Jim,
Don't know if this Art Robinson guy is running for the seat near you, or if you've heard of him, but I just saw a very strange interview with him on the Rachel Maddow show:
http://tinyurl.com/25yq4cv
We're in the first district here, so we have our own close race to worry about. DeFazio (the Dem incumbent) has the good fortune to have two sizable Democratic areas in his district, the city of Eugene and Gold Beach over on the coast. Outside of Portland and those two cities, Oregon is pretty damn conservative. So if Robinson can get the ear of enough of the wingnuts outside those areas, he might actually have a chance, despite being crazy as a shithouse rat.
In the district I live in, our Democratic congressman (David Wu) is in danger of losing his seat to a first-time politician who happens to have a couple of backers with deep pockets (the chairmen of Nike and Columbia Sportswear). Hoping it doesn't happen, even though Wu is pretty ineffective as legislators go.
The theme this year is just all about naked buying up of congressmen. Since the Citizens United ruling, unlimited amounts of anonymous money is pouring into trying to make wingnuts electable. Good luck with your guy.
Just in case you were wondering, Robinson (the Repub nutcase with big support from the East coast) did not defeat DeFazio for the House seat in the 4th district. In fact, DeFazio won handily, 54% to 43%. And all of the rest of our incumbent congressmen (three more Dems and a Republican) kept their seats as well, as did our Democratic senator, Ron Wyden. So no change of power in Oregon in national politics.
In our statehouse, not quite so lucky. The Democrats kept the governorship, but only just barely. John Kitzhaber (who'd been governor for two terms in the 90s and early 2000s), squeaked out a win over ex-Portland Trailblazer Chris Dudley, mostly on the strength of a large liberal block in Portland. And our formerly Democratic state senate is now tied with 30 seats apiece for each party, and there's a good chance the House (the name the Assembly goes by here) will be evenly split as well, as the Democrats have taken 15 seats to the Republicans' 13, with two still to be decided. So either everyone's got to find a way to play nice, or not much is going to get done in our state government for the next two years. Wonder if anyone will be able to tell the difference?
