Quit whining about Barf Kavanaugh! Get over it. A woman got disrespected once again by Donald Trump with the total complicity of his Republican colleagues in the U.S. Senate and House. What did you expect? Justice?
Remember who did it. Remember those 11 Republican white guys on the Senate Judiciary Committee hiding behind the skirts of the bespectacled hired-gun Arizona prosecutor. Remember that asshole Lindsay Graham for the rest of your life — but pay attention to Election Day. If you’re really pissed and want to exact revenge: Vote, dammit!
My neighborhood has been plagued with nauseous distractions lately. Radiant Art Robinson lawn signs arising next to 2016 Trump-Pence signs next to Gary Williams signs. They represent this year’s Republican flock: Art and Gary, Oregon’s Kook Brothers, distant poor-boy relatives of the Koch Brothers.
But I swear them boys are doing us a public service! They make it easier to identify the knuckleheads; they’re all clumped together even though Trump can’t even run again until 2020. Art and Gary clearly demonstrate their political ideology with their self-identification with Kavanaugh’s patron saint.
Those flocking guys make it very easy to identify my favorite stand of local lawn signs urging support for Congressman Peter DeFazio, for Heather Buch as East Lane County Commissioner, and Oregon House District 11’s Marty Wilde and House District 7’s Christy Inskip.
But the governor’s race is critical. We lack a progressive super-majority in the Oregon House and Senate. Legislative races are important, but without Kate Brown we lose the capacity as progressives to move forward and protect education funding and our most vulnerable young families and seniors and disabled.
Remember the vote last January — Measure 101? 60 percent of Oregonians voted overwhelmingly to approve a package of health care taxes to ensure low-income Oregonians would keep their health coverage. Compassionate physician/millionaire Dr. Knute the Brute campaigned against Measure 101 last January. Remember.
I haven’t seen any Knute Buehler lawn signs yet. They’re probably purposely not being planted next to Trump’s signs. Knute is still pretending to be a moderate Republican gubernatorial candidate while masking a legislative voting record that doesn’t match up.
Why is the race so tight? Follow the money. The Oregonian recently reported that between them, Brown and Buehler have raised more than $21 million, breaking the previous record of $18 million spent in 2010, when Democrat John Kitzhaber beat Republican Chris Dudley (Kavanaugh’s Yale drinking buddy … small world).
In addition to the $21 million that’s been reported to our secretary of state this cycle, there’s the “dark money.” We don’t know how much has been spent by groups like Priority Oregon, a well-organized and well-funded conservative political action committee shielded from revealing their contributions and expenditures in the governor’s race until after November.
This is how the Robert Mercers and the out-of-state hedge funders of the world attempted to derail Peter DeFazio’s previous congressional campaigns. This is how the Koch brothers’ money makes it into Buehler’s campaign without your knowing about it.
We don’t know, for example, how much Priority Oregon has spent on Buehler’s pathetic TV ads. And we won’t know until after the election. These ads are part of the reason the race is tight. Follow the money!
Brown’s campaign has responded to Priority Oregon’s untruthful ads by demanding that stations cease airing ads sponsored by Priority Oregon. The most blatant is one accusing the Brown administration of allowing childcare facilities to sell pot: “You can sell drugs while running a daycare.” That’s a lie. Fake news, to coin a phrase.
Kate Brown held her own in the debates. The debates, and her ads, have successfully painted Knute Buehler as a guy who talks one way now, but voted the other way as a legislator. Obviously progressives don’t like him. I just wonder if conservatives do.
Real red-meat Republicans should support Aaron Auer, the three-time Second-Amendment Christian Constitution Party candidate for governor. He’s just to the right of Knute, you know, like on abortion and LGBTQ rights!
I don’t care if it’s a “blue wave” or a “pink wave” on Nov. 6, I’m hoping for both. There’s so much at play in this election. Complacency is our enemy. How else do you explain Trump and Kavanaugh to your daughters and sons?
I’m pretty confident that DeFazio will dispose of Radiant Art Robinson handily (for the fifth time). But Kate and the down-ticket races in Lane County and the state ballot measures will be determined by our turnout.
Vote Dammit!
Former state Sen. Tony Corcoran of Cottage Grove is a retired state employee.
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