Campaign Videos: Today Kevin Stine

Kevin Stine is the scrappy underdog.   He lives what the other candidates talk about.

The campaigns of all four Democratic candidates recognize there is a big group of people getting especially hurt in Oregon today:
   --working people
   --veterans
   --young families trying to afford housing
   --moderate income people getting access to affordable health care
   --people facing high costs from underfunded colleges.

They are describing Kevin Stine.

For the people because he is OF the people.

Kevin Stine's introductory video describes who he is and where he came from, an un-paved street in a modest neighborhood in Medford, the son of a single mom.

Link Fixed. Click Here for the video

Here is his website, which includes a link right at the top to the video above:  
http://www.kevinstine.com


The story is one of uplift and achievement.  Navy submarine veteran, first in his family to graduate from college, Medford City Councilman, now candidate for higher office.  

Alone of all the candidates, Kevin draws a contrast.  Unlike the others, he isn't a prosperous professional surveying the problems of Oregon from a comfortable perch.  

"We're in a housing crisis here in Jackson County with one third or more of renters paying half their income on rent.  This is an outrage. I understand the problem more than the other candidates because I've seen my own rent go up hundreds of dollars in the past few years." 

Alone of the candidates for the position, Stine holds office. A tiny incident reveals Kevin Stine's scrappiness.  Jeff Golden had attended part of the Medford City Council meeting when it voted a tax on new construction to help fund affordable housing projects.  Golden had cited the meeting and his attendance in a Facebook post, calling attention to his witnessing and approval of this good thing.  Stine posted a reply that, yes, Golden showed up, then left long before the vote.  As an actual Councilman, Stine noted he was there for the full three hour meeting, doing the actual work, taking the political risks of imposing a new tax. You can swing by and talk about it, he wrote, but I am doing it.

Stine is a veteran. Being a veteran means different things to people within the Democratic electorate. For older Boomers, there is a conflicted sense of relief and guilt that they may have personally successfully avoided the draft, now papered over with an obligatory "thank you for your service."  But within poor and working class Americans--the ones largely lost to Trump in 2016 and the ones directly appealed to by all the Democrats in this race--being an eight-year veteran is a signifier of patriotic service and personal achievement.

There is little said in the campaign material of the four Democrats on some issues:  state tax policy, road and transportation funding, PERS reform.  What the campaigns talk about are the issue relating to problems facing the working poor.  They are the lost constituents, the white male working class strugglers: Kevin Stine.

The Stine video projects tone of pugnacious intensity.  Kevin projects purpose.  He projects he has the energy and drive to do something because people just like him are being damaged by comfortable and patient people who don't see the problem or don't care about it. He does. He projects active moral outrage at injustice, something contained in the tone of Bernie Sanders' speeches. 

 It is a strong message by a candidate with an authentic right to deliver it. The 2016 election suggests that there is a giant constituency for exactly what Kevin Stine represents. Unfortunately for Stine, his campaign not yet "gone viral."  My anecdotal experiences with Democratic voters suggest that neither Stine, Goldberg, nor Bell are well known at all.  Stine's message won't have appeal if almost no one hears it.  People have heard of Jeff Golden.