Decision point for Alan DeBoer

National Issues and Talking Points get Applied to the Local Race.    Is this necessarily the Republican Party of Trump?

I was the lucky recipient of an opinion poll.   Happily, I had the time and presence to record the important part of it.

Poll questions give people an look at the potential themes that will be presented in a campaign.   If the poll asks detailed questions about "how would you feel if you knew the candidate felt a certain way on an issue" then presumably that issue is under consideration.

The poll started out being very neutral and ambiguous about its source.   It asked if I expected to vote: certainly, probably, maybe. likely not, no.   It asked if I was a Democrat or Republican, it asked who I expected to vote for for President.   It then asked who I supported for the State Senate office made vacant by the unexpected death of Alan Bates:  Republican Alan DeBoer or Democrat Tonia Moro.

From DeBoer's website

Alan DeBoer generally presents as a Chamber of Commerce businessman Republican of the sort who has been displaced by the Trump-style Tea Party brand of Republican.  He describes himself this way:  "I'm a pretty liberal Republican.  And I think I help Democrats by being in the Republican Party.  Once we get elected we should be an Oregonian.  We shouldn't have this [partisan] fight."  He has websites and you can decide for yourself, but that is my impression: Newer Campaign Website    and    Alan DeBoer for State Senate

Moro

Tonia Moro, the Democrat, presents herself as a consensus Democrat.  She got local visibility by opposition to a proposed natural gas pipeline going through the county, by opposition to GMOs being grown in the county, and by her leadership in a successful Transit District budget levy.  Those positions were popular enough to win widespread support by the voters countywide.  She has a Facebook page which currently serves as her campaign website:   Tonia Moro Campaign Facebook Page 

When the poll started getting into specific issues I asked the questioner to wait a moment, which time I used to get a recorder turned on.   It became very interesting.  It also became utterly clear which team had commissioned the poll.  Here was the first question:

"After thirty years of one party rule, corruption  [unintelligible] top level of our state, and having received a grade "F" from the Center for Public Integrity, corruption has led to hundreds of millions of dollars of wasteful spending and has put the lives and futures of children at risk from wasteful government programs, Alan DeBoer has supported using audits of government agencies more open to management disclosures and performance reviews to make Oregon's government more transparent and accountable."

The interviewer asked if that made me more or less likely to vote for DeBoer.  Then:

"Alan DeBoer is a lifetime resident of Ashland and who served as the mayor for four years.  In his campaign kickoff DeBoer pledged to use his experience as mayor, in local businesses and in local community organizations working across party lines to fix the hard issues facing Oregonians.  [Unintelligible]  stagnant region, increasing the cost of living, and fixing the broken health care system."

Again, the interviewer asked if this made me more or less likely to vote for DeBoer.   

Note two very different directions for his campaign.  Should he attack from the outside, because people in government are corrupt and the chief problem is government fixing itself,  or is he the experienced man who is part of government and the community, working to make government address problems.   Attack from the outside or cooperator from the inside.

Third question:

"Tonia Moro supports Measure 97, a regressive consumption tax that would hit the poorest Oregon families the hardest.  This measure would cost each Oregon citizen an average of   six hundred per year and would give all the money to unaccountable bureaucrats in Salem as a blank check with no strings attached."

Again, she asked that if after hearing this I was more or less likely to vote for Moro.  I personally plan to vote against Measure 97, but I don't agree with the premise of the question.  The money raised will not go to "unaccountable bureaucrats in Salem", it would go to elected officials, one of them being the winner of these two candidates, to allocate as part of the general fund, just like most other tax money.  It is accountable, which is why there is an election going on.    Still, the purpose here is to see what the proposed message direction could be, so I consider the premise of the question asked.  Is saying the tax will raise money to be spent by "unaccountable bureaucrats" something that would hurt Moro if that charge were asserted?

The interviewer then asked which of the following problems was the most important one facing Oregonians.  Pick the number one problem.  Note that these problems seem derived from issues raised on the national campaigns, not from Oregon. This question seems to get at general campaign messaging, not Oregon policy.  Still, if voters think that the biggest issues for a State Senator is the rise of political correctness, the decline of traditional morals, or terrorism and national security then it would be good for the campaign to know it.   No use talking about road taxes or the Oregon Health Plan if voters are mostly concerned about terrorism.  The list was, in order:

People in office too long.

Drug addiction.

Stagnation and the economy.

The rise of political correctness.

Terrorism and national security.

The decline of traditional moral values.

The deterioration of race relations.

The price of health care.

The quality of public education.

The lack of funding for roads.

The danger imposed by the exploitation of natural resources.

Homelessness and the cost of housing.

Corruption in politics.

I do not know for a fact who issued the poll.  The interviewer pronounced "Oregon" a little bit "off", so it may well have been out of state, but its purpose was unquestionably to help guide Alan DeBoer--or someone interested in his campaign--in the most effective issues to raise.   I posted a week ago that he had a dilemma.  He is a Republican in a district that had elected a Democrat ,and he is running as a Republican in a party that rejected his kind of Republican in favor of Trump, with Cruz being the chief alternative.  Candidates with real accomplishments in office got beaten soundly by Trump and Cruz.

Could Hatfield survive a primary now?

DeBoer appears to come out of a Republican tradition of officeholders like Mark Hatfield (who stood up to Nixon and opposed the Vietnam War), Packwood (who opposed Republican orthodoxy on abortion), McCall (who supported protection of the environment and wanted compact cities rather than sprawl.)     Those people had long careers in Oregon politics, but that was in the era before the Tea Party and before Trump.

The first question attempted to explore whether DeBoer needed to go in the direction of Trump: outsider fixing corrupt present, where government is the problem and people should be angry about it.   The second question assayed whether he could and should run in the Chamber of CommerceHatfield/Packwood/McCall mode: presenting DeBoer as the bipartisan man who helps trim the forest gently with concurrence of Ashland environmentalists,  who is a benefactor to the historical society and the YMCA, the guy who builds community.   This would be the pre-Trump form of Republicanism--the kind that got soundly rejected by Republican voters this primary season.

The poll suggests that Alan DeBoer, or someone interested in his campaign but not necessarily DeBoer himself, is open to either approach, but that is a guess.  All we really know is that both approaches were explored.  To Trump, or not to Trump, that is the question.

Shortly we will start seeing advertisements, which will give us the answer to the direction he chose--or got chosen for him.

[ 5:00 p.m. Update.  A politically active friend with close ties to Republican candidates and Republican party officials wrote me to say that he believes that neither the candidate nor the state Senate Republicans commissioned the poll.]

(Wait!  There's more!  Look over to the right, if you are on a desktop computer.  There is a link to a podcast that I uploaded.  "Two Left Eyes."   AttorneyThad Guyer and I have a back and forth discussion of the polls and messaging as it relates to Hillary and Trump.   We try to be objective, and our objective assessment is not good for Hillary.  If you listen to podcasts try downloading this to a device then giving us a shot.  Or you can use this link to Two Left Eyes right here:    Click Here]