cross posted from 54°40′ Or Fight!

The rumors around Salem are that Kate Brown is not exactly known for her attention to detail. The fiasco surrounding the change to the election of Commissioner of the Bureau of Labor and Industries (BOLI) only goes to prove that conclusively.

Last night the story broke that Kate Brown had, at the last minute, enforced a statute that is questionable enough that the AG is being called in to assist.

Confusion reigns. The following screen shot was taken last night from the ORESTAR website, still listing the May Primary Election as the date for the BOLI vote:

Meanwhile, Bruce Starr has wasted no time – he’s filed suit in Marion County to block Kate Brown’s flawed decision.

The suit reads, in part:

ORS 249.091 provides in pertinent part:
If a nominating petition or declaration of candidacy is filed by no
more than two candidates for the office of sheriff, county treasurer
or county clerk or by no more than two candidates to fill a vacancy
in a nonparisan office:
(a) The candidate or candidates are nominated; and
(b) The name or names of the candidate or candidates may
not be printed on the ballot at the nominating election.
ORS 249.091 does not provide an exception because the election for the office of Commissioner is not to fill a vacancy. [emphasis added]

It goes further:

Defendant bases the decision not to hold a nominating election for the office of
Commissioner at the May 15,2012, primary election on section 22a, chapter 511, Oregon Laws
2009, which provides: “Notwthstanding section 22 of this 2009 Act (249.215) and ORS
651.030, the term of offce of the Commissioner of the Bureau of Labor and Industries elected at
the general election held on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November 2012 shall be
two years.” Defendant’s decision is erroneous because section 22a, chapter 511, Oregon Laws
2009, prescribes only a term of office and does not set a date for an election. [emphasis added]

If the judge finds in favor of the plaintiff, this is going to make Kate Brown look even worse than she already does.

Late on Monday afternoon, Nigel Jaquiss of Portland’s weekly alternative journal dropped a bomb on Oregon politics:

Bombshell: Labor Commissioner Race Pushed to November

State Sen. Bruce Starr (R-Hillsboro) received what he calls “stunning” news late Friday. Starr is challenging incumbent Labor Commissioner Brad Avakian in a nonpartisan, statewide contest that both men expected to appear on the May 15 primary ballot.

But when a Starr aide called the state Elections Division late Friday to confirm receipt of Starr’s check and  statement for the Voters’ Pamphlet, that aide received a shock.

“The certified May ballot does not have my name on it, nor Brad’s,” Starr told WW. “They said,

‘We are sending back your check and statement—the election is in November.’ My reaction was disbelief. I said, ‘You are kidding me—how can this be?’”

Evidently, while the Democrats had a supermajority in both houses of legislature in 2009, they got the bright idea that the election for Labor Commissioner needed a facelift. Having 6 statewide races on one ballot was deemed, somehow, to be unacceptable, so three of them were shifted to alternate election cycles. It may or may not have been the intent to move them to November instead of may. But that’s how it’s written into the new law:

SECTION 22a.  { + Notwithstanding section 22 of this 2009 Act
and ORS 651.030, the term of office of the Commissioner of the
Bureau of Labor and Industries elected at the general election
held on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November 2012
shall be two years. + }

Both Starr, the Republican, and Avakian, the Democrat, were unaware of the change, as evidenced by statements on both campaign websites urging supporters to help them win in May. Starr states that he believes the statute was in error, as all nonpartisan races are intended to be on the ballot in May. He has appealed to the Oregon Department of Justice for assistance in clarifying the decision by the Secretary of State to leave this election off the May ballot: “It’s very clear that nonpartisan races should be on the ballot in May,” Starr says. “Precedent is on our side and I think the law is on our side.”

Later in the article, Jacquiss speculates that this change hurts Bruce Starr:

Pushing the election from May to November could affect the outcome of what many expect to be a close race. Both candidates are from Washington County and have run in numerous cycles before, but recent elections history suggests there could be a large voter turnout in November in support of President Barack Obama. That favors Avakian.

It seems that Secretary of State Kate Brown, darling of George Soros’ www.sosproject.org, was negligent in notifying the public, affected candidates and the major political parties of this rather major change. Failure to make a public announcement prior to the final ballot approval process leaves a bad smell, and only fuels speculation that this was a deliberate decision on her part to keep the candidates in the dark as long as possible.

Let’s clarify here: ballots are to be mailed to voters in five weeks. Both candidates have been campaigning for months. The public is actually becoming aware of this race. The rug has been pulled out from under the entire voting public.

It seems obvious that Ms. Brown, at the very least, should have requested legal clarification from the office of the AG prior to interpreting the statute on her own. Nonpartisan races have ALWAYS been on the May ballot in Oregon.

Given Kate Brown’s long, consistent track record of highly partisan decisions, it would be hard to conclude that this decision was anything less than deliberate.

Rob Cornilles lost the special election tonight in Oregon’s First Congressional District. He lost in a special election that resulted from a disgraced Democrat resigning amid a second (at least) sexual assault scandal, after previously losing to the disgrace amid the disgrace’s mental breakdown in the 2010 election. He lost to a woman who actively covered up for a serial rapist. He lost to a woman who could not articulate her way out of a wet paper bag. A woman who, as a state legislator, admitted that she couldn’t remember ever voting against a tax increase.

Suzanne Bonamici has replaced David Wu as the Democrat Representative from Oregon’s First District, and the perennial Republican sport has commenced – the mad rush to point fingers.

Oh, the Democrats are already crowing about what this race implies for the 2012 national political scene. They’ll say that this means their message of making the wealthy pay their fair share, and protection of unfunded mandates social safety nets from the greedy GOP 1%ers and government spending to create new jobs is resonating with the voters. Oh and smearing the candidate as Tea Party is really effective too, because those scary terrorists want to ruin everyone’s life by balancing the federal budget … or something … Of course they’ll gloss over the point that they out spent the Republican by about 5-1. No, this isn’t about the onslaught of negative ads, they’ll say – which the Republican started, natch – no, this is about them helping the little guy stand up against the evil corporations.

The thing is, the Democrats are right. If the GOP continues to advance candidates who insist on ignoring their base and running to the middle to court independents, the Democrats will trounce the Republicans in November just like they did tonight in Oregon.

There are many, many tactical mistakes that this campaign made – mistakes that they repeated from their failed 2010 attempt to unseat Wu. These tactical mistakes were compounded by an overall strategy that was disjointed, uncoordinated, and fundamentally not based on sound conservative principles.

What’s so frustrating to conservatives is that this was the best shot the GOP had at this seat in almost 40 years. How could the voters in the district reward the Democrat Party of Oregon that enabled David Wu, by electing his personal friend to replace him? A competent Republican should have destroyed this particular Democrat. And by all accounts, Rob Cornilles was a competent Republican with the experience of running previously in this district.

Let’s at least try to lend some sanity to the finger pointing.

So, what went wrong?

Messaging, and National Campaign Consultants

The messaging that came from this campaign reflected an overall strategy that was disjointed, uncoordinated and poorly organized. Two examples from the final week of this campaign clearly demonstrated that the campaign staff, mostly hired from out of state, had no idea what a political calendar in Oregon looks like.

You see, in Oregon we vote exclusively by mail. That means that ballots are mailed to voters three weeks before election day. While ballot returns are usually low in the first two weeks, ramping up in the final week, typically the messaging of a campaign has gotten stale by the time ballots are mailed. That is why it is IMPERATIVE that a campaign be proactive in getting its message properly coordinated and disseminated well before ballots are mailed. Just like in 2010, none of the messaging was timed properly, because nobody at the RNC seems to realize that we’re a vote by mail only state. It’s a constant source of fascination for me that these campaigns and their nationally trained experts fail to take that into account.

The first example was Rob’s interview on The Mark Levin Show. Great interview, great idea, great exposure, horrible timing. The die was already cast, and no national buzz could possibly have helped by the time this interview ran on the Thursday before election day – 16 days after ballot drop. Rob’s staff should have lined up an interview by Mark Levin in November, with a followup at the beginning of January, not last Thursday after most voters had already tired of the campaign.

The second example was Rob’s funny spoof of Stephen Colbert:

This was a pretty good idea (film buffs may quibble, but that’s not the point). This was a whimsical, fun side of a congressional candidate that would have been used to great effect to create national buzz … if only it had been done three months prior. It was completely ineffective because it was released in the last week of the campaign when voters had grown disgusted by all the negative ads.

These messaging coordination problems were compounded by the short, off-season special election cycle during the holiday season, and an apparent lack of a dedicated social media coordinator who could have properly timed releases and created buzz for the campaign. The lack of coordination and singularity of messaging was obvious, as was the evident calendar shortage.

The Oregon Tea Party

Paradoxically, the Tea Party took it from both sides this time around, despite choosing not to be front and center in this campaign. Democrats ‘smeared’ Cornilles as a Tea Party Radical Extremist™, while mainstream Republicans blamed all sorts of campaign ills on Tea Partiers. Several local radio talk show hosts have already begun to point fingers. Actually, let’s back up. The finger pointing began in earnest several weeks ago, with unfounded accusations that the Tea Party was deliberately sitting this one out and working against Rob Cornilles. While it is true that the Oregon Tea Party did not endorse a candidate, the consensus among the membership was that this was the desired outcome by the campaign. Cornilles did not actively court Tea Party support, and in fact rejected attempts by Tea Party members who approached the campaign to try to get the two sides to see eye to eye. Many Tea Party members regarded Cornilles as too soft on too many issues – the refusal to consider repeal of Obamacare, support of public/private partnerships, a disastrous answer on a radio talk show regarding the Columbia River Crossing. Even with all of those ideological problems, though, DOZENS of Tea Party members volunteered to help him defeat the truly wretched Bonamici. Cornilles has run for this seat twice now, and each time he has failed to consolidate his base – ignoring them in favor of appealing to independents. One wonders why independents would ever get excited about voting for someone who can’t even excite his own party.

Cornilles Rejects The Conservative Label

Rob Cornilles launched his new campaign with a video that very clearly signaled that he was running away from party politics:

In subsequent talks, Cornilles was all too eager to criticize Republican Congressional Leadership and reject the conservative message in DC. This served to amplify the flawed message that the Republican base wasn’t an important consideration for the campaign. This resulted in GOP turnout that was slightly lower than the Democrats – in a district where the Ds outnumber the Rs by 12%, it is mathematically impossible to win if you don’t get your own voters to turn out.

Negative Ads, and $2.5 Million

The Democrats, according to internal estimates, spent over $2.5 Million on this campaign. Obviously they were scared after losing special elections in Nevada and New York (The Weiner Seat) a few months back. Plus, one can only imagine the DCCC reaction when Suzanne Bonamici and her mush mouth answers finally hit the airwaves. The negative onslaught by Bonamici worked to its desired goal – negative campaigning is really meant to blunt voter turnout. If the voters get the impression that they’re all the same and it’s the same old BS, then they perceive that their vote won’t count in any event. It certainly helped to dim Republican enthusiasm for this race, especially because …

Republican Money Sits On The Sidelines

Where were the RNC, the NRCC, the ORP, and all of the Super PACs that could have funneled money into this race to counter the truly reprehensible negativity from the Democrats? They should have opened up their wallets! They should be ashamed!

Well, that’s not how this type of thing works, and the out of state campaign staff should have known that. The national organizations will not pour money into a race, especially one where their candidate lags by 12 points in registration, unless they see the candidate able to move the needle. That means that the candidate must possess the ability to create their own buzz, earned media and excitement. Typically, this is done by exciting the base about a fresh new candidate that can carry the mantle – when that happens, base voters become the candidate’s evangelists, recruiting independents and undecideds for him. As has been previously noted, the base did not get excited about this candidate for a variety of reasons. Ok, so when the buzz fails to materialize, create some. But Cornilles was too passive at the beginning of the campaign and wanted to run above the fray. By the time he realized that hitting Bonamici on her ties to David Wu was having an effect, and the voters were responding to his aggressiveness, it was too late.

So when the buzz doesn’t materialize, and the needle isn’t moving, and you’re already down 12 points in registration, why would the RNC or any other national organization dedicate resources to your race?

What are the local and national implications of this race?

Rob Cornilles is a good man, a good businessman, and a good family man. He is a likeable guy. He honored the voters of Oregon by making monumental sacrifices to run for office. He is to be commended and thanked for his service to our state.

But his political career is going the way of Gordon Smith’s. There is no recovering from this trouncing. There’s another general election in just a few months, but it strains credulity to think that he’d give this race another shot, even with the new district lines making it D+6 instead of D+12. The voters will want fresh blood, especially after the savaging Rob took at the hands of Bonamici’s smear campaign.

The voters of this district are in some ways similar to voters across the nation. They want to see candidates debate on the issues, in a positive manner, with the ability to see the bright contrasts between the choices. They don’t want to see faint copies standing at separate podiums on the same stage. They don’t want to see smear merchants whose only distinction is the size of their Super PAC’s bank account. And the tactics employed in this race have grave implications for the Presidential race currently barreling towards us. The idea that you can ignore your base and run to the middle … well that idea should be taken out back and put out of its misery.

Cross posted from http://5440fight.com

Now that the national media has picked up the story of David Wu’s instability, it’s time to recount all that’s gone on in Oregon since he became our Congressman. You see, the nation is just now picking up on what we in Oregon have known for years: David Wu is a deeply disturbed human being, and his election to the U.S. Congress remains a baffling mystery.

To recap, since he won reelection a scant 4 months ago, Mr. Wu has lost his ENTIRE CAMPAIGN STAFF. Gone are his Chief of Staff, his prinicple fundraiser, and 4 other staffers. These are people who have been with him for YEARS. These are people who hold coveted offices – after all, several hundred Democratic congressional staffers lost their jobs on Nov 2.

This is on top of his legal separation from his wife in the middle of a reelection campaign, in December 2009.

The spin has already begun, of course. Wu’s office is already in full on damage control mode, stating that he’s seeking “medical help” for undisclosed issues that stem around a single incident right before Election Day, 2010. That would be a heartwarming story of redemption, if only his history didn’t reflect decades of behavior that could be described as anywhere from odd to borderline criminal.

From an article in The Oregonian on Jan 18:

Since the November election, U.S. Rep. David Wu, D-Ore., has lost at least six staffers plus the leadership of a veteran campaign team that guided him to a seventh term amid complaints about his public behavior.

The exodus includes Wu’s longtime chief of staff, Julie Tippens, and communications director, Julia Krahe, both in Washington, D.C. Krahe left without securing a job while Tippens took a similar position with a lawmaker with far less seniority.

In addition, Wu has lost virtually his entire political team — people who have been with the Democrat for more than a decade — including his chief fundraiser, Lisa Kurdziel, and chief pollster, Lisa Grove, who told The Oregonian she wouldn’t work for him again.

“It is highly unusual for successful campaigns to change teams after the election,” said Michael Meehan, a veteran Democratic consultant who was a senior adviser to Sen. John Kerry’s 2004 presidential campaign.

So what’s going on in OR CD1?

Odd Behavior

In case you haven’t seen this before, this is must see video. Rep. Wu accused the Bush White House of being Klingons.

My first exposure to David Wu’s eccentricities came from his floor speech in 2007, where he … well … watch for yourself:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p892dUiTMss&feature=player_detailpage

Now, I’m ashamed to say that, while this was my first exposure to Wu’s eccentricities, others were aware of more and more sinister acts.

Allegation of assault on woman in 1970s in college shadow U.S. Rep. David Wu

This is an actual headline from an article in The Oregonian in October, 2004, on the eve of his reelection to a fourth term in Congress.

From the article:

David Wu, future Oregon congressman, and the woman later dated in their junior year. But that spring, in 1976, she broke things off. A few months later, an encounter occurred that neither wants to discuss.

That summer, the 21-year-old Wu was brought to the campus police annex after his ex-girlfriend said he tried to force her to have sex, according to Raoul K. Niemeyer, then a patrol commander who questioned him.

Wu had scratches on his face and neck, and his T-shirt was stretched out of shape, Niemeyer said.

Earlier, someone had interrupted a scuffle in the woman’s dorm room. A Stanford professor said the woman told him the next day that Wu had angrily attacked her. An assistant dean who counseled the woman for two months said that the woman called it attempted rape and that Wu used a pillow to muffle her screams.

Wu told police that what happened was consensual. “He said, ‘We just, I was with my girlfriend, and we just got a little carried away,’ ” Niemeyer remembered. After that, he said, Wu “clammed up.”

The woman declined to press charges. However, this episode has apparently been well known for a long while:

The Oregonian investigated a recurrent rumor that he had been accused of a sexual assault during his college years.

Versions of the story have circulated behind the scenes among Democratic insiders since Wu’s first run for Congress in 1998, when it figured in the unexpected resignation of his campaign manager.

Evidently, recurring themes include resignations of campaign managers, as well as outbursts that can charitably be described as odd.

“Generally, folks in politics are pretty loyal, particularly to paying customers, and consultants try pretty hard to keep them happy,” said Rick Desimone, former chief of staff to Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., and now a consultant and lobbyist. He has never worked for Wu.

Wu, who has represented Oregon’s 1st Congressional District since 1999, has been less known for his legislative achievements than his strident opposition to China and bursts of puzzling public behavior. In one instance, he warned of faux Klingons in the White House during a floor speech in 2007. In 2003, as the House was convulsing to pass the Medicare prescription bill, Wu fell into a state that one colleague described as “almost catatonic,” according to The Washington Post, as Democratic leaders frantically tried to get him to vote for the bill.

Jayne Carroll is a local radio host, and opined recently on further odd behavior by our Congressman:

What did Wu do to cause [his longtime staffers] to walk after he was successfully re-elected? Two odd campaign incidents are being publicly identified as justification for the resignations.

On Oct. 27, Wu gave a speech in Washington County that was so strident and strange that it caused a fellow Democrat to file a complaint with his office.

Days later, another complaint was filed against Wu with the Transportation Security Administration when the Congressman used his clout to demand access to a prohibited area of the airport to greet passengers as they arrived.

The dam begins to burst

Comes now the article in Willamette Week that many voters wish they’d known before the final ballots were cast.

The headline reads, “Documents Show Congressman David Wu’s Staff “Threatened to Shut Down His Campaign”

U.S. Rep. David Wu’s behavior grew so erratic in the final weeks before his re-election last November that the Oregon Democrat’s closest political advisers staged two of what some of them termed “interventions” to urge him to seek psychiatric help, WW has learned.

The episode is best encapsulated by the emails sent by Wu, along with a picture that promises to haunt him for the rest of his political career.

From the Willamette Week article:

With Halloween approaching the Sunday before the Tuesday election, sources now tell WW that campaign aides had advised Wu not to dress in any costume that could potentially embarrass him.

(He was expected to face a close contest.) They worried, too, that a goofy getup could provide fodder for last-minute campaign attacks from Cornilles, Wu’s well-financed Republican opponent. The issue arose after Wu told staffers about a Halloween party he had wanted to attend with family and friends.

What follows here is a series of early-morning email messages from Wu’s BlackBerry to multiple staffers sent on the early hours of Saturday, Oct. 30.

The emails do not offer a definitive account of why Wu’s aides fled the congressman’s office in significant numbers just after his sixth successful re-election campaign. They do reveal that Wu’s staffers apparently had confronted the congressman about his drinking. They also suggest Wu faced accusations of harassment from his employees—and that Wu wasn’t eager to listen to any of the advice. Wu, through a spokesman, wouldn’t respond to specific questions about the written content of the emails.

At 1:03 am PST on Saturday, Oct. 30, an email from Wu’s Congressional BlackBerry landed in the inbox of a female staffer. The congressman—who splits his time between Washington, D.C., and Oregon—was then in Portland.

There was no message attached to the email, only a single image. That photo, copied above, showed Wu in a plush tiger suit with orange- and black-striped mittens over his hands, a hood with pointy ears pulled over his head and a white circle split by a zipper stretched over his stomach. A seemingly red-faced Wu is sitting on a bench in what appears to be a bedroom, with his hands held in the air. A spokesman, Erik Dorey, today called the photo a private moment between family members. He further described the photo as “David Wu joshing around with his kids the day before Halloween.”

Nineteen minutes later, at 1:22 am PST, a second email from Wu’s official email address went to multiple Wu staffers under the subject line “not funny.”

The email read as if it had come from one of Wu’s two children; the name of his middle-school-age daughter appeared at the end of it as a signature. But it’s not clear whether she sent the email in the wee hours of the morning or did so at the request of her father. Another possibility—the one that apparently disturbed staffers—is that Wu sent the email on his own, pretending to be his child. In any case, the email suggests Wu had been sparring with his staff.

“You’re the best, but my Dad made me say that, even though you threatened to shut down his campaign.”

Ten minutes later a third email went to two female staffers. This time, it contained another photo and a similar “you’re the best” message. The name of Wu’s son appeared at the bottom of that email.

Whether the photo depicted a staged or real event is uncertain. Someone who appears to be Wu is in the full-body tiger costume. He is face-down on a made bed with his arms at his side, as if asleep or passed out.

A wallet and headphones are strewn next to him on the bed. Behind him, a child who appears to be Wu’s 13-year-old son stands beside the bed dressed in a T-shirt and khaki pants with his hands on Wu’s shoulders. It is not evident whether the boy is trying to wake his father, give him a back rub or play along with a joke.

Six minutes later, at 1:38 am, a fourth email arrived in staffers’ inboxes. The content related to Wu’s drinking. The subject line contained one word: “wasted.”

The email, with Wu’s son’s name at the end, said: “My Dad said you said he was wasted Wednesday night after just three sips of wine. It’s just that he hasn’t had a drink since July 1. Cut him some slack, man. What he does when he’s wasted is send emails, not harass people he works with. He works SO hard for you … Cut the dude some slack, man. Just kidding.”

(If Wu had wine that week, that would contradict a Feb. 14 statement the congressman made in response to a written question from WW. “I, as part of a weight loss push, stopped drinking last year for five months,” Wu said through a spokesman. “I have had a drink on occasion since then.”)

Then, at 1:40 am, a fifth email from Wu’s BlackBerry arrived with both children’s names at the end of the message. It appears to have been directed at one of Wu’s many longtime staffers, some of whom had worked for the congressman for about 12 years.

“My Dad says you’re the best because not even my Mom put up with him,” the email said. “[Y]ou have. We think you’re cool.”

Until announcing their separation in 2009, Wu and his second wife, Michelle, 48, had been married for about 13 years.

On Jan. 19, The Oregonian published an account of the departure of six staffers and two consultants from Wu’s political team in a piece that also addressed the final days of Wu’s 2010 campaign. The story described Wu’s “bursts of puzzling public behavior” right before the Nov. 2 election and detailed two publicly documented events. “On Oct. 27, [Wu] gave a speech so negative and loud that a Washington County Democratic Party member complained formally to his office,” the daily newspaper reported. “The outburst was followed two days later by an episode at Portland International Airport, where Wu used his influence as a member of Congress to enter a restricted area and campaign for votes from off-loading passengers.”

It is clear that David Wu needs help. David Wu has issues that require clinical medical intervention. I cannot imagine the burden on his children and his soon to be ex-wife. David Wu should do the honorable thing, as a representative of the voters of his district, and acknowledge that he is no longer able to fairly lead. It is time for Congressman Wu to step down, for the sake of his children and his family, and seek the help that will allow him to be a better father.