Southern Oregon: Good news for Al Densmore for Commissioner

Jackson County, Oregon Democrats wrote in the name of an Independent Candidate.

Question: What does a centrist former-Republican do when he hopes to replace a Trump-ish Republican incumbent? 

Answer: Become an Independent.

Al Densmore had a problem, and he solved it. No surprise. He calls himself a "problem solver" in his campaign material. 

Opening words in Densmore's campaign website

Fifty years ago Al Densmore was a Democrat with a big potential future. The 24-year-old Medford High School teacher won a House seat in the Oregon legislature. It was an era of moderate partisanship when Republicans were environmentalists and most of them supported reproductive rights. Oregon wasn't yet blue. We had Republican governors and two Republican U.S. Senators. Bi-partisan legislation got passed. Densmore had ambition, good political skills and he was well regarded. He gave higher office a try. He ran for Secretary of State, which was an unlikely race for a downstate legislator, and then he ran for U.S. Congress as a Democrat in his newly-drawn bright red Congressional District. He lost both times.

He ran for and became mayor of Medford, a non-partisan office. He changed his registration to Republican in 1989, which was his affiliation until recently. He ran for the legislature again, this time as a Republican, but lost in the primary. Throughout this period of Democrat-then-Republican his overall public reputation was formed by his involvement in non-partisan activities: Rotary, Urban Renewal projects, transit programs, playgrounds, and the Greenway. He had long tenure as nonpartisan board member of the Southern Oregon Education Service District. He rejoined the City of Medford government as an elected member of the City Council, another nonpartisan position. 

It is difficult for a Democratic candidate to win a county-wide race. The national Democratic brand became strongly associated with multi-ethnic urban and suburban college-educated office workers, which is an awkward fit for this area. Rural areas of the county vote Republican four-to-one. (Yes, I won a countywide election for Commissioner and so have a few others. My election was 40 years ago and politics was different then. Besides, I was a melon farmer.) In recent years no Democrat has won.

Densmore would be unlikely to win a Republican primary against the Republican incumbent. A majority of local GOP primary voters appear to favor all-in Trump populists, not moderates. (Last night they demonstrated it again in the statewide race for the Republican nomination for Governor. Voters here gave Jessica Gomez, a well-funded, moderate, Chamber-of-Commerce-type Medford businesswoman 7% of their vote.) 

Densmore realized he needed to be on the ballot as an Independent, and he needed to face the whole electorate, not just Republicans in a one-on-one matchup with the incumbent Commissioner. He needed a blank Democratic ballot for that position, which he might then win with a write-in campaign. The end result would be two names on the ballot, not three. He talked with Democrats. They understood his longstanding Republican affiliation. His recent work has been with a local lobbying firm that has a distinctly Republican orientation. Nevertheless, Democrats discouraged filings by people who might give a try for that office. It worked. No Democrat filed.

Can any recent Republican have credibility Democratic voters? Apparently yes. There was no public campaign for a write-in vote, but people quietly spread the word. Legislative and county races typically get about 200 write-in votes. The Densmore race was different. There were 5,264 write-in votes for that office as of the 11:00 p.m tally last night. They are almost certainly overwhelmingly for Densmore. They will be counted and identified soon. Those weren't just votes from party leaders making a strategic decision. That was grass-roots support for a moderate.

Democratic and Republican tallies

Local voters will have a binary choice this November's general election: A Trump-oriented Republican or a non-partisan centrist.  

Full disclosure: I thought Densmore was a solid, intelligent, well-meaning guy when he was a Democrat, when he was a Republican, as a non-partisan office-holder, and now as an Independent. I was among those who wrote in his name.

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