"You can go by foot
You can go by cow
Marvin K. Mooney, will you please go now."
Theodor Geisel, as "Dr. Seuss," 1972
President Trump won’t go.
Oregon Governor Tina Kotek, the Democratic incumbent, won’t let us forget it.
Trump said it himself: “Pretend, please, that I’m on the ballot.” He meant it as a favor to Republican candidates. It is a curse.
Christine Drazan, the Republican candidate for governor in Oregon, is one of the victims of Trump’s narcissism. Trump is not sending out bipartisan signals, nor is he doing anything to ease Democratic suspicion of a repeat of 2020, when he tried to overturn an election. He is still posting up a storm and talking about ballrooms and a triumphal arch. He is promising $5,000 payoffs if Republicans win, an offer so outrageous that even some Republicans dismiss it. He keeps insulting and picking fights with Canada. Canada! Our peaceful, reasonable, no-trouble neighbor and ally. He confirms every suspicion Democrats carry that Trump is careless and desperate. The moment they wonder whether they are being alarmist, whether everything is normal after all and they have simply fallen into a habit of derangement, Trump says something crazy at a rally. He praised Vivek Ramaswamy’s Ohio ad featuring his opponent’s estranged mother! It is as if he is trying to sabotage Republican candidates.
Poor Christine Drazan.
Governor Kotek is vulnerable. Oregon has its own problems, made worse by Trump, Kotek argues. Democrats have been in charge, and Kotek carries the malaise that hangs over every incumbent in this period of high prices and low consumer confidence. Bad feelings still linger from the Covid shutdowns. Nike and Intel are laying off people, and Portland office buildings have empty floors. Oregon has lost some of its luster.
Kotek has a Trump card: Drazan has been a good Republican. She isn’t aggressively MAGA, and she has not promised to bring Oregon into sync with Idaho and Alabama, but she is Trump-compliant. She is on the Trump team bus, even if she isn’t waving pom-poms and shouting “attaboy!” Kotek has seized on that compliance. A Kotek TV ad drives the point home, and it appears to be her closing argument. A mother talks about her daughter who was born with Down syndrome, and about how the family relies on the Oregon Health Plan. It puts a sympathetic face on Trump’s Medicaid cuts. The mother says:
"President Trump tried to cancel that funding. It would be catastrophic. Christine Drazan follows everything Trump wants to do. She tried to cut Medicaid, too. The most vulnerable are left in the dust, scrambling to survive. That's not right. That's the difference for governor. Christine Drazan will never stand up to Trump."
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Drazan won’t stand up to Trump. Frustration with Oregon government falls to insignificance next to Trump, who would do God-knows-what and doesn’t even pretend otherwise. Oregon is a target.
Drazan has an escape route but does not take it. Apparently Republicans think they cannot. Look at Mike Pence and Liz Cheney. Better to lose as a Republican than break free of Trump. Suppose Drazan were to denounce Trump forcefully -- his Medicaid cuts and tariffs and the harm they do Oregon, his crypto grift, his sale of pardons. Suppose she said Oregonians won’t tolerate Trump's blatant corruption, and said it so clearly that Trump condemned her as a RINO turncoat. Then I suspect she would win this race. I think there is a public appetite for an independent-minded Republican with the spunk to stand up to Trump. She might not need to take the scary step of breaking with Trump if he would just disappear for a while.
But Trump stays front and center, a wild card menace, but he won't go now.
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4 comments:
Tina Kotek is in bed with Communists Mohammed El-Sayed, AOC, Ilhan Omar, and Hassan Piker. What a team! Tina Kotek has failed Oregon the past 4 years. I don't want 4 more years of Failing Tina.
Trump has traveled around the country campaigning for GOP candidates. Have you seen Trump ever come to Oregon and campaign for Christine Drazan? No! Trump and Drazan have no connection.
Drazan would like that to be the case in the eyes of persuadable voters. She has a hard task, though, because Republicans simply cannot openly get off the Trump bus. Look at Massie. Cornyn. Flake. Romney. Cassidy. Kinsinger. And, of course, the Pence and Cheney I mentioned. She sees what Trump and the primary electorate will accept. You can mumble, but you cannot disagree with clarity. Cliff Bentz has the formula: do as instructed and keep your mouth shut. All Drazan needs to do to win, in my opinion, is to SHOW that she has no connection to Trump's string. She dare not. Good Republicans can spent 100 million dollars trying to sell a flawed candidate. It puts money into local media, so that is good. Lucky Patsy and KOBI. A car dealer can spend $100 million advertising a Prius as a vehicle to haul logs, but it won't work. Drazan does not do the thing that would save Oregon Republican donors the hundred million dollars, which is to assure Oregon voters she won't take orders from Trump. You don't do that by saying it a hundred million times. You accomplish that by daring to do it once. Oh, well. The money isn't wasted. It supports local media.
Until republicans grow a spine, they can’t be trusted.
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