The OC Blog Back Issues Our Mission Contact Us Masthead
Sudsy Wants You to Join the Oregon Commentator
 

New direction for Oregon Republicans?

 

As CJ earlier noted, the state of Oregon’s GOP is not good, to say the least. A new project is trying to form a league of “new blood and new leaders” to move the Oregon Republican Party into a position with respectable political clout.

 

The Conservative Majority Project is headed by Robert Kremer and Jared McKinney. Kremer is a native Oregonian, the founder and president of the Oregon Education Coalition and host of a radio show, “Kremer & Abrams.” The fact that he was a major player in killing the CIM/CAM education reform, a.k.a. the biggest waste of tax dollars EVER, is reason enough to like the guy.

 

McKinney is a younger guy and Native Alaskan who has worked on several political campaigns nationwide. He seems to be a true grassroots activist with a fond eye for the ideals of the Founding Fathers and the original intent of the Constitution.

 

Kremer also runs a blog that focuses on politics in the Portland area. The heading of it reads:

Portland, Oregon is occupied territory. It was invaded years ago by a non-native species of political animal from back east who took over our political and cultural institutions in order to try out their utopian socialist dreams on our great state. This blog will chronicle the insurgency that is trying to free Oregon from the occupiers’ grip by shining a bright light on their most egregious schemes.

The CMP’s plan is to plant a core group of people in the Oregon Legislature that will act as heralds for traditional Oregon conservatism while regaining majority control for Oregon’s GOP. It is definitely acting like the All-American little guy with enough grit and tenacity to take on the status quo and big money. It promotes the kind of leaders “who believe in conservative principles, can articulate them, and defend them.” Like the Wu-Tang Clan, the project may start with a bang and then spiral throughout the system, leaving its footprint wherever possible. From a February blog post by Kremer announcing the project:

Our strategy will be to select a careful few races where there is a reasonable prospect of picking up a legislative seat, and where our resources and tactical campaign expertise can perhaps make the difference.

We are not simply going to be channeling funds to candidates shotgun-style. We will apply our resources in a thoughtful way where we have reason to believe that either we can be the difference in the Republicans holding a seat, or, better yet, picking a seat up.

We will not be interested in candidates unless they are true conservatives. We understand that our party must be a big tent, and that means in some districts, only a less conservative Republican can win. That is fine – but we will almost certainly not be involved in these races.

From the CMP website:

All candidates that we support, with the help of Oregonians like you, must be:

~ Dedicated to improving educational quality through school choice. A strong belief that parents know how to make the best decisions for their children, instead of bureaucrats and unions is essential.

~ Dedicated to limited government. One of the first questions in any elected officials decision-making process should be, “Can this problem be solved in the free market?”

~ Dedicated to lowering taxes and cutting government waste. We recognize that your money is a reflection of your time and creative energy. Every elected official should treat all fiscal decisions with this principle as a guidepost.

~ Dedicated to preserving Oregonians First and Second Amendment Rights. The right to keep and bear arms is essential to the survival of any republic.

~ Dedicated to preserving and protecting traditional family values. The family unit is the core of our society. It must be preserved.

~ Dedicated to stopping illegal immigration. The Oregon worker has been immeasurably harmed by a system that allows those who are in this state illegally to drive down wages. This problem places a growing burden on schools, and hospitals, transportation, police, and fire departments.

~ Dedicated to protecting private property rights. The right to control your own property is a fundamental pillar in a free society. You have worked hard to call your property your own. You should not be forced to fight with state and local governments who look for reasons to devalue your property.

~ Dedicated to protecting your civil liberties and your initiative freedoms. State politicians, public employee unions, and bureaucrats have been waging a 15-year war against the initiative process. Whether it is by limiting your ability to petition your government, or by circumventing laws that the people of Oregon have voted on, this is an issue that can no longer be over looked.

Our candidates are not “anti-government” candidates, but rather candidates who believe that government’s primary role should be to protect the liberties of its citizens.

  1. Timothy says:

    Interesting point about that, most “foreign” cars are made in the US so they can jump the tariff wall while many “American” cars are made in Mexico and brought up under NAFTA. The real problem (for the Big Three) is that, say, Honda and Subaru aren’t beholden to the auto workers’ union the way Ford/GM/Chrystler are. They aren’t burdened by bad management structures due to their more recent entry into the market.

  2. Vincent says:

    I fail to see why I should value the ability of relatively rich Americans to get jobs doing menial labor over the ability of relatively poor Mexicans/South Americans to get jobs doing menial labor.

    You know, I’ve always held to this same line of reasoning every time someone brings up the horrors of “outsourcing.”

    As unfortunate as it is that some Americans lose their jobs to outsourcing, I’m willing to bet that your average Indian phone support technician needs that paycheck more than your average American, who can probably collect unemployment for awhile during the search for another job.

    Not that such arguments will dissuade unscrupulous politicians from playing the populism card and promising out-of-work factory laborers in dying industries like automobile manufacturing that they’ll “bring the jobs back” and accusing those evil, greedy corporations of chiseling their employees. What no one seems to mention is the fact that paying American workers forces companies to cut corners in other areas to remain competitive Ford doesn’t use shitty parts and cheap interior finish because they *want* to, but because to make an American-built Taurus cost-competitive with a Mexican-built Volkswagen, they have to use cheaper materials because every Ford has thousands of dollars of pensions, health care costs, etc. built into the price.

    Pointing such things out might cause a politician to run afoul of the unions, though, so it’s easier to scream about the Republicans sending all the jobs to Mexico and India.

  3. Timothy says:

    Why not make the forms easier? Hey, if the only issue is that they’re “illegal” then why not just make it easy for them to be legal and PRESTO! they’re not breaking any laws.

    If it’s a “they’re cheap and they’re brown and they’re from Mexico” problem and not a “they didn’t file a 27B-6” problem, I am forced to conclude some kind of anti-brown bias.

    To be blunt: Immigration is an entirely administrative problem, so if the argument is simply about whether or not they’re illegally in the country, then we can fix that by making it perfectly legal for them to be here. Easy enough. If the issue is one of protectionism due to xenophobia or economic ignorance (‘unfair’ competition or whatever other nonsense Lou Dobbs is on about), then I’m afraid we will never agree and it is quite likely that I’ll call you names. I fail to see why I should value the ability of relatively rich Americans to get jobs doing menial labor over the ability of relatively poor Mexicans/South Americans to get jobs doing menial labor.

    Further, if wages for menial labor are not keeping up with inflation, that’s a pretty good indicator that menial labor is not worth what it used to be worth in the marketplace – which any idiot can tell you – and I’m not exactly sure why I am supposed to find that upsetting. Labor, like anything else, is worth what you can get for it on an open market – some people’s labor isn’t worth very much at the margin, that’s just a fact, so those folks either learn to live with what they can make, work more hours to increase their total income, or improve their skill sets to make their labor more valuable. Them’s the breaks. And that’s unfortunate, sure, but aside from acting like a bunch of tyrannical assholes or managing to rewrite the fundamental laws of market exchange, I don’t see any kind of “solution”.

    Get used to it, and try the barbacoa, you won’t regret it.

  4. Shadow says:

    I wouldn’t call myself a mainstream conservative, but some of you may…

    Illegal immigration is a problem here in Oregon. Ask anyone in the construction trade… Wages have not gone up w/ inflation because illegal mexicans are coming in and doing the jobs cheaper.

    As much as I hate government, the government needs to bust these asshole employers that hire ILLEGALs.

  5. Timothy says:

    I guess they’d have to have some for that to work out.

  6. CJ Ciaramella says:

    I agree, Timothy. But where would mainstream conservatives be without their populist fears of immigration and “teh gay”? I mean, then they’d have to stand on principles or something.

  7. Vincent says:

    I was technically Class of 1999.

    Good points re: limited govt., though. If the Oregon Republicans really want to re-vamp their image, taking serious and concrete steps away from being European-style Christian Democrats with a vested interest in propping up coercive bureaucracies would be a great start.

  8. Timothy says:

    Vincent – WHOO! Smoke Free Class of 2000! I got to participate in a lot of that stuff, filling out forms, making “portfolios” its death brought me great joy.

    That said, I can’t get behind a couple of pieces of CMP’s platform…which makes me dubious about the organization:

    ~ Dedicated to stopping illegal immigration. The Oregon worker has been immeasurably harmed by a system that allows those who are in this state illegally to drive down wages. This problem places a growing burden on schools, and hospitals, transportation, police, and fire departments.

    Yes, non-border states over 1000 miles from Mexico sure have a problem with illegal immigrants. I’m sure that a ton of middle class white people have been displaced out in the orchards of Hood River because of the brown menace! What clowns. Seriously. Kill the welfare state because the welfare state is an affront to freedom, not because a bunch of people picking fruit didn’t file a few forms. Further, how does a state that’s over 1000 miles from Mexico do ANYTHING about illegal immigration. Force employers to screen people? That’s completely incompatible with “freedom” and “limited government”, not to mention civil liberties…any enforcement measure that would work is too draconian to bother with.

    ~ Dedicated to preserving and protecting traditional family values. The family unit is the core of our society. It must be preserved.

    Again, this goal is completely incompatible with the others stated. You cannot use government to prop up one bible-beater’s version of the world and at the same time call that government “limited”. I also doubt you can cut government waste while trying to prevent Adam & Steve from getting their freak on.

  9. Vincent says:

    CIM/CAM was a disaster. My cohort was the first that they tested the system on (I don’t believe that the program was formally instituted until a year or two after I graduated).

    In any case, I remember math courses ceasing almost entirely to teach math to focus instead on preparing us for CIM/CAM, which at the time was so difficult no one, including the future valedictorian, could pass. Add to that the absurd “job shadowing” requirement (which for me and a group of friends involved driving up into the mountains to hang out with some graphic designer at his house for an hour or two) and the stupid “technology” requirements that I seem to remember (which consisted of little more than making Powerpoint presentations and such), and it all added up to an absurd waste of time and money.

    I was delighted to learn of its demise.

  10. CJ Ciaramella says:

    CIM/CAM’s were the stupidest things ever. I got stuck in an almost remedial English class when I transferred to public high school because I hadn’t taken any of their dumbass tests yet.

    Anybody who had a hand in destroying that system is a friend of mine.

Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.