Wednesday, November 3, 2010

On 2010 Results, Oregon's Governor's Race

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I attended the Kitzhaber "victory" party last night, thrown by the Democratic Party of Oregon in downtown Portland. It was a nice party and it was fun to see the candidates who spoke there. You can see additional photos of them on my flickr page.

The overall election for the nation went about as I expected. The Democrats got hammered in the house, and lost a lot of ground in the Senate. I suspect the overall spin will be that the election was a repudiation of the progressive agenda, and that the President should move even further toward the right with additional spending on tax cuts for the wealthy, additional spending on the military, and less spending on social programs.

However there is some light for progressives, as the House results show that the progressive caucus held 76 of 80 seats, while the Blue Dog Republican Lights Democrats lost more than half their caucus vacating a surprising 29 seats.*

Despite the loss of Sen Feingold (D-WI) (who tried to run a progressive campaign on the coattails of Obama/Reid's corporatist successes) the progressives did very well. If anything, the Democrats should learn that voters appreciate people who stand up for their values, who promise a progressive vision for the future. I seem to recall a black guy getting elected president running on that platform... whatever happened to him?

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Here in Oregon, we were fortunate enough to hold on to our four Democratic congressional seats, with two moderately contested races holding true for Reps. Wu and DeFazio. We had a very mixed bag of ballot measure results, with progressive parks funding passing, along with a conservative (unfunded) mandatory minimum sentencing measure... both by similar margins. Our neighbors to the north really took it hard when it came to state revenue, all three Washington state tax measures fell on the tea party side of the vote by considerable margins.

Two important Oregon races remain up in the air at this time... the race between former Governor John Kitzhaber (D - Picuted above at last night's rally) and former Trailblazer (and Camas, Washington resident) Chris Dudley. Their race is down to the wire, with the final votes from Multnomah county being tallied to decide. It looks very likely the final count will fall within the 3000 votes requiring a mandatory recount, so it will be days before the results are know.

Also still up in the air is the Metro Presidency, with a very close race between progressive Bob Stacey and slightly less progressive Tom Hughes. While I would like to see Stacey win (I applaud his views on the urban growth boundary) it looks likely that Hughes will hold on to take it down. As a bicyclist, I hope Hughes' "Bike Registration Fee" plan doesn't actually materialize.

Can't wait to see the results, and it'll be an interesting journey to 2012.

Update: Kithaber pulled ahead with the Multnomah county results and ended up winning a third term (non-consecutive) as Governor with a 1% margin. Congratulations, Governor! At this time, the Hughes/Stacey race is too close to call, the current margin is within 0.2%, which means an automatic recount will be required. Thank goodness for our mandatory paper write-in ballots!


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* The numbers aren't quite equal in those two articles. The first lists 77 of 80 seats holding for the progressives, while the second lists 75 of 79. I split the difference with my figure, but the point is the progressives held.

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