Saxton Leads by 3%

KATU is releasing a poll tonight that shows Saxton leading Mannix by 3%.

This is a very tight race and now is crunch time. Ten days left. I thought this would be a good time to repost my original endorsement of Ron, which I first put up in January:

Saxton for Governor

I am supporting Ron Saxton’s effort to win the Republican nomination for Governor.

I have taken awhile to make this decision, because we have three very solid Republican candidates. I would happily and enthusiastically support any of them in the general election, but I think Ron Saxton is the best candidate, and so I will work to help him win the primary in May.

Before going into my reasons for supporting Ron, I want to address an important issue: lots of conservative bloggers have been trying to paint Ron Saxton as a liberal, or as an inauthentic Republican - a RINO.Let me put it simply: They are wrong.

Ron is not only the most fiscally conservative candidate running for governor, I believe he has the best grasp of precisely what is wrong about they way Oregon government operates right now and how to correct it.

On social issues, Ron is conservative where it matters: he would sign a ban on partial birth abortion, and he supports parental notification. He may not be as much as an abortion purist as the other candidates, but I have news for you: it doesn’t matter who the governor is – you’re not going to get more than this.

There’s been a lot of discussion about Ron’s association with Diana Goldschmidt, which, it is claimed, taints him because she is married to Neil Goldschmidt. Diana is a long time loyal Republican, and she supported Ron’s last run for Governor. Ron was instrumental in bringing Diana in to serve as interim superintendent of PPS, which was a very good move.

Did Ron’s firm also have various business dealings with Neil? Of course. Ron was the managing partner of a large law firm in Portland. Goldschmidt was involved with most every significant business deal in the city. Their professional lives inevitably crossed.

The real issue here is that Ron’s opponents want you to believe that he is a part of the “central planning/pro-light-rail/anti-car/anti property rights” culture that Goldschmidt ushered in and that has so badly damaged Portland and Oregon.

He’s not. I know him; I’ve talked with him at length about every one of these issues. I’ve literally drilled him on the gamut of things that drive me crazy about the political culture in Oregon. He’s as disgusted as I am about the way things are done here.

More important, he understands what he needs to do as governor to correct it, starting with a wholesale change of the people at every level of state government.

He understands that we need more roads, and that light rail is a bad investment if our goal is actually to move people as efficiently as possible. He understands that the land use system in Oregon has created hundreds of planning fiefdoms in city halls and county seats in every corner of the state that make building even the simplest structure an expensive and frustrating nightmare.

He understands that government’s job should not be to pick winners and losers, and that our land use laws are one of the single biggest obstacles to job growth in Oregon. (The tax structure is another.) He understands that competition is critical to reforming schools, and that PERS is devouring the budgets of every level of government.

I’ve talked with Ron at length about all of these things and more. I think his rural/farming background combines with his legal/business dealings in his professional life to give him a visceral understanding of what is wrong with Oregon. I don’t think the other candidates grasp it quite as well.

And that is why I am supporting Ron Saxton for governor.

One last thing: Ron has the best chance of any Republican candidate to win in November. Hands down. Any Republican who wants to win a statewide race in Oregon better have some strategy to pull 33-35% of the votes in Multnomah County. Ron is the only one who could do that.

In fact, I think that the primary will be a harder race for Ron to win than the general election.

So I urge you to take another look at Ron Saxton, and make a judgment for yourself. There are plenty of people I respect trying to make him appear to be a latte liberal RINO. I get that – they have chosen sides and are trying to help their candidate. But it's not true. I like the other candidates both personally and politically, and I will not attempt to run either of them down.

They each have many things to recommend them, and I would hope that their supporters would focus their energy on convincing people of these positive attributes rather than trying to denigrate Ron Saxton.

I don't think most people think I am a liberal, nor Don McIntire, who is also supporting Ron.

All I ask is that you take some time to listen to what Ron has to say, and judge for yourself whether he has a good handle on how to turn around the damage done in 25 years of Goldscmidt/Roberts/Katz/Kitz/Kulongoski rule in Oregon.