Purifying the Oregon GOP

Sam Carpenter:" Make Oregon Great Again"

Sam Carpenter says Oregon is Trump County.

"We Oregon grassroots Republicans have swallowed the assumption of “Blue Oregon' . . . . The misconception that Oregon is different is a result of the mainstream media, our own anemic Oregon Republican Party (we NEED a change in leadership), and an embedded chronic willingness to bow to the progressive Left.'

Sam Carpenter wasted no time in starting his campaign for chairmanship of the Oregon GOP. 

He wrote me the day after the November election. Knute Buehler lost, he said, because he was a RINO--a Republican in Name Only. We should have nominated a real Republican, a pro-Trump Republican, he said. 

Someone like him. 

This blog has examined the progressive left and the indecision by Democrats on how to position themselves on key issues: expanding health care access and immigration enforcement. Democrats who are "liberal" vs. "progressive" are haggling over what the public will consider small points on how to deliver health care.  No Democrat has a coherent, full-throated voice on immigration. Saying one "wants comprehensive immigration reform" is a stall tactic and Democrats are feeling their way on that issue.

Trump projects a strong message; Democrats haven't yet picked a leader, so their message is diffuse. And divided.

Blue Oregon: Votes are in Portland

There is division in the GOP, too. 

In Oregon GOP primary voters selected Knute Buehler (46%) over Sam Carpenter (29%) and Greg Wooldridge (20%). Carpenter and Wooldridge are Republicans in the ascendentTrump style. Knute Buehler was a Republican in the style once common in Oregon, the Packwood-Hatfield-McCall-Atiyeh style, one which has won statewide offices in the past.  Buehler, who won a plurality but not a majority, is Trump-skeptical. He talks of bipartisan cooperation. Buehler said he is pro choice on abortion (but doesn't want the state to pay for it), that he did not support the Kavanaugh nomination, and he was open to some form of gun regulation.

Sam Carpenter had a description for him: "lightweight-progressive."

Knute lost the statewide vote. He lost areas in Portland by an astounding 93-7% margin, and lost the entire Multnomah County by a 4 to 1 margin. A loss that profound seeks an explanation. Sam Carpenter has one. 

Carpenter says the path to victory is recognizing that GOP voters are Trump supporters, and so are a lot of silent Democrats and Non-Affiliated voters. On December 10 he posted on Facebook that Buehler "catered to the left, thumbed his nose at his own base" and used blue, of all things, as a color on his signs. In Carpenter's analysis,"A mere 10% better showing in the metro-areas, combined with a 95% backing of excited grassroots Republicans, would have won him the election."

From the active Carpenter Facebook site

Carpenter may be right. The GOP electorate electorate appears to have become comfortable with Trump's re-made Party. In the Medford-Ashland primary election campaign in May for an open state senate seat, a wildly improbable Trump-supporting Curt Ankerberg got almost exactly half the votes against Jessica Gomez who presented herself as a non-Trump Republican, rather like Knute Buehler. Gomez outspent him 30 to 1, and enjoyed the overwhelming support of visible civic leaders. Ankerberg was embroiled in controversy over sanctions from the IRS. He explained the IRS problem by saying he was medically unfit. He nearly won anyway.

Parties work to clean out political heresy so that they have a coherent brand. Trump is the spokesman for the GOP brand, and Republicans who are unwilling to accept that need to be  silenced or marginalized. After all, they confuse the voters about what it means to be a Republican. 

When those policy heretics lose elections they empower their detractors. They lost in Oregon.

The process of marginalizing the non-Trump Republicans is underway.