The race for Oregon Governor was just finalized. It was incredibly close right up to the end, the final results will probably come out 49-48 with Democrat John Kitzhaber defeating Republican Chris Dudley.
It was a curious race. I wan't particularly enthused about either candidate. Kitzhaber was Governor for 2 terms, from 1995 to 2003. He saw good times and bad times as Governor. Overall, I thought he did a decent job and he had a pretty good reputation overall, though he was never particularly chummy with people. He's a former ER doctor and state legislator who had a driving interest in health care reform but repeatedly butted heads with the state legislature, vetoing bills right and left. Chris Dudley was an NBA player, for the Portland Trail Blazers, having a decent if undistinguished career. Afterwards he went to work helping bring in rich clients to a wealth management company. He never served in any governmental capacity and, admittedly, didn't even really vote very often. But he is affable and by most accounts pretty moderate. He's well spoken and seems to have a good ability to simplify complex topics when talking to people. Not a policy wonk, nor anything approaching a rocket scientist, but no wingnut either. Kitzhaber had more policy-oriented campaign, explaining his experience in government and the value of that experience navigating tough economic waters and having to make difficult budget decisions. He focused, much to the chagrin of some in Democratic constituencies, on the need to deal with the Public Employees Retirement system as a key part of getting budgets back under control. He also laid out a reasonably concrete plan for job creation through a public/private partnership to do energy efficiency retrofitting of schools and such, starting with a pilot program and using the savings in energy expenditures to fund further work and sustain the jobs. Chris Dudley was less policy focused but instead talked about the ongoing one-party rule in Oregon (there hasn't been a Republican Governor since 1987) and presented a very moderate social policy while expounding upon fiscal discipline and (in my opinion) fairly nebulous handwaving about "government efficiency savings" and such. I was torn because Kitzhaber really had his chance. He was fairly honest about some of his regrets from his first two terms (not the most productive relationship with the legislature, failure to see the problems that the public employees retirement system would have longer term) but does that deserve a third term? And it felt a bit passionless. I would have preferred voting for someone else, honestly. Dudley seemed to be an ok guy but had no real experience, not even running a business, nor did he present any real concrete plans. He didn't produce a strong negative reaction from me and I wouldn't have thought it the worst thing in the world to have him elected but he just didn't impress me enough to overcome the lack of experience and concrete plans. The two only debated once, which I thought was unfortunate, but the back and forth was relatively civil there and in the ad wars. They had differences but it wasn't two people who thought each other was evil and were going for the jugular. There was no talk of Marxism. There was no talk of Fascism. No repealing the 17th Amendment or barking about Annulment. Just how Oregon has a high unemployment rate, is facing a budget crisis, and we need to balance out some immediate concerns with growing long term ones. In the end, Kitzhaber pulled it out by the slightest margin. Dudley graciously conceded in spite of a relatively small margin and didn't bring in a phalanx of lawyers to tear apart everything. We'll see whether Kitzhaber can do a good job or not, but overall I'm happy that we managed to have a relatively sane race in the midst of a year that seems like a bloody battlefield elsewhere. It's my great hope that more places can have similar experiences in the coming years. Cheers, Judah ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Order the Adobe Coldfusion Anthology now! http://www.amazon.com/Adobe-Coldfusion-Anthology/dp/1430272155/?tag=houseoffusion Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/message.cfm/messageid:331000 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/unsubscribe.cfm
