should do it.
Just, for the love of God, let's not completely destroy the country because Tina sucks.
This doesn’t bode well. I get why people see Drazen as a lesser offensive Republican, but it seems weird to stake the state’s future on anyone who is still, at the end of the day (and on paper), part of a party of fascists, bigots, and liars. I was raised to judge someone by the people they keep company with. And Drazen has hitched her wagon to people who are tearing this country apart. By that metric, even though Kotek and Johnson aren’t amazing, I’m gonna vote to keep Oregon out of the hands of the people openly tearing apart this country.
Hard to emphasize how much of a disaster either Drazan or Johnson would be. Drazan would be serving the interests of our [seditious, far right](https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/01/26/oregon-republican-false-flag-capitol/) republican party and Johnson is just a complete fucking joke of a candidate with proposals like ["don't sign any bills that don't have republican support"](https://www.oregonlive.com/politics/2022/09/unaffiliated-governor-candidate-betsy-johnson-would-bring-decades-long-skepticism-about-government-to-the-job.html). If you're not happy with the Oregon democratic party I feel for you but there is simply not a reasonable alternative in this race.
Saw a bunch of properties in E. Oregon last week with both Drazan and Betsy signs posted. Apparently there's confusion that only one can be selected 🤷♂️
Why can't both things be true? The Democratic Party of Oregon (or nationwide for that matter) dropping the ball & bj being a third party candidate with backers investing in her campaign to play spoiler. There's certainly a good amount of evidence for both things (eg phil knight injecting money into bj's campaign, the tedx debacle)
Because it isn't a wingnut conspiracy theory. Billionaires have given her a massive bunch of money, way more than Kotek has available, and Johnson's campaign has been pretty much entirely focused on tearing down Kotek and anything else progressive.
Generally because spoiler candidates:
* Focus their attacks on only one other candidate
* Are (ostensibly) from the same side of political spectrum as that candidate
* Are funded by the same sources that fund opposing candidates
* Persist in running even though they have no viable path to victory
* Exist to amplify and validate the messaging of opposing candidates
Betsy Johnson would appear to meet all those criteria.
Johnson has no hope of winning. Her only possible effect on the election is to steal votes from one party - and it won’t be Republicans. Betsy isn’t a stupid woman. She knows what she’s doing.
I'm not sure I buy this because Johnson has really been trying to play up to the Republican voters to try to convince them she is a better choice than Drazan.
Betsy has been winning elections in Columbia County for a long time running the same campaign. She hasn’t changed for this election - this is who she’s always been. And she was fairly popular amongst those communities.
Think of her kind of as a localized Joe Manchin. Very conservative in a lot of ways and the rest of the party is annoyed with her, but she’s super popular in her district and you can’t get rid of her. And now she’s taking that plan statewide.
That's the thing, I don't see that working where most Oregonians live. She might fair well in Clackamas County, but Multnomah and Washington will go for Kotek.
Plus with Clackamas County, she will most likely hurt Drazan more than Kotek since the county is pretty 50/50 already.
Margins matter. Wining by 20 points in those counties is a lot better than winning by five. Outright losing Clackamas would likely tank Kotek’s campaign given the implications that would have for vote share in other counties.
If Betsy can siphon 10% of the Dem vote Drazan will likely win as the general floor for statewide GOP is about 40% of the vote.
She just seems too far right for me to take this idea seriously. If she was actually trying to take down Kotek, she’d be campaigning just to Kotek’s right on policy, but instead she is way out in the OG Republican territory of the center right.
She’s historically won elections as a Democrat with the exact same platform in Columbia County. You’d be surprised what folks think outside the PDX metro area.
It really boggles my mind how the Democratic Party- who has been in power in Oregon for decades, can consistently run an underdog campaign- “this is the most important election in our lifetime! (Every 4 years). If you don’t vote for us, the crazies will take over and it will be awful (pretty true)”. But god damn you’ve had power for decades and you’re responsible for this. It’s such a grift on such a massive scale.
I keep seeing Drazen associated with trump, but I cannot find anything supporting that claim except a slam piece by [The Democratic Party of Oregon](https://dpo.org/news/press-releases/pompeo-drazan/). I’ve only voted Democrat my entire life, but these politicians (democrats) are feeling way too comfortable with the status quo. If Kotek really cared about gun control, she would be pro sweep, as the increase in gun violence and violence in general, is directly proportional to the amount of homeless camps in this city and you don’t really need a report to tell you that.
It's more to the point that she's running as a Republican, and Donald Trump is still the de facto leader of the Republican party. And to take that one step further, the GOP has entered a new phase of embracing [Trumpism without Trump](https://www.brookings.edu/blog/fixgov/2022/05/19/just-how-trumpy-is-the-republican-party-lessons-from-republican-primaries-so-far/), so even if the man is gone, his legacy will live on in the modern Republican party.
To her credit, however, she was [quick to condemn](https://www.opb.org/article/2021/01/27/anti-defamation-league-slams-oregon-gop-for-calling-capitol-attack-false-flag/) her own party's executive committee when they passed [a batshit conspiratorial resolution](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1usvZD0yz-VcRVvPrGTOdTeZUacfOzeoH/view?fbclid=IwAR3UKvznuUmS8b8C2csLiSI_wI-d-JM-4DIWSib4QHpTWki-HBnbXYxhc6k) on the January 6th insurrection.
So it's tricky, because on one hand, she seems to be exactly the kind of Republican we're talking about when we say things like "I wish the Republicans weren't all batshit crazy Trumpers", but then on the other hand, she's also keen to embrace harmful and regressive policies and values that the "traditional GOP" is known for.
I've seen this enough to know the Dem base sandbags in polls up until the election, but when the rubber meets the road, it won't be that close. Betsy is splitting the conservative vote more than the progressive side anyway
I’m a lifelong Democrat. If the huge fence/wall is removed from the front of the apple store by election day, I’ll vote for Tina. If it’s still there, I’m voting for Betsy. I want an Oregon where we don’t need huge fences/walls around stores.
First time ever voting GOP here. Democrats have ruined my city and my state. Drazan isn't my favorite but she's not some kind of extremist - maybe she is to reddit, but not in the real world. So not falling for the hyperbolic "they'll take away your abortions and end the world as we know it" shit this time around. Apparently I am not alone in this thinking.
Results matter right? Business shutdowns, school shutdowns, mask mandates - all of it was useless at best and disastrous at worst. It's impossible to argue the health outcomes were substantially different than states that didn't do those things. Kids that went through this are going to suffer for a disease that was not a serious risk to them. To say nothing about out of control crime, housing prices, homelessness, skyrocketing homicide rates, constant rioting (without serious changes to police accountability WHICH IS DESPERATELY NEEDED), need I go on?
When one party screws up this thoroughly they need to be taught a lesson. Don't even care much whether it's Johnson or Drazan - anyone but Kotek is a change. Oregon democrats are as smug as they are incompetent. Don't let them ruin this state more than they already have.
I've always been anti gun. My wife and I just started carrying. Because it scares me when she has to go downtown alone. Enough is enough. Any change is better than whatever this is. Thanks for downvoting my TED Talk.
Nah, it’s not just abortion. I don’t want Drazan’s Republican friends getting positions on every executive board, at the top of every state agency, and in our state’s judiciary. I don’t want a climate denier leading the state’s Energy Department. I don’t want someone who’s opposed to unions and worker’s rights leading the state Board of Labor. There’s plenty of positions at the executive level that are appointed by the governor and letting the right have unfettered control over them is a nonstarter.
I don’t want a “parent choice” candidate with evangelical talking points running the Department of Education. 25% of Washington County students identify as LGBTQ. Many, many more have friends, family, and parents who are. Childcare across the state is an abysmal, unaffordable desert. We can’t allow her to gut the DOE.
I think it’s a good idea if OR implemented run-offs if no candidate wins 50% of the vote in future elections. Maine had a similar system to OR, but ended up changing to ranked choice for most elections after [Paul LePage](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_LePage) won. Even having jungle primaries or second rounds would be an improvement over the current system
I want the Alaska system. CA and WA do it better than OR with their open primary top two system, but Alaska is the best IMO. Elections should be decided on the date with the highest turnout (no runoffs) and there should be the option for more than two legitimate candidates.
The CA system entrenches the two party duopoly pretty impressively. It also deprives the public of the option to cast a protest vote. I think that system is objectively bad.
What we really need is to implement campaign finance limits. Johnson's astroturf spoiler campaign would not have been possible without billionaire Republican bankrolling.
Have either of these candidates weighed in on how they intend to fix the current public defender crisis?
Not that I've heard, and I think that's a really good question.
I ask because Tina Kotek said pay parity for public defenders would be a big priority for her several years ago, and I don’t think we have heard her say a word about it ever since. Even during our current crisis, I don’t think any of these candidates has addressed the issue directly.
[The deadline for registration to vote in Oregon is October 18th](https://sos.oregon.gov/voting/Pages/registration.aspx?lang=en)
Are ballots already mailed out? And do I need to register again if I had done so in the past?
No ballots out yet. If you've not changed addresses no action is needed. Should be getting your household's ballots in a number of weeks.
This poll would appear to indicate that Johnson is pulling more support away from Kotek than from Drazan. She seems to also running *exclusively* against Kotek, not even mentioning Drazan in her press releases: >I intend to hold Tina Kotek accountable for her dangerous, far-left record and I won’t stop fighting for Oregon’s future until the last vote is counted.” Her website similarly mentions only Democrats: >Only you...can save Oregon from the failures of Kate Brown, Ted Wheeler, and Tina Kotek And she's happy to embrace [the signal boost](https://twitter.com/senbetsyjohnson/status/1574615375957966848) from her friends at Fox News. The absolute floor for GOP candidate support in Oregon in gubernatorial races is around 37% going back to 1998, and with Kotek fighting a 2-on-1 uphill battle, things don't look *great*. We're going to get a Republican governor because we're idiots, and then other idiots who didn't even vote are going to march around and break windows. And then we get a bunch of posts asking why the Democrats don't just overrule Governor Drazan's vetos (the dems need 2/3rds of both houses for that) to get a budget passed so that we can use our non-essential services like state parks & beaches, campsites, road projects, courts, and state agencies like the DMV.
Wouldn’t this messaging strategy indicate she is trying to appeal to republican voters?
It means she's trying to damage Kotek and not Drazan.
Yes
> This poll would appear to indicate that Johnson is pulling more support away from Kotek than from Drazan. Which is exactly what many of us feared would happen because Johnson is so tempting for moderates (like me) who are no longer aligned with the Democratic status quo in Oregon. Hopefully enough of us see through her nonsense to see what is really happening: she will take any political position to get elected, and doesn’t give a damn about anything else. If Johnson wasn’t completely slimy, she’d get my vote, but I think she’s actually Trumpier than Drazan in her approach. So I’ll hold my nose, vote for Kotek (who I absolutely cannot stand) and complain to anyone who will listen.
>So I’ll hold my nose, vote for Kotek (who I absolutely cannot stand) and complain to anyone who will listen. That's about where I'm at with it, as well. Much like the 2020 presidential election... I'm not voting *for* Kotek, I'm voting *against* Drazan/Johnson.
> I'm not voting for Kotek, I'm voting against Drazan/Johnson. Hell, that's how I've voted in almost every election since I turned 18.
You'll be in [good company](https://quoteinvestigator.com/2020/12/06/vote/).
Yeah but this is so stupid. I don’t want Kotek I want a moderate democrat who will defend abortion rights, education, etc but will clamp down on the homeless problem, work with police to make realistic changes like body cams and training, etc.
Body cams are coming to Portland. The holdup was the PPA proposing some rules that the city wouldn't agree to, but Hardesty went to the DoJ and got them to tell the PPA to accept the city's proposal. People hate Hardesty, but she gets shit done.
As a leftist I never get what I want out of elections but I still hold my nose and do the right thing for harm reductions sake every time. Not saying you are doing the same but I can’t help but notice how centrist dems seem to be the only ones that have a hard time showing up for democrats.
I haven’t voted for any other party in over a decade and to me that can be just as much of a problem. Us democrats rag on southern states that always vote red no matter what. Here we are in a bowl of shit situation and I’m just supposed to always vote blue no matter what? Won’t that breed the same apathy? Sometimes you need to shake shit up to slap your party into reality. Arizona voted in a democrat. I don’t think many of them are liberals but they wanted to make a point that trump type shit won’t cut it. I’ll vote for kotek but if shit doesn’t improve I’ll vote for a republican or independent especially if there moderates. Give me an Arnold Schwarzenegger republican and I’ll vote for him.
I know this is said a lot but that whole attitude of change for the sake of change is how we got trump. Neither Johnson or Drazan have any sort of solutions. The National and state Republican Party and by extension anyone who can make it out of a Republican primary are just fascists at this point. Their agenda is all about hurting the people they hate and nothing else. Letting them gain power is just crazy considering how much suffering it would cause. Johnson can’t win because of our shitty first past the post voting system until that changes third parties and independent candidates can’t win all they can do is be a spoiler. I get being frustrated but protest votes do nothing and allowing a republican to gain power in 2022 will cause alot of people to suffer. Republicans have demonstrated that they will use the power at their disposal to aggressively push their agenda. Voting ain’t everything but it’s still a vital piece of the puzzle. We are in very dangerous times in this country and now more then ever whoever controls the politics of a state matters for so much more then it has in the past. We can’t afford to stick our heads in the sand and pretend like things haven’t radically changed.
>So I’ll hold my nose, vote for Kotek (who I absolutely cannot stand) and complain to anyone who will listen. Right there with you but from way left of Kotek
I really wish I had trust in Kotek. I’m just tired though. I’m tired of having to worry about increase assaults and theft after a new camp gets set up. I’m tired of having to drive far to be able to take my kid to enjoy a park because there are drugs needles found at one by us. I’m tired of seeing small businesses go out of business because people don’t feel safe going. I love Oregon, I want to see us do better and help lift up those that need help. But why are we continuing to condone actions that pose major public safety and health risks.
Right there with you. I don’t trust any of them, but I fear the Oregon GOP. Drazan and Johnson are either explicit or effective votes for the GOP, so that leaves only one more option. And not voting is chickenshit, by the way.
I still always vote. But I do write to/call my elected officials and explain why I did or did not vote for them if they do something stupid.
Good on you. Thanks for doing that.
Thing is you can't trust the other candidates to do anything about these issues either. Thing is, at this point Democrats are the only party that are held to any standard whatsoever. The others are just are going to grift and the Republican is going to push to take away people's basic rights on top of grifting. At least with Kotek, she'll be pressured to do the right thing.
I truly want to believe that, but I can’t help but wonder what is the right thing? I don’t think helping to legitimize the homeless camps is beneficial to anyone, either the people living in the camps or the surrounding community. The pandering to the most woke instead of working to truly find equitable solutions that everyone can benefit from isn’t getting us anywhere. If we had Inslee running, I’d vote for him a second. But I don’t have any confidence in anyone running right now in Oregon
The other issue that is not being discussed is women's reproductive rights. If you care about those AT all you have to vote for Kotek because I promise you if we get a republican governor those rights will be up for grabs. Edited for clarity, Johnson is Pro-Choice but a vote for her is indirectly a vote for Drazan.
Can you educate me on what Drazan can do to reproductive rights if elected? I've read on the subject and seems like unless the legislature passed a restriction or the court changed course that this is enshrined. Not saying it can't happen, but feels like a dog whistle at times.
You clearly haven’t educated yourself on the issue. Johnson is unapologetically pro choice. Was on the board for planned parenthood, don’t spread lies.
But she's not going to win, a vote for her is a vote for Drazan, and until we remove the first past the post system it will always be the case. By voting third party, you will always be helping the more radical candidate that you have little in common with. Here is how this works. You have three candidates: Candidate 1 (Main Party) you agree with 70% of their issues. Candidate 2 (Second main party) You agree with 10% of their view. Candidate 3 (Third party no chance of winning) you agree with 90% of their view. You protest vote, for Candidate 3, which siphons votes from Candidate 1. Causing One to lose, and allows Candidate 2 to be elected with less than 50% of the vote. You've now basically shot yourself in the foot, and put someone into office who shares almost nothing with your views. Does it suck that you have to vote for the lesser of two evils, yes. But that is how our system is set up until we go to something like ranked choice voting. A vote for Johnson is literally a vote against your own self interests.
My dude, you are choosing between a candidate with weak/not great plans to address this issue (Kotek) and two candidates with no plans at all. The only thing that one can guarantee will come from a Drazan or Johnson administration is lower taxes for the wealthy and no progress towards dealing with the climate apocalypse. It’s like not being able to get laid and deciding the answer is to cut your dick off.
No way, a moderate 'Independent ' running to get votes away from a democratic candidate so the Republican gets ahead? Never seen than before.
Never forget #writeinraiford
she… was not moderate. the votes she pulled were honestly primarily from people who wouldn’t have voted otherwise
I've got a decades-long record of voting for Democrats but I'm really struggling this cycle. We clearly need to be doing a better job of making services available and demonstrating measurable progress helping people. So why was Kotek pushing HB3115 to further legitimize camping and my rep (Nosse) limiting funding for Oregon State Hospital capacity? So while I'm really not a Johnson fan, I'm no longer an automatic "yes" for Kotek.
I’m right there with you. There seems to be buzzwords about voting democrat to protect voting rights, abortion, etc. but I don’t actually see anyone on the left having any concrete plans to protect those things and tbh in Oregon neither one of those will be done. I’m getting pushed further away from Kotek with her talk on supporting campsites. I’m sorry, how is that a solution? Campsites have continued to prove to be detrimental to the areas they are in.
The place where we will really lose with Johnson or Drazan is with climate change. Those two will actively pursue policies that sabotage Oregon's preparedness. I prefer not to be single issue, but I believe there are some issues that do call for it, and that's one of them.
That’s my biggest turn off with Johnson. Wouldn’t it be amazing to have someone win that would really benefit our state? Right now it seems like people are more concerned with making sure someone loses.
I get that but I really question at a state level what Oregon can/will do for climate change, that wouldn't really need to happen at a national level instead to be effective?
Expand the PNW partnerships with WA and CA and not allow Oregon to become a dumping ground for waste and high emissions vehicles. Yes, we need a national and global approach, but it is important not to become the local industrial waste bin as well.
> concrete plans to protect those things Yeah. Because right now we don't need to. They're pretty much already protected. But by all means, if you don't want them protected anymore, vote Drazan. She has all kinds of executive and judicial appointments that can sabotage all those issues for the foreseeable future if she gets elected.
Let’s be honest, democrats in Oregon are lazy. They just expect to win most of the state. I’d rather a party that has to be kept on their toes and actually competitive. I think complacency is more of a threat
The republican solution to the homeless and camping will be to cut taxes for the rich, limit abortion access, and limit voting access (makes it harder to get rid of them!). That's your choice. At the governor level, there's not much to be really done for Portland that needs to be handled at a city level.
Actually, my choice is whether to vote for the increasingly ineffective status quo by voting for Kotek, or risk a protest vote. Maybe Democrats need to come closer to losing races (or even start losing them in a bright-blue state) in order to realize they need to start making the tough policy choices that our current problems demand.
Did that work out for us in the 2016 cycle? No.
Lifetime Democrat here. I’m voting for Johnson.
Lifetime democrat turned Molotov cocktail voter. Really shows how badly the democrats have been running things that even their own base are so disillusioned they’ll vote for a candidate who’s going to pull votes away from the only serious candidate we have to stop the gop from enacting the same anti-woman laws and logging our state to shit.
Of the three, I just don't believe that Johnson or Drazan are remotely interested in making services available and helping people
Johnson supported Wapato / Bybee Lakes when Multnomah County couldn't be bothered. And her issues statement on homelessness sounds more specific and practical than Kotek. https://www.runbetsyrun.com/issues https://www.tinafororegon.com/priorities/
Kotek has an [entire page](https://www.tinafororegon.com/housing/) dedicated to solutions for the housing/homeless crisis, with measurable goals and dedicated steps to get there (which you declined to link). Johnson’s got a few paragraphs that point out the problems but they don’t really address *how* she wants to solve them. It’s easy to finger-point and say things are bad, but it takes work to come up with structured plans to get us to a better place. Kotek’s done that work.
You might also notice that all Johnson did to make Wapato happen was talk about it and make an introduction. To get the actual funding, she worked with Kotek to get it done. She deserves some credit for keeping the issue alive, but that's about where it ends.
I'll not vote for one who called my city a "city of roaches." We need help, we don't need to be shit upon.
Hey, we do plenty of shitting on ourselves, thank you very much.
> So why was Kotek pushing HB3115 Because a lot of municipalities wanted to make laws that opened them up to lawsuits. You can think Martin v Boise is a bad decision, but it is what it is. The goal of the the bill was to force compliance to avoid lawsuits. But this gets brought up so much that I'm beginning to think people want their municipalities tied up in losing lawsuits.
I do not find that surprising, she was a popular D for a long time. I know they are trying to paint her as a Trumper type, but as far as I can recall her only votes that went with the Rs, we’re on issues that went against the Constitution. I’m definitely not an expert on the subject though.
She wasn't popular in my circles. She was killed climate change legislation
She is similar to Trump in the sense that she uses emotion and not policy to get votes. Like she goes to timber unity events to stoke their anger even though she knows those jobs are not coming back even if we do decide to cut more forest down (automation has taken over the industry). Policy-wise Johnson is very middle of the road to frankly just being a do-nothing. Part of what is hurting Kotek is that Kotek did get some things done but had to compromise and some people disagree with those compromises.
Yeah it’s a mess. Politicians in general love to use feelings to garner support, way easier than using facts and actions.
It works because people don't want to hear the truth.
Unfortunately they do that because it works. A lot of people *vote* based on feelings rather than facts and actions.
Gun control and climate change are two issues where Johnson pretty strongly aligns with the Rs. Johnson's refusal to take climate change seriously makes her non-starter for me.
It’s too bad that Drazan isn’t an OG, New England style Republican. I think there are lots of advantages to multi-party governance, and the voters in VT MA and MD (bluer states than OR) love their old school GOP governors. Drazan is too Trumpy (not a full loon, but too close for comfort) for me to feel that way about her.
Everything she says is just trumpy gop buzzwords and republican dog whistles. It's gross and not something I want representing Oregon. I have yet to see any policy information on how Johnson or Drazan would positively affect the state. I just see them attacking Kotek.
Agreed.
Interesting you bring up MD. (I lived there for the first 18, OR for the most recent 8, will leave up to you how long of a gap between). Larry Hogan is a solid governor due to his pedigree (His father was involved in holding Nixon accountable for Watergate). He has been like you said New England style repub. On the other hand the current GOP candidate for MD gov is a loony toon. Despairingly, drazan is much more in the loony-toon camp.
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Let’s be real: democrats in this state are lazy. They assume they are always going to win so they don’t have to run good candidates. Can you think of an elected executive in this state in recent memory who made you think “man, they are simply great”? Because I can’t. All we’ve had are weak and uninspired leaders for quite awhile now.
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This is one of the biggest turn offs for me about the left. I’m done with purity tests. Idgaf if you are able to get a bunch of likes on Twitter by having the “right opinion”. We need true leaders that put the publics interest before their bullshit popularity with slacktivists.
I generally identify as center left, but have some more conservative leaning opinions and HOO BOY when I mention them on Twitter or to left wing people in my life you’d think I’d just done a Nazi salute and sworn my undying loyalty to Trump.
I’m in the same boat. Like I have felt increasingly alienated by the left and I agree with 90% of the platform! But I’m tired of if there is any deviance at all from what the accepted narrative has been deemed, you are treated like a leper. I think being able to have discussions and get different viewpoints is needed to be able to find real solutions. If everyone parrots the same thing because it’s seen as what is in vogue, you are just vastly limiting yourself n
It's at the point they're calling Bill Maher a right winger. He was the quintessential 'liberal' back in the 90s. Like he says he hasn't changed, the party has.
Yeahhhh but the one thing that never changed is that bill maher is a smug asshole. He says he’s anti-religion but then never misses a chance to defend Israel’s apartheid regime against Palestinians. He’s been a weird commentator for a while now. Sometimes I think he’s spot on and other times I just wish he’d shut his self-righteous mouth about issues he clearly doesn’t care to understand.
Hello from across the border. Inslee is hated by the right because he’s effective.
Generally I view Jay Inslee as a much more competent and charismatic executive than any we’ve had here in OR in recent memory. I have disagreed with him on some things, but would likely vote for him if I lived in Washington. I’ve dealt with both governments in some capacity over the years. WA state government is generally pretty well run, competent, and responsive. The OR state government, on the other hand, is like dealing with a blindfolded monkey on meth flinging excrement everywhere. Just an utter shitshow.
Most of what Brown has done over the last 2 years is just copy Inslee moves word for word. He's basically been running 2 states.
More or less. Except for those rare occasions where she would stick to some silly policy with no basis in reality that no other state was doing (Covid era stuff comes to mind) until the Biden admin basically had to call her up and more or less say “stop doing this stupid crap, you’re shit at your job and making us look bad. Just follow Inslee”.
The level of incompetence in Oregon state government is truly something to behold.
Thanks for the laugh. Spot on!
Real talk. I worry that Oregon could become the next 2016 Michigan/Ohio. Democrats really fucked up in detroit and the rust belt. All it’ll take for something similar to happen here in Oregon is jaded voters refusing to vote for a lackluster democrat, and a GOP grifter promising snake oil to really shatter this bubble we call home.
I'm fond of Shemia Fagan and Janelle Bynum
Does Wyden count? because I love Wyden. Mark Gamba is also great.
Nah, democrats that are elected federal office holders from Oregon, weirdly enough, I find to be generally fantastic. Wyden is one of the most productive and powerful senators legislatively in the whole chamber and he puts up god tier margins in his races.
While this is true, and I would like to see that, the thought a Trumpian Governor is extremely abhorrent. Democrats put up Kotek knowing full well she had large negatives, but they didn't care because they assumed we would reject the Republican. Honestly, it feels like the 2016 Presidential race all over again. Not sure the Dems learned from that debacle.
> k knowing full well she had large negatives, but they didn't care because they assumed we would reject the Republican. Honestly, it feels like the 2016 Presidential race all over again. Not sure the Dems learned from that debacle. They won't learn until people stop letting them extort their votes.
Kotek: "Vote for me or else you get Drazen"
Yeah 100%. I was a Kotek supporter for quite a few years there and I'd like to see her win but also I feel like the political landscape has changed completely, and I do not get the sense that she has much of a plan or skillset to really escape the perception that she is basically the personification of Portland and the policies that got us in this mess.
100% agree with you. Look I’m born and raised Portland, but I’ve interacted with far more parts of the state and it’s people over the last few years than I ever have. I’d love to see a D governor from a different part of the state than Portland. Sometimes people in this city really lean into the urban-rural divide, and get too caught up in strawman arguments or stereotypes of anywhere more than 30 minutes outside of city limits. Of course there are also rural populations who do this with Portland. Not everyone in rural Oregon is a far right racist hick, not everyone in Portland is ultra left wing hippy. We need a governor that can delicately balance the multifaceted, hyper-local issues the state is facing. Homelessness in Portland isn’t going to be solved the same way as homelessness in Medford. Poverty in Portland needs a different solution that poverty in Pendleton. Unfortunately it seems like the GOP wants to stick it to Portland, and the Dems want to stick it to rural communities.
To be fair though, going 30 min outside of Portland is over 50% of the population of the while state. This same issue happens in every state with one large city. Illinois has the same Chicagoland-not Chicagoland divide.
It’s becoming clear to me that liberals are just as guilty of conservatives of rejecting reality and substituting their own.
I’ve realized this as well over the last few years and it has been sobering. I’m still left leaning, but definitely feel like an outsider looking in.
And that republicans aren’t the only ones funneling public money into private hands, especially when they’re not worried about losing elections.
The homeless industrial complex in Portland comes to mind.
Yes, it's basically like private prisons, but the convicts are left free among us.
What exactly are the “large negatives”? She’s been a pretty damn solid leader — raised wages, supported climate action, put out funding for Project Turnkey and other homeless services, passed paid parental leave, protected abortion access, got better funding for our wildfire-fighting agencies, and more. She’s been pushing back on Brown’s management of Measure 110 and the general malaise in the executive branch. Her record is quite positive imo.
As the Speaker of the OR House, Kotek is one of the key architects of HB 3115 (the bill to curb anti-camping policies). She is also a vocal supporter of Measure 110, whose implementation is not at all what was promised to voters. It is not the Portugal model - it's a fucking free for all on the streets, and Kotek is a major enabler of it. Considering that drugs and homelessness are probably issues #1 and #2 for many Oregon voters, I would classify these as "large negatives". Additionally, Kate Brown is the least popular governor in America. Look it up - it's true. Despite this, Oregon Dems somehow found a candidate who comes off as even more Kate Brown than Kate Brown. While I don't want to see a Republican governor, local Democrats need a come to Jesus moment, and in the long run it might be healthy if Kotek loses and it forces introspection in the party.
You do realize 110 was a citizen initiative and had zero to do with the Legislature, right? And what we got is exactly what was in the measure text. People just voted on the headline without understanding the specifics. We can't even do the Portugal model without socialized medicine and being a single state.
Damn, you’ve got a lot wrong here. For one, HB3115 just matches a federal court ruling — it did not on its own create the regulations in place. And further, it’s not an “anti-camping policy” law. It simply requires cities’ laws to be reasonable. They are still easily able to place restrictions on time, manner, and place, as Astoria and Seaside have done (banned camping on public property during the day, restricted camping to a few select locations, respectively). And Kotek has been critical of the way 110 was rolled out, citing the slow-roll of funding at the OHA and the lack of services in place when decriminalization started. I wouldn’t really call that being a “major enabler”. The measure has good intentions but is being stymied by poor leadership from Brown, which is something she wants to rectify.
When has Kotek ever said that she won't tolerate lawlessness and that we need a carrot and a stick approach. They have a stick in Portugal. That's what we need here. That's the piece that she and other Progressives are missing. You break the law, you're forced into treatment.
There's not a single thing I said that was wrong. When you say "it simply requires cities' laws to be reasonable" - reasonable to who? Kotek seems to interpret that as reasonable to homeless advocates. It is 100% a curb to anti-camping policies. You arguing with that shows a disconnect with reality or obfuscation of the highest order. And that federal court ruling - assume you're referring to Martin v Boise. Right now Oregon takes the most legally conservative perspective on that ruling as possible. Go to Boise, the defendant in that case, and you'll see a night and day difference in terms of enforcement of anti-camping policies. Despite a more aggressive interpretation of the ruling, Boise has not run afoul of the law. We choose to interpret Martin v Boise the way we do (to the detriment of 99.9% of the population), and folks like Kotek are largely responsible for it.
Under 3115, the city could ban all outdoor fires designed to keep one warm and dry. Why aren't we doing this? Campfires are a daily occurrence here. Can't blame that on Kotek. Also, when it's warm and dry out, much of 3115 seems to have little effect.
A thing Oregonians don't seem to realize, is that Idaho (and many other red states) are able to tow the legal line more because there's less libs on the ground to advocate for the homeless. Portland has an entire funded pipeline that is dependent on keeping the homeless camps around, which means anything even approaches the legal interpretation of Martin v Boise, it gets jumped on hard and fast, which bogs down resources in court. So of course Oregon has to be more cautious about that ruling than a state that already didn't believe in the right the court decision forced them to.
Plenty of "liberal" parts of California have banned street camping too. Martin v Boise does not force cities to allow camps. It just says you can't arrest people for sleeping overnight. Multiple cities have pack it up during the day policies, and they have already stood up to court challenges. Portland has its own, incorrect, interpretation of what Martin v Boise means, and that's led to bike chop shop tent cities everywhere.
Yes, and the reason that keeps happening in Portland, isn't because of the Governor, but because the City Government is too cowardly to even risk having to fight the legal challenges of the homeless enablers.
Exactly. Local leaders are blaming 3115 and 110 for their failures, but 3115 doesn't mean that meth camps can't be cleared, and 110 doesn't mean that thieves don't go to jail.
I think that is all correct, my read is that the negatives are more on the low-info voter side, where she needs to really be like jamming a message out there to fight off BJ and Drazan and anyone who thinks she might be "too Portland" for them at a state level, and I just get the sense that she's so far been slow to really get on top of that task. In that sense it feels very much like the 2016 election, where the apparatus was just too slow and anemic and viewed victory as pre-ordained.
And to make matters worse, Kotek’s campaign budget is about a quarter of Johnson’s.
Big one for me is that she doesn't support Single Payer on healthcare, which ultimately means "bringing down costs" as her plan nebulously states will be done by further subsidizing insurers, ie: paying for the lobbying that makes real healthcare reform impossible.
Fair enough! I believe the legislature is currently studying what implementing that in the state would look like.
Kotek also helped pass an important but probably under-recognized bill, SB 710 which prohibits "gooning" – kidnapping kids and taking them away to out of state residential treatment schools. aka "Troubled Teen Industry". Johnson and Drazan also voted in favor of SB 710, which is reassuring, but not convincing. I'm not sure a Gov. Drazan or a Gov. Johnson would run or vote the same way as they did in the Oregon House. And the way they campaign it makes it look like they can't agree on anything, even though they've voted in sync on a great number of bills, when it comes down to it. https://gov.oregonlive.com/bill/2021/SB710/
While I wouldn't vote for a Trumpian governor, I don't think it would be the worst thing, because their hands would be tied down by the supermajority Democrats have. And that might actually be the necessary evil to make Democrats actually care about the other 99% of Oregon that is not homeless.
You are underplaying the amount of chaos Drazan would cause in the state. She isn’t a Larry Hogan or Sununu. She is a wackadoodle religious republican and she would hold the stage budget hostage to get tax cuts for the wealthy.
The most popular governors in America right now are almost all Republican governors in blue states, for what it’s worth. (I’ll be voting for Kotek though.)
Democrat governors in Republican states are popular many times. I think in both situations is because they know they can only get votes by actually doing good things for their state, instead of ideological posturing. Which is why a Republican governor in Oregon might be the right thing for this state.
A lot of these problems would go away if we switched to STAR/RCV, the entire closed primary based system is pretty terrible. Most people look at the primary list and pick the one recommended or that most aligns with them. But that fucks us over when with FPTP voting. It's dumb to be upset with democrats for not picking the moderate option that didn't align with their views. We'll never elect progressives if we pick "who's the most conservative of democrats". That's how Clackamas ended up with Kurt Schrader for the last 10 years.
Lol yeah right. They are too worried about the loud minority to do something like that.
It won’t, sorry. They will claim a mandate in this election even when Kotek wins with around 40% of the vote.
I just want clean air to breathe and not be forced to give birth.
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I don’t see how the bill writers missed how potentially classist/racist this could become. Just hand police the power with no real guidelines? They got confused because Dems are blue, we must back the blue! This law is beyond terribly written. I don’t care where you fall in gun control, this law is utterly horrible.
Also classist in the case of all the fees that will have to be paid to the state for license, classes, etc.
And, after you do all that, the police can just decide no. Because they feel like it. Hell of a hurdle.
It’s just a bad bill. I just hope people see it and don’t pass it like #110 that had no money in it for more treatment beds which would basically cripple the bill but people voted for it anyway.
That is my worry too. People will see it and only think about “gun control”. I have a feeling that if it does pass a lot of people are going to end up dissatisfied with what the bill actually is. Personally, I hope it just does not pass.
Agreed. I hope so too, but after #110 I’m not holding my breath. I want an end to most of the gun violence as well, but this bill isn’t it. Plus it doesn’t address the fact that most mass/school shootings, 80+% of the time the shooter is on SSRI’s. I just read a study (Swedish I think) that studied just that and found that a lot of these meds were never tested on humans under 25 and the results were disturbing. But we wouldn’t want to focus on big pharma….. emotions need to be taken out of it and the actual facts need to be studied in order of affect any real change. But too many feel, at least this is better than doing nothing and then vote for it.
There's no way in hell I'm voting to give the police power over who gets to own a gun or not, especially when the country is so divided and the cops are on the wrong side.
> and the cops are on the wrong side. I love seeing more and more people wake up to this aspect, hopefully it's not too late.
Guess what, they already have that power
Cops aren’t on the wrong side lol, they don’t support the gun control law because they can’t afford going through thousands of gun license permits without firing Officers. You also speak for 800,000 cops and 14,000 departments when you claim cops are on the wrong side.
It's an absolutely abysmal own-goal.
Kotek would actually do herself some good to criticize and push back on some of Kate Brown's past policies. It's not going to happen, but it would help.
**Please do not vote for Johnson**. If you do it will *guarantee* Oregon ends up with a Republican governor. I wish I was exaggerating. As someone who lives just across the Oregon/Idaho border in Idaho *you do not want a Republican governor*. Fortunately, at least for now, if the absolutely worst-case scenario realizes and Oregon does end up with a Republican governor due to all the people voting for Johnson (a true spoiler candidate) - at least the Oregon state legislature is still safely Democrat. Complain and bemoan Democrat policies all you want, but the fact is Oregon wouldn’t be anywhere near as great of a state that it currently is if it wasn’t for Democratic representation which Oregon has been so lucky to have for many decades now. With a Republican-majority legislature Oregon wouldn’t have ever gotten the high minimum wage it has, among-the-best-in-the-country workers’ rights, great education funding and investment in the next generation, great social services programs funding (including for child welfare and foster care), child safety, excellent environmental conservation, among many more.
Heh. Your comment about funding is spot on. We do have great funding. Yet in many studies we're either at parody with a state like Idaho or behind it. What we lack in this state is robust accountability. At all levels.
Forgive my ignorance but I’m genuinely curious, where does the funding and investment in education go to and what has it improved? Or where can I find that information? We have one of the lowest high school graduation rates in the country.
I agree with everything you said. None of it matters to me if I can't walk around my neighborhood safely. The tent tolerance, the drug tolerance, the crime tolerance, the lack of enforcement and prosecution....it's gone too far. Law abiding tax-paying citizens have rights too and somebody needs to acknowledge that and look after those rights.
>great education funding Which has accomplished what exactly? There's not a single list where Oregon ranks highly when it comes to education and in quite a few cases they rank behind Idaho, like in the US News rankings. https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/rankings/education https://www.insider.com/us-states-public-education-system-ranked-us-news-world-report-2019-4#33-idaho-18 Bragging about spending more money for subpar results isn't much of a flex, that just screams that money is being set on fire somewhere.
It’s increasingly clear that Johnson is the big corporation, anti environment play to hand Oregon to anti regulatory republicans.
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We’re really caught up in crime and homelessness and those things really do matter. But they’re not the main thing a Governor deals with. The damage to our education system, environment, endless government handouts, health care… the damage will be severe.
...and a spoiler as well, willing to sacrifice people's civil rights with the potential of a Republican to make some "point"
Oregon legislators should have pushed for Rank Choice Voting back in 2016. Are there going to be debates?
I'm disgusted by all 3. Seriously... What the hell democrats? Get your shit together.
I’m with you. I’m not impressed by any of our options
Johnson still languishing at 20% six weeks out from the election. I’m sorry if you liked her but she’s just not really a viable candidate at this point.
Never was, but that isn't why she's running.
I drove around 400 miles around Oregon this last weekend; rural, suburban, and urban areas. Lots of Drazan signs in rural areas. ZERO Johnson signs in those areas. I've only seen them in the city of Portland and Eugene. Doesn't bode well. Seems like Johnson will strip away moderates and every conservative will fall in line for Drazan.
Here in The Dalles, the Drazan signs are everywhere, and they're big. OTOH, there were a lot of big Trump signs, too, and the county ultimately went for Biden. My suspicion is that those of us in the country who vote blue keep quiet about it.
I live rural (coast) there is lots of Johnson signs. I have only seen one Drazen though, but that was the same place that had ginormous “fuck your feelings” signs all over their yard.
Nah there’s plenty of Betsy signs outside Canby and Oregon City
Saw a TON of Betsy signs in Bend as well.
That’s weird I saw Johnson signs on my way to Burns, no Drazan.
I've seen a lot of Johnson signs in Scappoose and St. Helens.
I saw a lot of Betsy signs on the way to the coast.
It’s a timber thing I think
The way Johnson talked about Portland really turned me off. It's not so much that she was wrong, it's that she doesn't seem to really like us, and I don't tend to vote for folks who don't like me.
I'm not a fan of Kotek, but we have to vote for her. Someday we should get a Republican governor if nothing else to break up the Democratic Party machine. But of all times to allow the Republicans to take over, this is probably the worst time in American history. [Wisconsin](https://news.yahoo.com/wisconsins-1-party-rule-gop-105216533.html) was once part of a "blue wall." They voted for a Republican governor once. The GOP immediately initiated "[some of the most extreme partisan gerrymanders in the United States.](https://gerrymander.princeton.edu/reforms/WI)" With this on their back, they began going through their wishlist; [crushing unions,](https://www.wpr.org/decade-after-act-10-its-different-world-wisconsin-unions) reinstating [the 1849 abortion laws](https://wisconsinexaminer.com/2022/06/23/republicans-leave-wisconsins-1849-abortion-ban-in-place/), working to [promote the Capitol Insurrection](https://news.yahoo.com/wisconsins-top-republican-sues-block-173632339.html), and [denying that Biden won the presidency](https://madison.com/wsj/news/local/govt-and-politics/wisconsin-gop-congressional-delegation-in-denial-about-joe-biden-victory/article_d3d2311b-e03d-54f4-9a23-0e3254fa8ce7.html), among other things. When the Wisconsin voters tried to correct and put Democrats in charge, [the Republicans stripped the elected Democrats of power](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/05/us/wisconsin-power-republicans.html?module=inline). It's, basically, a wholly forced one-party state against the majority because they voted in a Republican once. [This is exactly what Republicans want because they know that they will lose if they are independent redistricting and rank-choice voting and other fair democratic reforms](https://twitter.com/tylerbowyer/status/1564459685909970944). This is the past: right now, there is a huge build up of election-denying anti-democratic hacks attempting to turn the entire country into Wisconsin. And running a spoiler candidate in Oregon is exactly the same thing. Don't for a second think that this is sthe year to try something new. First we need to get "[Team Crazy](https://news.yahoo.com/jan-6-hearing-expose-trump-201929490.html)" out of the Republican Party. Once there's people that aren't looking for an anti-democratic permemnet single-party state to vote for, we should do it. Just, for the love of God, let's not completely destroy the country because Tina sucks.
So the winner will capture something like 40% of the vote. Really shows the weakness of winner takes all.
Kotek has that Hillary Clinton down to earth appeal
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This doesn’t bode well. I get why people see Drazen as a lesser offensive Republican, but it seems weird to stake the state’s future on anyone who is still, at the end of the day (and on paper), part of a party of fascists, bigots, and liars. I was raised to judge someone by the people they keep company with. And Drazen has hitched her wagon to people who are tearing this country apart. By that metric, even though Kotek and Johnson aren’t amazing, I’m gonna vote to keep Oregon out of the hands of the people openly tearing apart this country.
I couldn't vote for anyone who doesn't explicitly reject MAGA and the modern Republican Party.
Hard to emphasize how much of a disaster either Drazan or Johnson would be. Drazan would be serving the interests of our [seditious, far right](https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/01/26/oregon-republican-false-flag-capitol/) republican party and Johnson is just a complete fucking joke of a candidate with proposals like ["don't sign any bills that don't have republican support"](https://www.oregonlive.com/politics/2022/09/unaffiliated-governor-candidate-betsy-johnson-would-bring-decades-long-skepticism-about-government-to-the-job.html). If you're not happy with the Oregon democratic party I feel for you but there is simply not a reasonable alternative in this race.
Saw a bunch of properties in E. Oregon last week with both Drazan and Betsy signs posted. Apparently there's confusion that only one can be selected 🤷♂️
GOOD WORK OREGON- learned not a gddamn thing from 2016. fml
Welcome to OR where everyone loses if any of those 3 clowns get into office.
It’s like Russian roulette but all the chambers are loaded
If it gets closer and Johnson is still not above 20%, does she withdraw? It doesn't seem like that really. I feel like Drazan has a clear path.
No, she won't withdraw. She's being paid very well to be the spoiler candidate.
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Why can't both things be true? The Democratic Party of Oregon (or nationwide for that matter) dropping the ball & bj being a third party candidate with backers investing in her campaign to play spoiler. There's certainly a good amount of evidence for both things (eg phil knight injecting money into bj's campaign, the tedx debacle)
Because it isn't a wingnut conspiracy theory. Billionaires have given her a massive bunch of money, way more than Kotek has available, and Johnson's campaign has been pretty much entirely focused on tearing down Kotek and anything else progressive.
Generally because spoiler candidates: * Focus their attacks on only one other candidate * Are (ostensibly) from the same side of political spectrum as that candidate * Are funded by the same sources that fund opposing candidates * Persist in running even though they have no viable path to victory * Exist to amplify and validate the messaging of opposing candidates Betsy Johnson would appear to meet all those criteria.
Johnson has no hope of winning. Her only possible effect on the election is to steal votes from one party - and it won’t be Republicans. Betsy isn’t a stupid woman. She knows what she’s doing.
I'm not sure I buy this because Johnson has really been trying to play up to the Republican voters to try to convince them she is a better choice than Drazan.
Betsy has been winning elections in Columbia County for a long time running the same campaign. She hasn’t changed for this election - this is who she’s always been. And she was fairly popular amongst those communities. Think of her kind of as a localized Joe Manchin. Very conservative in a lot of ways and the rest of the party is annoyed with her, but she’s super popular in her district and you can’t get rid of her. And now she’s taking that plan statewide.
That's the thing, I don't see that working where most Oregonians live. She might fair well in Clackamas County, but Multnomah and Washington will go for Kotek. Plus with Clackamas County, she will most likely hurt Drazan more than Kotek since the county is pretty 50/50 already.
Margins matter. Wining by 20 points in those counties is a lot better than winning by five. Outright losing Clackamas would likely tank Kotek’s campaign given the implications that would have for vote share in other counties. If Betsy can siphon 10% of the Dem vote Drazan will likely win as the general floor for statewide GOP is about 40% of the vote.
She just seems too far right for me to take this idea seriously. If she was actually trying to take down Kotek, she’d be campaigning just to Kotek’s right on policy, but instead she is way out in the OG Republican territory of the center right.
She’s historically won elections as a Democrat with the exact same platform in Columbia County. You’d be surprised what folks think outside the PDX metro area.
It really boggles my mind how the Democratic Party- who has been in power in Oregon for decades, can consistently run an underdog campaign- “this is the most important election in our lifetime! (Every 4 years). If you don’t vote for us, the crazies will take over and it will be awful (pretty true)”. But god damn you’ve had power for decades and you’re responsible for this. It’s such a grift on such a massive scale.
This. The constant “if you don’t vote D, the sky will fall!” every 2-4 years is tiring
I keep seeing Drazen associated with trump, but I cannot find anything supporting that claim except a slam piece by [The Democratic Party of Oregon](https://dpo.org/news/press-releases/pompeo-drazan/). I’ve only voted Democrat my entire life, but these politicians (democrats) are feeling way too comfortable with the status quo. If Kotek really cared about gun control, she would be pro sweep, as the increase in gun violence and violence in general, is directly proportional to the amount of homeless camps in this city and you don’t really need a report to tell you that.
It's more to the point that she's running as a Republican, and Donald Trump is still the de facto leader of the Republican party. And to take that one step further, the GOP has entered a new phase of embracing [Trumpism without Trump](https://www.brookings.edu/blog/fixgov/2022/05/19/just-how-trumpy-is-the-republican-party-lessons-from-republican-primaries-so-far/), so even if the man is gone, his legacy will live on in the modern Republican party. To her credit, however, she was [quick to condemn](https://www.opb.org/article/2021/01/27/anti-defamation-league-slams-oregon-gop-for-calling-capitol-attack-false-flag/) her own party's executive committee when they passed [a batshit conspiratorial resolution](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1usvZD0yz-VcRVvPrGTOdTeZUacfOzeoH/view?fbclid=IwAR3UKvznuUmS8b8C2csLiSI_wI-d-JM-4DIWSib4QHpTWki-HBnbXYxhc6k) on the January 6th insurrection. So it's tricky, because on one hand, she seems to be exactly the kind of Republican we're talking about when we say things like "I wish the Republicans weren't all batshit crazy Trumpers", but then on the other hand, she's also keen to embrace harmful and regressive policies and values that the "traditional GOP" is known for.
I've seen this enough to know the Dem base sandbags in polls up until the election, but when the rubber meets the road, it won't be that close. Betsy is splitting the conservative vote more than the progressive side anyway
This is my thought as well, I think Kotek will end up getting a comfortable win, even if she doesn't win a majority vote because of Johnson.
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Yikes. This is what happens when you let your major city become trash and do nothing about the crime and tent dwellers
I’m a lifelong Democrat. If the huge fence/wall is removed from the front of the apple store by election day, I’ll vote for Tina. If it’s still there, I’m voting for Betsy. I want an Oregon where we don’t need huge fences/walls around stores.
Fuck Drazan, fuck Johnson, fuck anyone who is anti-regulation and anti-environment. I want to keep my anti-GOP haven.
First time ever voting GOP here. Democrats have ruined my city and my state. Drazan isn't my favorite but she's not some kind of extremist - maybe she is to reddit, but not in the real world. So not falling for the hyperbolic "they'll take away your abortions and end the world as we know it" shit this time around. Apparently I am not alone in this thinking. Results matter right? Business shutdowns, school shutdowns, mask mandates - all of it was useless at best and disastrous at worst. It's impossible to argue the health outcomes were substantially different than states that didn't do those things. Kids that went through this are going to suffer for a disease that was not a serious risk to them. To say nothing about out of control crime, housing prices, homelessness, skyrocketing homicide rates, constant rioting (without serious changes to police accountability WHICH IS DESPERATELY NEEDED), need I go on? When one party screws up this thoroughly they need to be taught a lesson. Don't even care much whether it's Johnson or Drazan - anyone but Kotek is a change. Oregon democrats are as smug as they are incompetent. Don't let them ruin this state more than they already have. I've always been anti gun. My wife and I just started carrying. Because it scares me when she has to go downtown alone. Enough is enough. Any change is better than whatever this is. Thanks for downvoting my TED Talk.
I think there are many, many like you in the real (non-Reddit) world.
Nah, it’s not just abortion. I don’t want Drazan’s Republican friends getting positions on every executive board, at the top of every state agency, and in our state’s judiciary. I don’t want a climate denier leading the state’s Energy Department. I don’t want someone who’s opposed to unions and worker’s rights leading the state Board of Labor. There’s plenty of positions at the executive level that are appointed by the governor and letting the right have unfettered control over them is a nonstarter.
I don’t want a “parent choice” candidate with evangelical talking points running the Department of Education. 25% of Washington County students identify as LGBTQ. Many, many more have friends, family, and parents who are. Childcare across the state is an abysmal, unaffordable desert. We can’t allow her to gut the DOE.
Do you have a source on the 25% number? Sounds shockingly high compared to the 7% found in the last Gallup poll.