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October 17, 2008

Oregon Republican Power Brokers Keep Surprising Me

Kari Chisolm has just posted this video up at Blue Oregon and it has, quite honestly, left me aghast.

Well, apparently the video is no longer available, but you can watch it at Dancer's website.

Basically, Rick Dancer has just received close to $100,000 from the timber industry. Within a day, he used the money to put TV ads on the air. I've got no problem with that - and I don't know anything about Rick Dancer or his character so am not commenting on that in this post.

So what about this, then, has left me aghast? Well it is not that these timber men want a Republican Secretary of State. As one of Kari's readers comments, "the Secretary of State serves on the Oregon State Land Board and chairs the Oregon Sustainability Board."

The first thing I noticed is what Kari also pointed out - the coded language, saying something that has a different meaning to the casual listener than it has for the person "in the know." In this ad, Dancer is stating that as Secretary of State he will be going after unions on the "secret ballot" issue and tackling their "commingling" of funds. And there's where the shock began to hit me, because as Kari rightly points out, that is a clear shout out to Bill Sizemore and his efforts.

The timber industry donors are long-time bulk contributors to Bill Sizemore, who has often similarly received contributions in about the same amounts from these very same men and/or their businesses all on the same day and earmarked for a particular project they liked, such as these TV commercials. (NOTE: I personally value the timber industry itself very highly, so don't assume otherwise.)

The last two Democratic Secretaries of State have both given Bill Sizemore no end of trouble in his efforts to legislate by petition. It would be very, very helpful to Sizemore and his backers to have a friend in that office. In other words, it would appear that his old friends in the timber industry have pitched in to help him again.

After everything that has been revealed about Sizemore's addiction to spending other people's money, and after all the lawsuits revealing his shady practices, he still is quietly but firmly entrenched with the "big guys" in Oregon conservative politics - not just Loren Parks and Dick Wendt, but the whole big money funding structure of the Oregon GOP. They've never lost faith in him.

It speaks to the despicable and pervasive culture of dishonesty and greed that permeates the party's power structure in the state, in my opinion, and it still continues to suprise me, even after all this time.

Posted by Becky at October 17, 2008 02:27 PM