Point #116: I’m running for Chair of the Oregon Republican Party

November 23rd, 2018

I’m running for Chair of the Oregon Republican Party. Joining me is a full slate of officers who think like me. Elections by PCP (Precinct Committee Person) delegates will be held February 16th in Salem. Our position? ORP leadership doesn’t just require a reboot. It must rise from the dead. Here’s where we are:

  1. We still have an incompetent, scandal-ridden progressive governor (who should have been easily defeated in this most recent election)
  2. We have Democrat supermajorities in both legislative bodies (we’re only the third state in the country to be saddled with this. The others are California and Illinois). This means, starting in January, Democrats can enact new taxes – and who knows what else, at-will. (Get ready for it.)
  3. Our most recent Republican gubernatorial candidate – produced and supported by the ORP – touted himself as pro-choice, pro-sanctuary city, pro-gun restriction, anti-President Trump, and anti-Oregon Republican Party platform. (How, could THAT possibly happen?)
  4. Much of our Republican voter base is seething angry

Thanks, ORP.

It’s stunning that our current ORP power structure is asking PCP delegates to re-elect them. So, in my incredulity, I ask two simple questions:

  1. To the current ORP leadership: what exactly would you do differently to fix this nightmare?
  2. And to you, an Oregon Republican: Do you really want another two years of this kind of leadership?
A sea of blue: the Knute Buehler travel bus, signs, and garb.
Ineffectual dog whistle to Democrats/body-slam to the Republican base.
(Regarding the bus, Diana said this to me this morning
“Can anyone imagine the Oregon Ducks football team painting their team bus Orange and Black?”)

Following is a chapter from my soon to be published book, “Making Oregon Great Again.” Publish target date is December 3rd. The PDF download will be free, from my website. I will also record an unabridged professionally-produced audio version in January, (also at no cost to download). The hardcopy book will be available in January, too, at a nominal fee to cover costs.

Distracted by the Oregon Unity Argument.
Part Two, Chapter 17

Now that the gubernatorial general election is over, it can finally be said: as governor, Knute Buehler would NOT have been the lesser-of-two-evils.

How could you and I fight a Republican governor who leads as a progressive? His election would have blurred the distinctive line between progressivism and conservatism and it would have been the end of the Republican grassroots in Oregon. In our lifetimes, there would have been no recovery for Oregon.

The current establishment leadership of the ORP (literally, representing only 10% of the Republican Party) has consistently blamed our election losses on the conservative grassroots (90% of the party) for being disinterested. In their view, lazy Conservatives (Christians in particular) who don’t vote are the reason Republicans have no power in Salem. Yes, the low conservative voter turnout accusation is, to a degree, true, but the argument is a disrespectful sham for an absurdly simple reason: why should some conservative voters feel compelled to vote for a candidate who violates their deepest beliefs?

(And for sure, Oregon conservatives became very tired of being accosted with the vote-for-the-lesser-of-two-evils rationale, not to mention the not-voting-for-Knute-is-a-vote-for-Kate line of reasoning.)

We started hearing the Ruling Class Republican establishment start this disingenuous blather a month before the general election, with one of the county Party chairs sending a “what is WRONG with you people!?” email to her PCP’s. In the message, she lamented that only ten to twenty percent of PCP’s seemed to be interested in working for Republican victories on November 6th.

It’s SO predictable! This finger-pointing is completely in line with the progressive/establishment Republican Ruling Class conjecture that you and I, members of the conservative grassroots, are lazy and not interested in “unity.”

(Regarding Left-wing finger-pointing, here is a blog post I made in September 2017, prior to filing for the gubernatorial primary) race. In that year-old post, you can expand my point to include “establishment” Ruling Class Republicans: see here POINT #14: I am tired of progressive far-left finger pointing. Aren’t you?

The gubernatorial election outcome was not due to lazy voters. The problem was that the Republican candidate for governor didn’t represent the beliefs of 90% of Oregon Republicans…and yes, the base’s disgust went deep, both before and after the election. And know this for sure: the electoral devastation went far down-ballot, too.

(But in defense of Republican Buehler voters, there’s this: in this most recent election, as in previous elections, most Republicans did vote a straight “R” ticket, including for governor. Why? Because, as they held-their-noses, they were loyal to their party.)

Of course, the bottom-line truth is that for the past three decades, in Oregon gubernatorial races, we have not been given a truly conservative candidate.

Following is the Left-wing pitch that is precisely wrong. How easily our leaders have been manipulated! This letter was published in the Oregonian, post-election, November 12, 2018.

The Heading for the letter (and perhaps the letter itself), is compliments of the Oregonian Op-Ed staff:

“REPUBLICAN PARTY TRUMPED”
“Speaking as an ex-Republican, I have no doubt in my mind had there been anyone other than President Donald Trump in the White House, Rep. Knute Buehler would have won the governorship. Try as he might to distance himself from Trump, Buehler just couldn’t make the sale.

“Gov. Kate Brown and her fellow Democrats shrewdly and skillfully wouldn’t let him get away with it. The stink of the Trump presidency will taint any candidate who runs for office as a Republican, especially in a statewide race in deep blue Oregon. The sooner Oregon Republicans get off this right-wing train wreck of a party and moderate their views, the sooner they once again can claim to be in the mainstream of Oregon politics.”

Translation:

  1. the President is contemptible, and
  2. our Republican candidates are not left-wing enough, and
  3. in all political matters, conservative Republican voters are idiots

So, bowing to this brand of utter stupidity, ORP leadership repeatedly provides us with Left-leaning elitist candidates who can’t win a general election. It truly IS hard to vote for this kind of candidate.
Here’s a great quote, from Brain Eno: “Withdrawing in disgust is not the same thing as apathy.”
Republican Party Unity? The 10% Republican establishment Ruling Class implores us – you and me, the unruly 90% – to drop our dark-age proclivities and step in line with their more enlightened vision of the world.

No, we won’t step in line.

That will not happen, not now or ever.

If the 10% truly wants unity, they will step in line with you and me, the 90%. Or perhaps – and I’ll risk being crass here – they would be more philosophically comfortable being progressive Democrats.

Which begs the question: If Knute Buehler continues in politics, to which party will he belong?

You and Diana and me? We ARE the Republican party, the 90%! We hold our families and America dear, we work hard and we’re honest. We’re firm yet patient and we don’t compromise what we believe. We try hard to see both sides of any particular story. We take care of ourselves, play by the rules, won’t take a handout, show gratitude/apologize when appropriate, don’t like expanding government, value our personal and national sovereignty, don’t take guff, revere the constitution as-written, demand the unfettered right to arm ourselves to protect our families, support our Republican President without apology or equivocation, and are always ready to help someone in distress…and a whole lot of us go to church on Sundays.

In any circumstance, we attend to reality and we try very hard to do the right thing.

The Ruling Class Republican elite – the 10% – has had more than enough time to see who we are, and to get this right.
We can’t wait any longer for them to wake up. No more discussions. No more waffling. No mote distraction. We’re IN the abyss, and to begin to get out of it we must take firm charge of our party now.

One more thing, to counter a popular rumor being proffered by our Ruling Class leaders: I am not heading up a movement to “take over” the ORP. I’m heading up a movement to “take it back.”