"Tina Kotek doesn't care about Jackson County, or agriculture. She gets her votes in Portland. She doesn't need us, Peter. We are in her way."
I heard this yesterday from the man helping me establish a vineyard on my farm. He was supervising. He said he is a Republican, of course. The three men getting dirty trenching and laying water pipes wear Trump hats.
Rural Americans think Democrats don't like them.
Tina Kotek, a Portland Democrat was elected governor this week.
Democrat Tina Kotek: 46.7%
Republican Christine Drazan 43.8%
Independent Betsy Johnson: 8.7%
Oregon is still blue, with a Democratic governor, two Democratic U.S. senators, and Democrats in all the statewide offices. That fact hides a truer picture. Oregon is divided and the tide is going out for Democrats.
Baker County, opposite Boise, gave Kotek 17% of its vote. Drazan got 72%; Johnson got 10%.
Douglas County, the heart of timber country, gave Kotek 22% of the vote. Drazan got 68%; Johnson got 8.5%.
Yamhill County, in the Oregon's Pinot Noir zone and the home of Nick Kristof who writes about rural distress, gave Kotek 37%. Drazan got 54%; Johnson got 10%.
Lake County, an agricultural county on the southern border gave Kotek 10.4% of the vote. Drazan got 82%; Johnson got 6.
My own Jackson County, with both small cities and rural areas, was purple enough to have given a majority of votes to Obama in 2008. We have turned red. We gave Kotek 38% of the vote. Drazan got 54%; Johnson got 7%.
How did Kotek possibly win? She won in Lane County, the home of the University of Oregon, and in suburban Washington County, the home of Nike and a huge Intel operation. But mostly she won because Portland came through for her. She got 72% of the vote in Multnomah County, Oregon's largest county. Drazan got 20%; Johnson got 7%.
Democrats in Oregon and nationally have become the party of city people. They are the party of educated office workers. These are people with the luxury of being concerned about non-economic issues, like abortion and democratic process. Democrats give off a vibe of hostility to people for whom those issues aren't central. How could you possibly care more about the price of gasoline than you do about democracy itself?
Democrats also give off a vibe of hostility to the jobs of rural people in extractive industries. City people drive cars and use fossil fuels, but dislike drilling, fracking, transmission lines, and oil refining. Tim Ryan in oil-producing Ohio tried to distinguish himself from the Democratic brand in that area. He couldn't. Deep down, voters know he is a Democrat and Democrats hate fossil fuels, even though they depend on them.
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| A common window sticker in Southern Oregon pickup trucks. Kate Brown is the Democratic governor of Oregon |
There is a hypocrisy observed by rural people. City people like cheap building materials, but their environmental policies are suspicious of timber cutting. Recent summers of choking smoke from forest fires are awakening urban voters to the relation between timber management, tree cutting, and healthy forests. The 2020 summer of under-managed riots in Portland, combined with governor Kate Brown's persistent regulations to stop the spread of COVID, set a tone. Oregon Democrats were more in line with San Francisco and Seattle than with rural Oregon. Social distancing, masks, school closures, and shutdowns all seem more appropriate in densely populated areas than in small towns. The overall vibe downstate was that Oregon was run by city people, with city values, with city policies. Portland politicians--Democrats--can get away with it because Portland voters outvote everyone else. And they just did, yet again.
Betsy Johnson, who best represents rural frustration, failed to be a credible threat. Voters congealed around Drazen, not Johnson, when polls showed Johnson was a spoiler. The combined vote of Drazan and Johnson, 53%, should be a warning to Democrats. Democrats are outside the center of political gravity.
Tina Kotek has an opportunity to be a change agent. She may interpret the election as a signal to tack back to the center. Be more like Colorado than California. If so, there is a bright future for Oregon Democrats. It might go the other way. She is from Portland and may cocoon herself around like-minded people. She may double down on current policies. That will turn a blue state red. And it will obliterate downstate Democrats in local offices.
Tomorrow: The Portland brand nearly sunk Jeff Golden's re-election. He has skills that Republican PACs and campaign operatives fail to appreciate. He escaped the downstate red tide. He was fortunate that his opponent, Randy Sparacino, made foolish, self-destructive mistakes, which I think were the decisive difference. Sparacino could have won, but he blew it, and looks bad doing so.
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23 comments:
Special thanks for this paragraph.
“There is a hypocrisy observed by rural people. City people like cheap building materials, but their environmental policies are suspicious of timber cutting, which is the mechanism for paying for forest management. Recent summers of choking smoke blowing into cities from forest fires are awakening urban voters to the relation between timber management, tree cutting, and healthy forests.”
Kotek will not be a change agent. She is too beholden to public employee unions and the interest groups represented by the misnamed “Our Oregon. Should be “Their Oregon.” Rural people are aware of this also, while urbanites have a different bias.
https://www.oregonlive.com/politics/2022/11/melissa-unger-isnt-on-the-ballot-this-election-but-the-labor-leader-is-everywhere-in-oregon-politics.html
It isn’t that Democrats don’t like rural Americans. What we don’t like is the ongoing support of a pathological liar who tried to overthrow the government. To put it in terms a Trumplican evangelist might understand: We hate the sin, not the sinner.
The white-wingers may be right about Democrats being too soft on crime. We not only failed to arrest the ringleaders of an attempted coup, but now we’re handing over control of the House to the party that launched an armed attack against it less than two years ago. Only in America. Meanwhile, Trumplicans are already alleging election fraud – but only in the races they lost, of course.
As Lily Tomlin said, “No matter how cynical you get, it’s impossible to keep up.”
The urban/rural divide in Oregon is not new. I experienced in 1963, while running for a Statewide office for DeMolay. The most common complaint was that the Chapers from Portland, Salem, Eugene controlled what was done at the State level, and ignored the downstate groups, and those from East of the Cascades, and there were some very bitter remarks flying around. I was defeated in my efforts by a slightly older fellow from the Portland area, who promised he was going to use his father's airplane to make frequent visits to Chapters around the State. Much like our State Government executives, in the years I had left with that group, we never saw him again. A lot like Qliff Bentz so rarely showing up where someone might ask pointed questions and demand answers. And yet Bentz just won his Seat again, by a margin of two to one, against a highly qualified, decent man. It's quite discouraging, or can be, and I don't pretend to know the answer, and fear Tina Kotek is going to make the same mistakes Kate Brown did, by ignoring the undercurrent of dissatisfaction in a veryblarge part of the State.
Since when is being pregnant (for 3/4 of a year), with all the physical and mental health issues and risks involved, and being forced into motherhood (everyone who gives birth is a mother) not an economic issue?
It truly is astonishing that some individuals in the 21st century still do not understand this concept.
Women are still significantly economically disadvantaged. Pregnancy, or just being of childbearing age, compounds the problem. Unfortunately for females, this is another sad example of how half of the population has no understanding of women's bodies, women's healthcare and women's real lives.
Women still dominate in certain job categories and earn less than men. Maybe pause and think about the hotel maid, waitress and other low paying pink collar jobs and the effect an unwanted, unplanned pregnancy will have on her economic life. And she may or may not already have children that she can barely support.
Please also educate yourself about the health risks of being pregnant. Our health status (both men and women) has a direct effect on our economic status.
Maybe the problem is that many folks still think that all pregnant females have excellent healthcare and a healthy, successful breadwinner "to take care of her" OR generous sick/parental leave, a supportive boss/company and quality, affordable daycare. But this is simply not the case.
Kotek looks to me like an urban elite left-wing woke tool. I could probably write a simple bot that would exactly replicate all of her political positions.
I would be happy to be wrong about this, but her history is not promising; especially the way she screwed the Republicans by violating her pledge to them on redistricting.
Tina Kotek says that Peter has to get rid of his old diesel John Deere tractor, and replace it with a $250,000 electric tractor.
Tina says that Peter has to spend $100,000 for an outdoor air-filter system so that his outdoor pot garden doesn't pollute the environment.
Tina says that Peter can't have goats on his property to eat the weeds because goat farts pollute the environment.
Tina says that the fertilizer that Peter uses has to be specially refined to satisfy new government standards, so the price will be tripled.
Tina says that the seeds that Peter uses have to be government-approved, thus doubling their price.
Tina Kotek has a degree in RELIGION, and she previously worked for a non-profit organization. What the hell does Tina know about the real world?
Another way that an unwanted, unplanned pregnancy can be a significant factor in the economic lives of females, is if she drops out of school or does not further her education because she is pregnant and/or forced into motherhood.
Maternal health encompasses pregnancy, childbirth and the postpartum period after childbirth. Information about maternal morbidity and maternal mortality (death rates) is readily available on the internet.
Thank you, anonymous.
I wish more women felt as strongly and wrote as clearly as do you. A majority of White women voted for Trump in 2016 and again in 2020. I think democracy and abortion are hugely important, and I have written that way repeatedly. Many complain that I am tiresome about it and miss what is really important, i.e. inflation and gasoline prices and the affordability of living.
Please recognize that this blog gets constant criticism for taking the position you are asserting. May I suggest that you write Guest Posts for potential publication that advance this point of view.
Then my critics may not think I personally am stuck in a rut. Instead perhaps that I am speaking for many people.
Please, come out of anonymity and speak your mind, as you did here.
Peter Sage
Curt's comment is useful, so I published it.
Tina does not do ANY of those things, but Trump-oriented Republicans have this false caricature that they decry. It is useful to know the kinds of lies they spread. It is as if Democrats did turnabout and insisted that Republicans like Curt demand that we kill, boil, and eat brown babies because they are afraid of their being too many foreigners in the USA. Stop Republican baby-eating. They are monsters! They really,, really want to kill and eat babies!!!!!
It is useful to see what Republicans accuse Democrats of believing. It is a heads up and warning about what to be careful to avoid in one's message that could give that impression.
Peter Sage
The Dobbs decision was as influential in this election as I thought it would from the second it came down.
But it was NOT an issue in Oregon, just a campaign ploy, as the media, particularly the ignorant East Coast elite media, kept trying to make it out to be. We were just a pawn in their game.
It will continue to play out nationally. Roe had protected the GOP from having to make actionable decisions, and they have lost that armor now.
But even the different divides in Oregon are deep and bitter (as the election results by county posted upthread illustrate). We are not one state. This is not one country. I reread Orwell this past summer on the run up to WWII and the question of who would fight for England. And against Nazism.
Who would fight for this country?
How ironic that the far-right rants about the "urban elite" when their hero du jour, DeSantis, is an urban elite, right-wing, ant-woke tool.
Peter said:
It is useful to see what Republicans accuse Democrats of believing. It is a heads up and warning about what to be careful to avoid in one's message that could give that impression.
Getting Jungian here for a moment, there are political archetypes out there in the group mind. Woke crackpot is one of them; fascist authoritarian is another. They are magnetic; when you get too close to an archetype, it paints you in its colors regardless of the details of your political position.
Not many Democrats ever said, “defund the police.“ How did that phrase become a club that so many Democrats were beaten with? Their party got too close to the woke crackpot archetype.
Politics doesn’t happen at the level of rational thought. It happens at much deeper levels.
They simply don't care.
Meanwhile, republicans entire platform is "whatever Trump says".
How did that work out for them Tuesday?
About 1/4 republicans believe in conspiracy fantasies. This is why their party has no credibility among Democrats or Independents.
Thank you to Anonymous for their great comment and to you for your observations on it.
We Democrats are right about fossil fuels and their attendant environmental problems, global warming, the environment, saving lives from Covid, health care, equal treatment of minorities, abortion, gun safety and other issues. I am going to vote for people who support these positions and try to convince others of the rightness of them. What other choice do we have?
There is nothing "big city" about these positions other than many rural voters disagree.
Anonymous II
I believe it is way past due that candidates for political office are required to take a knowledge exam. Including but not limited to: Civics, Politics, American History, International History, Ethics, and Foreign Policy...and while we are at it throw in a drug test. I am confident that this would weed out the low IQ candidates and maybe make government more intelligent and efficient. It seems like less serious jobs or occupations require more scrutiny than what is required for politicians.
To: Mc
About 63% of Democrats believe in killing babies fantasies. This is why their party has no credibility among Republicans or Independents.
My take is that the voters, albeit by too slim a margin, came to the belief that Gov. Kotek is more credible problem solver and that is testimony to the fact that voters aren't buying Republican bull pucky, at least some of them.
I don't necessarily agree that Johnson pulled Democratic votes. It seems more likely to me that she'd appeal to contrarian NAVs and MAGA shy Republicans.
Peter; an inability to respond to Curt @ 12:56 PM and his blatant lie is extremely frustrating.
Peter, I continue to read, enjoy and think about your blog posts. Your posts discussing the dems missing the needs of working class folks have a counter argument in "We Were Eight Years in Power" by Ta-Nehisi Coates. Worth a thoughtful read.
Brief follow up, a few days late.
According to Pew (June 30, 2021), in 2020 women voted for Biden 55% vs. Traitor Trump 44%. I don't know about white women in particular nor do I really care. I will add that many of them are evangelical nationalists or conservative Catholics and Jews, so obviously they will vote based on their extreme fundamentalist religious beliefs and whatever their like-minded husbands tell them to do.
Second, the reason I submitted the comment was to point out that abortion IS AN ECONOMIC ISSUE for females and their families. It was a direct response to what you wrote in the blog. Thanks
Do you mean killing babies by denying them health care or SNAP benefits, like they do in the red states.
Face it: you're afraid of educated women.
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