Point #114: Announcement and Update: it’s time to talk about what’s up

November 13th, 2018

A LOT has been going on over the past months and now that the elections are over, it’s time to talk about what’s up. The best way for me to keep this simple and short is to mechanically list the key points with the understanding there will be more information coming along soon.

  1. Diana and I had not originally planned on this, but I will be entering the race for Oregon Republican Party Chairman. The ORP biannual organization meeting is in Salem, on February 15-16. We made this decision last Thursday, but we decided to go through the weekend to make sure this really is the right move for us and for our supporters. We think it is. We especially feel an obligation to the 90,000 Republicans who voted for me in the primary race last May.
  2. The elections also include Vice Chair, Treasurer and Secretary. For these positions, I have convinced three strong, clear-thinking Trump-supporting Republicans to join me. Our four-person slate consists of two men and two women (and, as it turns out, each coming from a different corner of the state). Within the week I will announce who these other three candidates are.
  3. The slate’s position is this: the ORP needs new leadership. You know this already: we have four more years of Kate Brown and both chambers of the legislature are now Democrat super-majorities. And Oregon Republicans have been pretty much powerless for the last fifteen years. (We did have the majority in both legislative chambers in the ’90’s and early 2000’s). We haven’t had a Republican governor for over thirty years. We’re now at the bottom and we must do something different. It’s time.
  4. The ORP has a primary purpose and it’s described at the very beginning of the current bylaw document (Google: “Oregon Republican Party Bylaws”). Here is the first sentence of the rather lengthy paragraph, verbatim: “…elect Republicans, who promote the platform of the Oregon Republican Party, to public office…” Like you, I completely agree with that clear and pointed objective.
  5. The ORP must officially and visibly, support President Trump. We’re Republicans and he is our Republican President. We need him and he needs us.
  6. We have been working hard on conservative matters since the primary election. However, I have been silent the whole time, suspecting Knute Buehler would not be elected governor, and that there was the probability we would be faced with Democrat super-majorities in both chambers. Why was I quiet? One reason is that Buehler never asked for my support. On the other side of the coin, there is the obvious fact that if I had criticized him in any way, his loss would be blamed on me and my supporters, rather than on the real reason for his defeat, that he did not represent the Republican base. There are other reason’s too.
  7. Over the last four months, I’ve written a book, Making Oregon Great Again (I have not settled on the subtitle) to be published December 1st. It describes the political myths we Republicans must face head-on and then discard, what really happened in the 2018 Republican primary election (to serve as lessons for the future), and a specific plan to resuscitate the ORP. The book will be available on the publish date via free pdf download on this website. Signed hardcopies will be available by year’s end, at nominal cost. Unlike my previous books, I am publishing it through North Sister Publishing.
  8. Do you want to get involved? If you are a county Precinct Committee Person (PCP), your organizational meeting is imminent. In fact, a few of the county organizational meetings have been held already. If your meeting has not happened yet, please be sure to attend…and maybe consider running for delegate to the mid-February elections. Of course, as you’ve guessed by now, I’ll be asking PCP’s for their support in those elections.
  9. In any case, PCP or not, in order to stay up-to-date please join the email list on this website

Thank you everyone for your support. More coming soon. Stay tuned!
-sam