Oregon Campaign for Governor: Democrats

We are getting clarity now. Nick Kristof cannot run. He's out.

That leaves two choices for Democrats: Tina Kotek and Tobias Read

At a distance, they both look about the same. Tina Kotek and Tobias Read both have good experience in government. Kotek has been Speaker of the Oregon House. Read is the State Treasurer. Both are liberal Democrats. Both are from the Portland area. They are both compassionate, earnest liberals, concerned about homelessness, poverty, justice, policing, climate, and wildfires. They are both part of the educated, urban, diversity-conscious, blue-state political mindset that shapes the modern Democratic party. I suspect they would vote identically on nearly every state or national issue put before a legislative body. 

The Oregon primary election is May 17, less than six weeks away. The two remaining candidates are establishing different brands.

Tina Kotek

Tina Kotek "owns" the overall reputation of state government. She has been central in shaping it. She presents herself as a tough, effective go-getter, a progressive Democrat. She sponsored and shepherded into law forward-thinking, controversial legislation. Oregon protects abortion rights. Oregon makes voting easy and voter registration automatic. She sponsored a law addressing housing availability by ending single-family zoning in Oregon's cities. She advocated for a controversial cap-and-trade energy bill.  

I observed Kotek at an event in Ashland. She was asked about two embarrassing failures of state government, the fact that Oregon is the slowest of the 50 states to have TSA-ready driver's licenses, and the Oregon Employment Department's delays in delivering emergency unemployment checks during the COVID shutdown. Her response was that it wasn't her department, since she was in the legislative, not executive branch of government. She said that some changes should be looked at. I considered the answer an important "tell." It was a softball pitch for such a skilled and articulate politician. It was an opportunity to denounce bad administration wherever she see it and to share the frustration felt by all Oregonians, undoubtedly including Governor Kate Brown. She appeared not to want to be critical. After all, she is on Oregon government's team.

I told her one-on-one that I thought her answer made her look like an apologist for an unsatisfactory status quo. It is OK to fire and replace people who do a job poorly, I said, especially when the error is on Democrats. There is no need to defend bad government. She nodded and said she will handle a question like that differently in the future. I can accept a "yes" answer, and maybe she will adjust. But the incident revealed to me her first instinct and mindset. She is a loyal part of Oregon's Democratic-led government and the logical successor to Governor Brown. She represents continuity.

Tobias Read

Tobias Read talks about change. He framed the two-person race this way:

“Continue the status quo in Salem or vote for Tobias Read, someone who isn’t afraid to confront the urgent challenges we face in Oregon.”

His positions on issues do not strike me as markedly different from Kotek's--or Governor Brown's. Both Read and Kotek say homeless encampments in Portland are a dangerous eyesore and cruel to the people encamped. Read says we need to set up shelters and make campers go there to get them off the sidewalks. Kotek says to set up shelters and try to make them leave. That is a distinction  too subtle for anyone but their campaigns to notice. Read insisted that students be back in classrooms a couple of months before students were, in fact, back in classrooms. It is a distinction now moot. Kotek is politically vulnerable for having pushed the energy cap-and-trade bill opposed by rural Oregonians, but Read's Facebook page promises to "lead the effort to decarbonize our economy." This will not be a differentiator.

However, his new TV ad makes a clear branding distinction, if not a policy one. Without mentioning names he is positioning himself as not Governor Kate Brown, not Tina Kotek, and not the status quo. Watch:

Click: 30 second ad

The choice between the two of them may feel like Tweedledee and Tweedledum to Democrats. Yet both candidates seem to understand that Oregonians are restless. There is a malaise that has settled over U.S. politics, and it is here in Oregon, too. Portland riots and homeless encampments changed the politics of liberal Portland. Even Democrats are frustrated with Democrats.

So far, Read is the candidate better positioned as the change agent. 

[Note: I have made campaign contributions of approximately the same size to Kristof, Read, and Kotek.]