Oregon Gonernor – I am going to Gamble

I am not a gambler. I learned very early about the house.

When I turned 21, I took my paycheck, probably a little over $100, and took the train from Los Angeles to Las Vegas. I lost my paycheck at the Dollar Wheel outside Caesars Palace before I even stepped inside the casino. They offered me a free meal.

I hitchhiked back to Manhattan Beach.

This was 1967.

So now I am going to gamble.

See, I now live in Oregon, a blue state. But I don’t like the way things have gone for the past decade or so, and I blame a lot of things on a lot of things. But right now I blame our current governor, Tina Kotek.

I am just not impressed.

I won’t go into all the details. This is just where I stand today.

The second position I take is that I see our state being run as if two universities and one city set the agenda, while a capital doesn’t always seem to know what the rest of the state is doing.

You see, Oregon is home to some of the finest universities in the nation and some pretty remarkable technology. Ever hear of Intel? Tektronix?

Oregon has a technology history that helped create what we now call the Silicon Forest. Intel’s Oregon operation became a major center for semiconductor manufacturing and research, while Tektronix helped establish the high-tech industry here in the first place.

But nobody remembers that we are also a timber state, a farming state, a fishing state. Nobody seems to pay enough attention to what this state is actually about.

It sometimes seems that everything is about Portland and the homeless.

So here I am.

I want MAGA gone. I hate Trump’s authoritarian policies.

And now comes the gamble.

Kotek, a Democrat I don’t want because I think she has failed us, or Drazan, a Republican, while I am actively campaigning against the Trump regime?

Christine Renee Drazan is an Oregon Republican who currently serves in the Oregon Senate and is running for governor. She was born in Klamath Falls, grew up in Eagle Point, graduated from Eagle Point High School and attended George Fox University in Newberg.

My wife and I watched the Kotek-Drazan debate. Debate, argument, cat fight, cage fight, call it what you want. It was politics.

Drazan to Kotek: You failed.

Kotek to Drazan: You’re a Republican like Trump.

And that is where this gets interesting for me.

I have to admit that Drazan is more conservative than my taste. But when I started looking at some of Kotek’s accusations about Drazan’s record, I found that some of the details were more complicated than the campaign rhetoric suggested. Drazan has opposed tax and revenue measures, but the individual votes and what those bills actually did matter.

That distinction is important to me.

So does this: Drazan is an Oregonian. Born in Klamath Falls. Raised in Eagle Point. Educated at George Fox University in Newberg.

She has country roots.

The gamble is this:

I believe Trump’s MAGA movement is going to take a big hit in November. If it takes the hit I believe it is going to take, then I feel more comfortable voting for a Republican governor in Oregon.

Governor.

Not senator.

That distinction matters to me.

I am not suddenly becoming a Republican. I am not voting for Trump. I am not endorsing MAGA.

I am making a decision about who I think should run Oregon.

And yes, it is a gamble.

If I lose the gamble, well, I still think Kotek is taking us in the wrong direction.

And I guess that is what politics are all about.

 

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