Oregon Republicans elected Dennis Linthicum to be their nominee for secretary of state.
He joined a lawsuit protesting the 2020 election.
Many of us had hoped that the Oregon GOP would start to get reasonable in the face of repeated defeats in statewide elections. Alas, they are going in the other direction, deeper into MAGA craziness.
Republican candidates and officeholders have a perennial complaint about Oregon politics. They say they are outvoted. Eastern Oregon rural counties talk about leaving Oregon and becoming part of Idaho out of frustration that most people in Oregon -- the people in the Portland metropolitan area -- vote for Democrats. State senators from Republican areas don't have the influence they think they deserve. Republican state senators in Oregon left the state capitol and hid from the sergeant at arms and state police to stop unwanted legislation by denying a quorum. Democrats have a super-majority.
Oregon voters acted. Voters passed a constitutional amendment to stop the practice of abandoning their posts with a rule that any senator with 10 unexcused could not run for re-election.
Oregon Republicans complain they are locked out of winning statewide offices. There is a reason for this. They usually nominate un-serious candidates.
Kim Thatcher, the GOP candidate in 2000 for Oregon's chief election official, the secretary of state, became an advocate for the Texas lawsuit to throw out Biden's electoral votes in Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin. The Supreme Court denied certiorari. Thatcher looks like a MAGA fringe candidate, suitable for local election in deep red districts, but not for statewide office.
Republicans did it again. Dennis Linthicum, one of the Oregon state senators from a bright red district, who is barred from running for re-election because he joined the walkout, was in the news in two ways this week. The first is that he won the nomination to be the chief election official. The second is that the class action lawsuit he was party to that claimed widespread fraud was just denied certiorari by the U.S. Supreme Court.
Linthicum's lawsuit made assertions based on speculations and rumors. It cited the movie "2000 Mules" as an authority. It conflated suspicion and allegations with evidence. Their filing is a list of conspiracy theories. Read it and see.
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Of special interest to me is item 46, page 12 of their filing:
Fraud in two Oregon counties, Jackson and Marion Counties, is so rampant that Jackson and Marion Counties are identified by Capt. Keshel among the 100 counties having the most fraud in the United States.
Rampant fraud in Jackson County? Fraud here?
Jackson County Clerk Chris Walker, a lifelong Republican serving in a nonpartisan office, said she had "absolutely no idea what they were talking about, and no idea what problem they think we had here."
The lawsuit prays for relief in the form of ending mail-in balloting and ending machine-counting of ballots.
Linthicum will face off against Tobias Read in the general election in November. Read might have a serious challenge against a serious Republican, but Linthicum is easy to portray as a kooky extremist deep into MAGA conspiracies. He did not draw a conclusion based on evidence. He is repeating the Trump line. That makes him dangerously unsuited for a job as Oregon's chief election official.
If Republicans want a chance at winning statewide offices then they need to nominate better candidates.
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11 comments:
Oregons Republicans refuse to acknowledge a simple solution to their Minority status; Try offering programs and policies people like.
The far right in Josephine County just nominated a Candidate, Nosh Robinson for State Senate, whose campaign consisted of his promises to vote No on every Bill which comes up.
Several communities in the District he purports to Represent missed receiving several Million dollars in Infrastructure Funding because his peers from the District like Yunker and Art Robinson didn't do their jobs, which is supposed to be representing all the residents in their District, not just the Q types. The same things can because of our Representation in Congress by Qliff Bentz, who, the lady time I checked, in nearly 4 years in Congress has yet to bring a single Bill to the floor which might help his Constituents. He did manage to vote No on every Bill which proposed helping the Veterans Administration with infrastructure and Staffing.
A followup:
On several occasions I have told elected Republicans from this District my proposed solution to their situation. In each case, If they didn't just hang up the telephone, I would find myself blocked from the email or Social Media
After Jan. 6, the Oregon Republican Party issued a resolution claiming the insurrection was “a false flag operation” designed to make Trump and Republicans look bad, as if they needed any help. Not to be outdone, Jackson County Republicans chimed in later with a resolution rejecting the results of the 2020 election. They’d rather be in Idaho, but instead of moving there they want it to move here. As Lindsey Graham once observed, “My party’s gone batshit crazy.” That isn’t name-calling, it’s pointing out the obvious.
When Trump was elected in 2016, some wise guys blamed it on Obama. After all he was Black, so the racist backlash, electing the biggest blowhard in the birther movement, must be his fault. Now they blame his resurgence on “the elites.” What a crock. Trump’s election is solely the fault of those who vote for him in spite of his blatant contempt for truth, justice and democratic principles.
If Republicans want a chance at winning statewide offices then they need to nominate better candidates.
Given the overwhelming electoral weight of the bright blue Portland area, it might be more accurate to say that if Republicans (I.e. rural voters) want a chance at winning statewide, they need to nominate Democrats.
I went to the local Republican shindig downtown and learned that democrats were mutilating children, demo’d dams that made no energy were ultra important and a natural born boy competitively running with girls was near apocalyptic. Nothing about the local commerce environment being absolutely devoid of commerce unless you’re one of the few and far between able to thrive in it at the cost of the majority who can’t.
Nevertheless I talked to Mr and Mrs Linthicum for a minute and found out he represented me. The next day I saw them again at my local McDonald’s where he proceeded to walk out the door 15’ ahead of his wife in tow and then walked out with no regard to have it slam in her face by the time she got there.
That was all I needed to see.
I should have said "suggested" instead of told.
It sounds as though he was emulating private citizen Trump. Did he mention that his wife had been his Chief of Staff when he was still in the State Senate ? Nothing like a little Nepotistic double dipping to fatten a bank account.
If by “Democrats” you mean “moderates”, then yes. See Vermont and Maryland - both heavily Democratic states with very popular GOP governors.
Mt. Cambodia; Thanks for attending that debacle so the rest of us didn't need to.
Mister, not Mt. My apologies for not proofing.
Conservatives whine about a lack of representation and then vote against a measure that would increase representation.
They'd rather bitch than solve problems.
I can't wait until we can drown the republican party in a bathtub.
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