The Wandering Eye

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.

Has the Bend real estate market hit bottom at last? It’s too soon to say, but at least it looks like home prices here have finally reached a realistic level.
IHS Global Insight, which maintains huge databases of all sorts of economic data, reported back in March that as of the end of 2009, real estate in the Bend Metropolitan Statistical Area was overvalued by only 2.

Whatever you might think of Richard Esterman’s politics, you have to admire his persistence.
Esterman, a Sisters resident and professional photographer, has been struggling to get on the ballot as a candidate for governor.

Two initiatives that would privatize liquor sales will be on the ballot in Washington state this November, and Gov. Chris Gregoire foresees horrible consequences if they pass.

File this one under “How Wacky Can Those Tea Partiers Get?”: Dan Maes, the Tea Party candidate for governor of Colorado, says that a Denver program to encourage people to ride bikes is part of a United Nations / one-worlder / socialist / communist conspiracy.
It seems that back in 1992, Denver became part of the International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives, an organization that promotes sustainable development and transportation alternatives.

“Unique” is the most overworked word in the advertising copywriter’s lexicon. Aside from that, I guess there isn’t anything wrong with telling the world that your area is “unique” – unless you start believing it yourself.

After letting Chris Dudley have the airwaves to himself since the June primary, John Kitzhaber has rolled out his first TV ad.
Unlike Dudley’s ads, in which other people do most of the talking, the only voice heard in Kitzhaber’s 60-second spot is that of the former governor himself, speaking about how he’s going to bring jobs back to Oregon.

I enjoy dramatic weather, such as a good thunderstorm, but yesterday afternoon things got a little too dramatic for comfort.
I arrived home around 4:15 to find my street full of fire trucks and police cars and people standing around watching the action.

John Kitzhaber isn’t getting out and pressing the flesh of Oregonians enough – or at least that’s what the Oregon Republican Party thinks.
In a press release today headlined “Where’s John Kitzhaber?” the party all but accused the former governor of hiding from the people of the state.

The Oregon Restaurant Association, a group that’s lobbied for years to restore Oregon’s “tip credit,” has given Republican gubernatorial candidate Chris Dudley a pretty generous tip: $50,000.
The restaurant owners’ PAC contributed $40,000 Thursday to the Dudley campaign, on top of another $10,000 it gave previously.