Who is this Clay Bearnson guy?
Republicans in the Oregon Senate District 3 race just changed tactics.
If Democrats don’t want Republican Brad Hicks, there is an alternative: Vote for a third-party candidate.
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| Clay Bearnson website photo |
Regular readers of this blog know the situation well by now. Democratic state Senator Jeff Golden did not run for reelection. Denise Krause won a contested Democratic primary to replace him. Brad Hicks won an uncontested Republican primary. After a few weeks this summer of soft, positive ads introducing the two candidates, both switched to “comparison ads,” i.e., harsh characterizations of the other candidate’s values and future positions. (Hicks claimed Krause started it. No. He is being dishonest. I received a nasty Hicks door-hanger on September 8, five days before the TV slugfest began on September 13.) It does not surprise me that both candidates might want to distance themselves from the ad war. Between Hicks’ $2.5 million from Republican and corporate PACs and Krause’s $1.3 million from Democratic party and union sources, voters may feel exhausted by the vitriol. I do.
That is the opportunity for a third-party spoiler. Clay Bearnson, a Medford bar owner and former Medford city councilor, filed as a candidate and got onto the ballot with the endorsements of the Independent Party and the Pacific Green Party. I have heard repeated rumors that a few local Democrats, disappointed that Krause narrowly defeated Tonia Moro in the primary, encouraged him to run. It looked to me like a bit of score-settling involving very few people, and I saw almost no activity from Bearnson, so I dismissed his campaign. His candidacy was being buried by the huge campaigns of Hicks and Krause.
Recently the situation changed. Republicans sent a postcard to Democratic households, pretending to "warn" them that Bearnson was positioned to the left of Krause. The gist: Don’t vote for this person who wants healthcare for all!
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| Sent as a text to Democrats |
Now Republicans are promoting Bearnson openly. Democrats are getting text messages praising him for not taking campaign donations, contrasting him with Krause, and identifying him as the Pacific Green candidate.
You learn who paid for the texts by unsubscribing from more texts. It is The Leadership Fund, the campaign arm of Oregon’s Senate Republicans, which funds Republican Senate candidates, Hicks included.
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| Paid by: The Leadership Fund |
Will this tactic work? It does have potential with late voters who may have developed a “pox on both houses” feeling about the campaign. I suspect it is an admission that Hicks cannot get Democrats to vote for a Trump-supporting Republican this year. The national GOP has a message: Democrats are communist, socialist, tax-wasting, police-hating, baby-killing freaks. Democrats know when they are held in contempt.
A vote for Bearnson has only half the value of a vote for Hicks, since it is only a vote denied to Krause. But in a close election, those lost votes can be decisive. Word has gone out to local Republican activists to start promoting Bearnson. Former Republican County Commissioner Dave Dotterrer now has a Bearnson sign in front of his house, along with a Hicks sign.
My own sense is that this is too little, too late. And their messages contradict themselves. Republicans are now selling Bearnson as a good choice for Democrats after spending enormous sums to call Krause as “just another loyal Democrat,” cementing the message that Krause is the Democratic choice.
I recognize that the Hicks campaign is gigantic. If you can sell anything by spending enough on advertising, then Hicks can win this election. This is a natural experiment for that proposition.
I might be wrong, of course, but I still expect Krause to win. Why? Because Hicks ended up sending an implicit message that no amount of money can sell this year, and he did it with his own advertising. He demonstrated that he is a Republican soldier in a Republican army that will spend whatever it takes to win for the party. Mr. Republican. He sold the wrong thing.
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I know Clay Bearnson, and I watched him for 8 years on the Medford City Council. Clay Bearnson has historically been a Democrat, and he's as liberal as any Democrat who reads this blog. (That's just the facts). In my opinion, Bearnson was recruited by the Hicks campaign to run for state senate in order to take-away votes from Denise Krause. Otherwise, Bearnson has done virtually no campaigning for this election. He may have spent $2,000 at most. Bearnson is a bar owner (and a marijuana seller), and he has a small cadre of voters in West Medford that vote for him every election no matter what. The Hicks campaign is hoping that Bearnson can steal 5% of Democrats votes from Krause, so that Krause barely loses. For those thinking of voting for Bearnson, know that he brings nothing to the table, and Medford was at its worst when Bearnson was running the show. Bearnson is a joke. Finally, the Republican Leadership Fund is run by corporate PACs, and not by conservatives. Basically, the Chamber of Commerce runs the Republican Party in Oregon. That's who they represent. The Chamber, and not you.
ReplyDeleteI have already voted and I wouldn’t throw my vote away on a slow motion booze peddler. Jell-O shots ain’t gonna fix Salem. He does have a point, though. Upwards of $4 million spent on a local race, and half $1 billion on Senate races? Nobody benefits from the spending sprees except consultants and media companies.
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