City Club Post-Election Analysis

[The following was blogged during a 07-Nov-2008 City Club of Portland program "City Club Post-Election Analysis" -- all typos and errors are mine. The comments attributed to the participants are as best I could capture them at the time, and in some cases I wrote what I thought they meant, not necessarily the exact words they said. -Tom]

Dan Lavey says, the Oregon Republican Party is dead.

The party divisions are on cultural lines, not economic lines as much any more.

The obsessive Sizemore effort to put initiatives up has served to permanently organize the opposition. Each successive election has served to get Democrats ever more organized. From the Bus Project onward, these have served to help their candidates.

Democrats are recruiting better people.

All the GOP has left is ideology, not ideas. That's bad for Oregon because the only remaining debate is between the left and the far left. The political process has become much more polarized. That's driven in part by our campaign finance rules, which in allowing all your money to come from a dozen large donors, breed lazy candidates.

If Obama governs as he ran, he could be very successful.

Tim Hibbits --
The Obama margin will be probably 9 million votes. Oregon is still counting. Why can hillbillies in Kentucky get their votes counted 100% the next day, and Oregon takes two weeks?

The polls were largely right. The belief in hidden GOP support is proved wrong.

Rove has been a long term catastrophe for the party.

There was a Willy Week article two years ago suggesting that Republicans would take over Oregon in a few years. It was clearly wrong, and Hibbits refuted it at the time in Brainstorm Magazine.

The GOP's move from boardrooms to church pews has not helped. Statewide in Oregon, the Dem-GOP record is 24-3. The Washington numbers are 39-3.

Obama will carry Multnomah County by 200,000 votes. He will carry the rest of the state by 100,000. He got 60% of Washington County, the former GOP stronghold. He did well in many counties formerly strong for the GOP.

The voters voted less in realignment than in a throw the bums out fashion. There is no "permanent majority" in US politics, however if Democrats govern well they could have a good ride.

Meanwhile GOP leaders are coming to the conclusion that they aren't conservative enough, even though it's been 50 years since a hard-right candidate won in Oregon.

Mark Wiener --
would love to see the GOP move further right. He would caution Democrats on that.

Now the hard work begins. Education and how we pay for it. Our piece of global warming. How we raise money for public purposes. These changes need to be done smartly and with a lot of inclusion of voters. Dems will have right around 36 in the House, close to being able to raise taxes.

Dems should move carefully. There's an opportunity to make systemic change. It should be done in a way that's inclusive. If you leave the public behind you won't be successful.

Dan Lavey --
Reagan was successful where Bush failed. Reagan always kept the public with him, and Bush didn't do anything like that. It's more than giving a great speech. You have to adjust the content of the cake, not tweak the icing.

Republicans -- let the Dems govern, and work on regaining the majority. Don't delude yourself that you're governing. Dems need to produce. Give them their shot. Pick a few fights that go to the strength of the GOP brand and that people like about the GOP. Don't pick fights on children's health care that divide your own team and unite your opponents.

Tim Hibbits --
Sorry if someone felt bad about my comments about Kentucky. I grew up in southern Ohio and was proud to consider myself a hillbilly. I could literally see Kentucky from my house.

The new Oregon House Dems are in not-very-blue districts. A lurch left by Democrats would put those seats at risk. To stay in the majority the Dems need to avoid policies that drive voters away from them.

Dan Lavey --
The agendas of your party's interest groups is not always aligned with the interests of your party. Watch out regarding primaries that select unelectable candidates.

Questions from members
Marge Kafoury: Dan please elaborate on the Sizemore factor. Voters keep seeing the same defeated initiatives come back. How can Oregon get off this merry-go-round?

Dan Lavey: the backers need to stop funding losing initiatives. I don't understand how someone can fund a consistent and repeated failure. The answer isn't to choke off the initiative process. I think it's helping -- dramatically -- the interests of the liberal groups who have become permanently organized against them.

Wiener: and it's also expensive. The strategy may be to keep liberals on the defensive. And Dan is right. Loren Parks likes to give money because he enjoys it. But why does (some guy from) Jeld Wen fund these things? This is really a Sizemore money maker. Do the donors understand what their money goes to? Do they see how Sizemore spends it? Admittedly the opposition money is spent on people like me, so I may be cutting my own throat.

(Discussion on choking off or reforming the initiative system. Various slaps at Sizemore.)

Q2: wasteful spending and borrowing... will the American people make the necessary sacrifices for the common good?

Hibbits: I do believe the next president will have to ask for some sort of national sacrifice. We are a debtor nation. Obama will have to lay out that there are problems and we are all going to have to sacrifice. The Bush admin was unwilling to say that. Reagan was able to say that tough days today can lead to good days tomorrow.

Lavey: I think leadership finds the sweet spot between therapy and discipline. You can be an Eat Your Peas president like Carter and make everyone feel bad. Bush could have rallied the country after 9/11 -- esp. on energy -- and failed to do so. There is consensus for change.

Wiener: we are at a teachable moment. We want leadership that is honest yet not crabbed. Mondale's "I'm gonna raise your taxes" lacked the purpose of that sacrifice. Tell people, here is what you will get for your sacrifice. Let's hope the opportunity is not squandered.

Q3, Chris Smith: was there any way to avoid both 61 and 57?

Wiener: absolutely not. Without 57 on the ballot, 61 would have passed. Without the rational alternative of 57, 61 would have passed.

Q4: I did a lot of phoning and heard spontaneous complaints about negative advertising.

Wiener: Ask Jefferson -- it is here to stay. It works. The irrelevant nasty stuff does not work. Accurate yet negative ads are relevant and need to be aired.

Hibbits: negative contrast is not bad. McCain tried to scare people. Obama was more fair, that McCain voted w/ Bush 90% of the time.

Wiener: McCain resorted to actual Red Baiting, if you can imagine.

Q5: were you surprised that in tough economic times that people voted in favor of bond measures like PCC?

Lavey: Yes, I was surprised. The zoo passed, PCC passed, parks, public safety.

Wiener: Liz Kaufman has said that in tough times you have to have a tough conversation with the voters about what we want as a community. What do we want to buy? What is important to us as a community? I was not shocked by the result. Honest conversations are good. Demagoguing is bad.