The big question Oregon Democrats have been asking this campaign season is: “Why won’t Chris Dudley play a little one-on-one against John Kitzhaber?”
The former Portland Trail Blazer center who’s now the Republican candidate for governor has filled the airwaves with platitude-laden commercials (a new one was released yesterday) but has ducked opportunities to debate Democratic rival John Kitzhaber. On Tuesday Kitzhaber offered a list of seven events around the state where he’d be willing to debate Dudley.
Dudley finally agreed to one debate – but it wasn’t at one of the seven venues Kitzhaber proposed. According to Oregonian political blogger Jeff Mapes, it’ll be an Oct. 7 event sponsored by The Oregonian and KGW-TV of Portland.
That’s too late in the game, complains Carla Axtman of the liberal/Democratic Blue Oregon site: “As I understand it, that’s barely a week before ballots go out. Apparently Dudley thinks we don’t need to know his actual positions on issues before then. Dudley’s spokesperson LeRoy Coleman tells Mapes that Dudley doesn’t want to debate until the fall because that’s when voters are paying attention. Um … LeRoy, if voters aren’t paying attention, then why are you guys shelling out giant piles of cash for TV ads? Gimme a break.”
The Democrats’ frustration is palpable, because Dudley’s bob-and-weave tactics appear to be working. According to the polls he’s tied with or slightly leading the two-term former governor, and he’s way ahead in the money race, topping Kitz by almost $1 million at the start of August.
The Democratic partisans’ annoyance and dismay was reflected in a suggestion offered by Bill Ryan on Blue Oregon: “Back in the ’92 Clinton campaign GHW Bush was trying to avoid debates. The Clinton campaign starting sending a guy out in a chicken suit to every Bush campaign event. It really grabbed headlines and pointed out the Bush debate cowardice. Let’s bring out the chicken suits! Dudley is clearly a wuss and has nothing to fill that empty suit.”
No word yet from the Kitzhaber campaign on whether they’re considering the chicken suit option, but as the summer winds down it’s obvious they’d better come up with something … and pretty fast.
This article appears in Aug 12-18, 2010.
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Having a little cheese with that whine are you?
What is there to debate? We have the highest state taxes in the union, we are being locked out of our own land or at least charged a fee to use land that we already own and pay federal taxes on along with many other issues that Oregon’s liberals have imposed on us. There is no debate, only facts.
Comparisons of state taxes can be found at
http://www.taxadmin.org/fta/rate/tax_stru.html
I can’t find the section that shows Oregon as having “the highest state taxes in the union.” Male Pattern Blindness, I’m sure.
http://www.taxadmin.org/fta/rate/09taxbur.html
This link will take you to the table that shows Oregon ranks 39th and 36th nationally with total taxes per capita and as a percentage of personal income. Far, far from the top claimed by the knee-jerks rushing to attack all things that do not comply with their dogma and agenda.
Oh, the state at the top of the list? Alaska–that bastion of conservative independence–in both areas. Oh, I’m sure that someone will point out that those revenues come from the oil revenues and not the Alaskan resident. Like the good free-market capitalist I am, I will also point out that those taxs are passed along by the oil companies to the consumers in the lower forty-eight in the form of higher energy prices. I love paying every day to support the Alaskan welfare state–that even with those revenues can’t seem to balance its budget, too.
Quite frankly, the debates are a waste of time. Staged venues, precleared questions, and programmed responses. Does anybody doubt what their public positions are–and does anyone believe that the uninformed voters will actually watch 1, 2,or 10 debates to get informed? Come on! If people are willing to make the statements that Sala makes when the information is so readily available, that’s nothing more than a pipe dream. The facts never trump a firmly held belief. Instead, attack the facts or the source of those facts.
Let’s instead take a definitive list of all of their contributors over $1,000–identify the members of the dummy PACs completely and correctly without letting them hide who the are–and run it in all of the newspapers one week before the election. If people are too stupid to connect the dots and can’t understand that the candidates are selling themselves and access to government for the dollars paying for their campaign. Follow the money trail. If people want to elect a governor who is pro business–in the pockets of the wealthy–anti environment–pro union–pro environment–anti NRA–pro choice, whatever; they can see which way the wind blows and sail along in that direction.
Holy Cow! I agree with Stephen Cramer, There is no point in doing any debates. The liberal lemmings in our beloved state will vote for Kitz regardless. One can only hope Duds has a chance to take the reigns, years of inept governing make one eager for even the slightest change.
Conservative Elizabeth Hovde of the Oregonian actually made a pretty good case for why debates are important.
http://www.oregonlive.com/hovde/index.ssf/2010/08/oregon_governors_race_its_time.html
What’s sad is that people here are so keen on having Dudley, a political neophyte with no record of creating a single job in his life, get into the seat that they would have him pass on debates. Would you all be so charitable if it was Kitzhaber who kept dodging debates, even going so far as to lie about about a family vacation in order to get out of one?
I know what your answer is, don’t waste the bytes writing. But do raise your standards a little. Ask the two candidates the same questions in a debate format and let the voters decide for themselves. You may have made up your minds, but some people have not. It’s called Democracy and I would hope everyone here is a fan of it.
could you one of you GOP fans please direct me to the stats that show how many jobs were created by the Bush tax cuts to top 2%? Or the site that has the stats on how much of a budget surplus they created? Or how much spending was cut under GOP rule 2002-06?
Cause I’m really having a problem trying to find stats that support your positions.
On the flip side, under Kitz 128k new jobs happened in Oregon, incomes/benefits rose by 49%, and GDP increased by 48%. Infact spending in Oregon deceased as a percent of GDP under Dem control.
Debates aren’t a waste of time. infact planned debates that Dudley was asked to appear tell us more about the man than had he shown up (we all saw how much he sucked in the Alley debate). Instead of going to the debate Dudley claimed a preplanned 4 day “family vacation”, turns out that he flew to Aspen, worked at Republican Governor’s Conference for 2 days and flew home.
1st class tickets for 4 to Aspen: $5000
3 nights at 2 bedroom condo near Aspen Institute: $3000
Having a family you can use to lie way out of debate: Priceless
When was the last time there was a pre-election “debate” that was in the classic debate style. I’ve only been involved in the political process for fifty years, but I don’t remember one. Both candidates insist on knowing the questions to be asked–and they spend untold hours in preparation rehearsing canned responses to get their talking points out. They all try to insert the ‘quotable zinger’ that will get them the thirty seconds of air time they really want on the newscasts. Victory or defeat usually centers around a candidate’s demeanor instead of the content of their comments. The remembered moments have little to do with policy issues. “I served with Jack Kennedy, I knew Jack Kennedy, Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine. Senator, you’re no Jack Kennedy.” “I will not make age an issue of this campaign. I am not going to exploit, for political purposes, my opponent’s youth and inexperience.” “There is No Soviet Domination of Eastern Europe.” No one discusses the issues the next day–the debates are spun as soon as the mikes go dead and the media eats up the spin to support their own agenda.
Pretending a debate will give us any position insights that we have not already had access to is just poppycock. Mistatements by over-tired candidates trying to stick to the script loom large for a day and then disappear in the news cycle.
Pretending that a Republican businessman/athlete, or whatever he is today, will have any greater success or be more of a failure than our current gov if elected is an act of denial. The issues are bigger than Duds and he will have to compromise or fail to govern.
Pretending that this election is a watershed moment in time is giving it undeserved gravitas.(Always wanted to use that word.) Every election for the last thirty years has been the most important. Every politician elected has had the answer or the plan. Every election cycle brings the same two parties spouting the same two dogmatic agendas which they will never be able to implement.
Get a grip–vote all of the bastards out. It can’t get worse.