Let them eat cake

     "I don’t wear a mask like him [Biden.] Every time you see him, he’s got a mask. He could be speaking 200 feet away from him and he shows up with the biggest mask I’ve ever seen."

       Donald Trump, mocking Biden at the Tuesday debate.

Donald Trump has his message.  Masks are for wimps.

The October Surprise is COVID's message.

Ivanka Trump at the Debate. She refused a mask.

The COVID virus has spread throughout the Trump White House inner circle, and beyond. Both Donald and Melania Trump caught the virus. Campaign manager Bill Stepien caught it. Advisor Hope Hicks, Advisor Kellyanne Conway, and RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel caught it. The President of Notre Dame, John Jenkins, Senator Mike Lee, and Senator Tom Tillis, who attended a Rose Garden event with the President, all caught it. Mike Lee brought it to the Senate Judiciary Committee, where he didn't wear a mask. We will see what happens there.

Trump and his entourage held a big fundraiser in New Jersey, even after they knew they were exposed to Hope Hicks. They didn't wear masks and they didn't mention Hope Hicks to the guests.

There had been protocols in place at the Tuesday debate requiring those in attendance, including the family members, to wear masks. Fox anchor Chris Wallace reported that the First Family removed their masks on entering and refused to wear them. He said, "A health person from the Cleveland Clinic came up to the first family when they were seated and offered them masks in case they didn’t have them, and they were waved away."

Trump is defining the Republican message on the virus and what to do about it. 

     1. The virus is all China's fault. Blame them.

     2. It really isn't that bad and the only people at risk are people already sick.

     3. Don't inconvenience yourself with masks, social distancing, economic slowdown or school closures, because the cure is worse than the disease.

     4. Masks are wimpy and a product of government nanny state over-reach, and you should be free not to bother. He doesn't. His family doesn't. His rally crowds don't. 

Trump planted his flag. He is a mask skeptic. He is for freedom. 

Meanwhile, Joe Biden, upon the news of Trump's COVID diagnosis, urged all Americans to wear a mask in public and called for a "national mask mandate."  He called Trump's diagnosis,"a bracing reminder to all of us that we have to take this virus seriously. It’s not going away automatically….The news is a reminder that we as a nation need to do better in dealing with this pandemic.”

Biden planted his flag.

The October Surprise may have already happened, the Tuesday debate. Trump's manner exposed him as a civic vandal, disrupting an American tradition. He was the crying infant on the plane, the cougher at the concert, the dog that won't stop barking, and he did it on purpose and at length. The debate may have sealed his fate with swing voters.

The October Surprise may have just happened: Trump getting COVID. It shows the disease can happen to anyone and that careless people get it, and that selfish people spread it. The news shows give us updates on Trump's health every 20 minutes. If COVID danger is the subject, then Biden is winning.

The October Surprise may be trickling in, as we learn the outcome of the disease from the various prominent people. If, over the next four weeks, everyone who gets the virus appears to get healthy and with minimum consequences, then the Surprise might be a partial validation of Trump. That is the story Trump is attempting right now, with happy tweets saying he is fine and concluding with all caps "LOVE!"

The news that dribbles out could go the other way, and if one of the famous people becomes very sick or dies. If a couple of Republican Senators die, tracked back to Mike Lee and Trump, that would change the Senate and the story. If Joe Biden gets the virus, tracked back to Trump at the debate, it would be a different story frame, this one of dueling candidates in hand to hand conflict, let the better immune system win.

An October Surprise the Trump campaign needs  to fear would be infection of a sympathetic victim who develops a following: a Black or Latinix member of the kitchen staff or uniformed members of the security detail or presidential transportation staff. It is one thing for Trump to go to a fundraiser and sicken fat cats--hey, they wanted that selfie--but another to infect a person whose job required them to be there, protecting someone who is casually, thoughtless spreading the disease. They don't want the story that Ivanka Trump couldn't be bothered with a mask and the pilot of Marine One died, leaving a widow and kids. They don't want BLM or Latinix groups with signs calling Trump a killer. Trump connected with the White working class "forgotten American" back in 2016 and his rallies have shown he has maintained a bond with many of them. That could be broken if Trump and his family are thought to be treating them as disposable saps.

We have seen spoiled rich people in life. They are seen as villains  The public recoiled on learning entitled Hollywood people paid, cheated, and connived to get their children into USC and Duke. We know that character type. High school students read The Great Gatsby in English class.

     "They were careless people, Tom and Daisy--they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together and let other people clean up the mess they had made."

COVID has come to the White House. In October we will learn which creatures get smashed up. 

 Click: NBC

Trump's COVID spotlight: Kamala Harris

Trump has COVID. 

This changes the subject from him being a belligerent jerk at the "debate," back to COVID. 

Trump getting COVID is a convenient October surprise. Or not a surprise, exactly. After all, he modeled behavior that was risky and carefree, so he caught the virus. Of course.

Within spitting distance

Trump may believe the "debate" helped him. Trump thinks the election is about domination. He dominated, so he won.  The polls say no. The red faced belligerent Trump communicated obnoxious rudeness, and therefore it hurt him among whatever swing voters might exist. He went too far.

Now the story is all about Trump and COVID, and there are two big frames. 

Frame One: Culpable "play-it-down" Trump mismanaged the virus and gets what he deserves. Trump complains of "the China virus" and says he saved millions of lives by banning travel from China in February. That implies that the virus is a big deal, but the real thrust of the Trump message is the opposite, that the virus is not all that big a deal, and not worth over-reacting to. Don't let the cure be worse than the disease, he said. 

Any American voter paying attention at all understands who is on which side: Trump and Republicans downplay the virus and say we should re-open schools and the economy generally. Biden and Democrats say it is a big deal and we should be very cautious. Trump and his family scoff at caution and masks. A rule of thumb in rural and exurban America is that if someone is refusing to wear a mask or is flouting its purpose by wearing it under the chin, that person is a Trump supporter.

Perennial story, this one from March 7, 2020

Democrats immediately thought of Herman Cain when Trump said that "nobody" got sick from his rallies, and Democrats point a finger of blame at Trump for the 200,000-plus people whose deaths have been attributed to COVID. Trump getting the virus is a condemnation of Trump's policies. Trump's COVID diagnosis puts Trump and COVID failure back in the spotlight.

All in all, that is very good for Biden in the election.

Frame Two: Strong Trump, frail Biden. It is Trump, not Biden, who caught the disease, so at first glance it would appear to be a simple morality play: the careless guy gets sick and the careful guy is safe. Unfortunately for Democrats, it isn't that simple. 

August, 2019, Iowa

Trump is making a big show of carrying on without interruption. He is Mr. Tough Guy; the virus can't stop him. Now the meaning of strong and dominant changes from the "debate" meaning of belligerent jerk wrecking something 80 million people turned in to see, to one of health. If Trump can get the virus, anyone can. Including Biden.

I have seen both Biden and Trump up close. Trump is thick, usually covered by a dark blue suit, with padded shoulders. Wearing golf shorts, Trump looks soft and chubby, but he usually appears in his presidential suit. If his height is indeed 6' 3" and his weight is indeed 245, then he is technically "obese" but in the standards of American men he looks strong rather than couch potato soft--especially when he wears his navy blue suits against a white shirt, with the lapels making  V-shape that suggests a manly narrowing to the middle.  All in all, he looks beefy.

Biden is a healthy weight, which makes him, by American standards, slender. He looks small by comparison. At the "debate" Biden looked pale. Pale was a very good way to look in the debate, making him appear cool and poised in comparison Trump's red-faced bellicosity. However, in the context of health and the ability to shake off the COVID virus, the polarity changes. Pale means something else, frail. 

Most American men in their mid-70's who get COVID survive it. Statistically, Trump will, too, even though he has the co-morbidities of age and weight. Statistically, so would Biden, slightly older, but not overweight. The overall attention on presidential vulnerability, though, may work against Biden at least as strongly as against Trump. Polls suggest most American voters have gotten comfortable with the idea of Biden as the replacement for Trump, replacing a bull in a china shop with a low key generic Democratic alternative. The "debate" emphasized that difference. But the COVID diagnosis for Trump puts Biden's vigor back into the spotlight. And that accelerates the position of Kamala Harris as a potential imminent backup to Biden, not a distant, theoretical one. Biden might get COVID. He might have caught it from Trump who was blasting him from ten feet away just last Tuesday. If Biden gets sick--as presidents could, we see--she would take over. She has been introduced to Americans, but we don't know her yet.

Trump's COVID diagnosis changes the race. Frames One and Two combine together this way: Yes, COVID is dangerous and Trump screwed it up, so Biden might get it. Are we really comfortable with President Kamala Harris? We need to see more of her, soon.

Trump defends the Proud Boys

A brand is a promise. Trump has a brand.

He is faithful to his tribe.

You know what you get when you order a Big Mac. Wherever you are, day or night, a Big Mac is consistent. A brand isn't a statement of quality; it is a statement of reliability. Two beef patties, one slice of cheese, chopped lettuce, a bun with sesame seeds on top, dill pickle slices, and a special sauce.

It is what it is. 

Donald Trump surprised and disappointed some people with his squishy answer at the debate when he refused to denounce right wing paramilitary groups or urge them to avoid violent interventions in the upcoming election. Pundits called it a missed "easy lay-up shot" because they consider it obvious that a president and candidate would--should--denounce violence by White supremacist groups. He didn't miss. He nailed a three-pointer from deep. 

Trump proved his brand. He turned the question into a denunciation of Antifa and leftists, addressed the Proud Boys and told them to "stand back and stand by" ready to monitor and engage in volunteer unregulated police actions. He didn't denounce them. He coached them. The Proud Boys, and unorganized people aligned with them, are White citizens with guns, standing against Black Lives Matter protests. They are in Trump's tribe.

Proud Boys, Portland

The fundamental promise in the Trump political brand is tribal. He isn't a role model of virtue. Quite the opposite. Trump gets criticized by people who think he ought to have different values. Trump's brand isn't personal virtue, nor faithfulness to rules, norms, and the law, nor national uniter. His brand is that he takes the side of his tribe even if--especially if--when doing so is hard and unexpected. 

Trump praised militia group at Governor's office in Michigan

He was criticized for clearing a park of peaceful demonstrators with a chemical spray in order to stride to the nearby church to hold up a Bible. That action had all the perfect elements of brand reinforcement. The action offended the virtues of respect for peaceful protest. He offended the liberal Bishop of the church where he did the photo-op. He was mocked for having held the Bible upside down and for being unchurched and personally irreligious. He was widely called hypocritical and a phony, including in this blog. 

He offended virtue, rules, laws, tradition, and national unity, all for a public demonstration to wave the flag of his tribe. Trump suffered for the sins of his people. The New York Times' disdain is his cross. His tribe noticed. Christ Trump.

Proud Boys

Trump spoke of "good people on both sides" in Charlottesville. This was another proof of brand. He supported the White couple in the gated community in St. Louis who brandished guns in the face of Black and White protesters walking past their home. Their actions were provocative and illegal but Trump defended and showcased them. More proof of brand. A 17-year old traveled to Kenosha bringing an AR-15 to a protest as a self-appointed militia, got into some altercations and killed two people. Trump praises him. More proof.

If McDonalds changed its recipe for a Big Mac when the price of beef or cheese went up, or when spinach was more plentiful than lettuce, it might be more healthy food, but health isn't their promise. The promise is that a Big Mac is a Big Mac.

Trump's fights for his tribe, whether they are right or wrong.  Not everyone is going to like what Trump is serving up, but this is still a White majority country, there are still more people without college diplomas than with them, and a great many--55%--of White Americans tell polls they believe Whites are discriminated against. Click  Trump has his niche.

The Proud Boys look rough and dangerous in the eyes of that swing state suburban woman voter. The preppy-looking White boys in Charlottesville were another hard case; they looked so privileged and self-satisfied. A 17 year old with a machine gun has to make people nervous. Trump defends hard cases.

There may still be enough people to get him up and over 270 electoral votes, but polls suggest Trump's appeal has dropped. Trump could have tried calling himself "new and improved." Nixon did in 1968 and it worked for him, the "New Nixon." 

In 2020 Trump chose to double down and be the same, only more. It isn't working. Brands get stale and sometimes customers are ready for something new.

Chris Wallace: "Mr. President, please stop."

 Trump was a steamroller. 

Red faced and belligerent, Trump interrupted and heckled and took charge of the night.

Trump's debate performance was no accident. 

We start with a premise that Donald Trump knew what he was doing. Trump meant to interrupt and talk over Biden, meant to  badger Biden and get him sputtering with frustration, meant to tie Biden up in knots and get him to say something stupid or weak or spitting mad, and to make a gaffe.

Overall the game plan was for Trump to be the rule-breaking alpha male. It worked. Trump dominated the room. 

He dominated the room the way an angry screaming three-year-old does. Wallace and Biden were the parents, frustrated and helpless. It wasn't pretty. It wasn't a "food fight" or a "wrestling match." That would imply that Wallace and Biden were there to slug back and did so effectively. They didn't. Biden and Wallace were over-matched.

What could Trump have been thinking?

Maybe Trump is thinking this is a base election and all about turnout. Belligerent Trump may thrill his supporters, but the important job last night was to de-motivate progressives. There are more young leftists up for grabs than there are suburban soccer mom undecided voters. Trump wasn't looking to make friends. He was looking to turn Biden's reluctant progressive friends into non-voters.

Trump repeatedly accused Biden of being a tool of the crazy, job-killing, socialist, police-hating far left. Trump dared him to deny it, and Biden did just that. Trump got Biden to say that he did not support AOC's Green New Deal, or socialism, or defunding the police. Biden sounded like a moderate--a soft spoken, unassertive one. 

Biden attempted to speak directly to the audience, ignoring Trump. That part came across as sincere and earnest. He was constantly interrupted and made to look helpless in getting out his message. No Bernie-loving progressive could come away confident that Biden will be able to implement a progressive agenda. He couldn't even get three sentences out. How could he get laws passed?

Or maybe Trump has a different thought.

Maybe Trump is thinking the election has already been lost at the ballot box, so there is no option other than belligerent rule breaking.  

In politics and life, you take what you can.

Trump communicates profound distrust of the upcoming election, raising the prospect it will be settled amid civil unrest, by the courts, not by counting votes. He is adamant that mailed votes are likely fraudulent, rigged by Democrats to steal the election, at least in swing states, and he specifically pointed to Pennsylvania. His campaign has filed numerous lawsuits to confound mail voting. Trump is laying the predicate for demanding that mailed votes be impounded, disallowed, not counted, or be counted in methods that are too slow to finish on time to render a decision. Amid delays, and violent demonstrations, friendly federal courts would decide a disputed election in his favor. That's the plan outlined in The Atlantic, and which Chris Wallace addressed.

Chris Wallace gave a softball pitch, asking each candidate to assure voters that each would respect the will of the people. Biden said, of course. 

Trump said the opposite. He said that the upcoming election was already fraudulent, that he was being cheated, that mail ballots cannot be trusted. Chris Wallace asked Trump what he meant when he said "Bad things happen in Philadelphia." 

Trump said, "I'll tell you what it means. It means you have a fraudulent election."

Trump said he expected violence from "antifa and the left" and that he wanted White paramilitary support groups to "stand back and stand by" having a presence at voting venues, ready to get involved in the upcoming conflict. Trump is coaching civil unrest in an election he already calls illegitimate. Tuesday's debate wasn't the "shit show" news anchors used to describe the event. The "shit show" comes on election night and thereafter. This is the preview.

Trump's debate performance was a clear signal that the election is not about policy choices. That would take place in a normal presidential debate. Trump sees the election as a cage fight, with no rules other than winning. You don't win cage fights with nice words and decorum. If you can talk during the other candidate's time, you do it. If a supposed referee tries to stop you, ignore him. It is about power. That is the way of the world, now and always. If he doesn't get the votes, he will win by not counting the votes. He can, so he will. 

Only the naive think otherwise.

Trump taxes: "That makes me smart."

Trump's taxes. He looks like a cheater. That's on brand for Trump. That's not the problem.

The problem is that he insulted us by arranging to pay $750 in 2016 and 2017. It's like getting a nickel tip.

The outlaw hero is supposed to make a fool out of the enemy, not us.

Western literature begins with trickery. The Greeks loved it when their heroes employed deception. The Iliad described those gullible Trojans, falling for the Greek gift. Odysseus made his way home fooling and confounding the Cyclops and Sirens, then deceived Penelope's suitors in order to ambush and kill them. Clever.

World War Two--that great morality play of good and evil in American consciousness--involved a "sneak attack" against us in that day of infamy. Our heroic acts include our secret landing at Normandy while creating  the deception at Calais, and Britain having broken the Enigma code but keeping that secret.

We delight when our heroes deceive. Deception isn't a problem--so long as it isn't us being the one deceived.

A big element of Donald Trump's political success is that he comes off as the trickster. He is Mr. Cool about it, a Hugh Hefner type getting what he wants from the ladies, a James Bond type at dispatching enemies, the moonshine running Bandit staying one step ahead of the Smokey at the IRS with their supposed endless audit.

"I'm rich. Really rich," Trump said. Republican voters liked nominating a wheeler-dealer real estate tycoon. That was a feature, not a bug. Withholding his taxes became a positive with his base because it was teasing Democrats and the media. You want it? Sure, soon. Just wait. It was Trump with a twinkle in his eye. Beg some more. 

All in all, it was good optics and positioning for Trump among voters inclined to dislike and distrust Democrat and the media.

Now the news about Trump's taxes. He insulted us. Big mistake.

It is not surprising that Trump has complicated taxes. People involved with real estate know about non-cash depreciation expenses, tax credits, and rules that allow people simultaneously to make money while deducting everyday expenses as "business expenses," to employ one's children, to going bankrupt and then re-negotiate the debt, to take tax losses for money discharged in bankruptcy, and--amid having lots of money to spend lavishly on oneself--for tax purposes have no taxable income!  What a deal!

It is a confusing, arcane game, and Trump played it aggressively. He cites that game in tweets of protest. 

What hurts him is that he got cute. 

His accountants were shifting tens of millions of dollars back and forth between income and expenses, and then Trump came down to a figure he wanted to pay, $750, for each of two years. Exactly $750. He wanted a gesture, a token. Just enough to satisfy the "little people," the people who pay taxes based on W-2 income. See, he pays taxes.

He thought $750 was about right. His New York bathrooms have gold fixtures. 

Had he paid a million dollars in taxes, or paid no taxes, citing a loss carry-forward of millions of dollars, then it would have been an entirely different message. It would have been what everyone knows in the back of their minds, that wheeler-dealer real estate tycoons have incomprehensible taxes with big numbers.

Paying $750 in taxes, though, revealed his character. He is a piker. He is a trickster, sure, but he is tricking us, not the IRS. He wants to pretend to us that he is a taxpayer. He manufactured a number, and he thought about $750 would be about right to satisfy us.  It is like getting a nickel tip.

Paying big taxes is a message of wealth. Paying no taxes is a message of wealth. Paying taxes of $750 is a message that he thinks we are gullible suckers. 

Trump: "strongly demanding a Drug Test"

 Trump tweets about testing Joe Biden for drugs.

Meanwhile, COVID cases are rising, Trump paid no taxes, and unemployment is 8.4%.  

Trump is a genius.

Donald Trump is willing to go on stage and sweat.  He will do anything, anything, to get attention. 

Within circles of standup comics, "doing a sweat show" means a comic is willing to do anything for a laugh. Something outrageous. Something humiliating. Something painful. Something like banging out the William Tell Overture with spoons against one's face. Or eating a live tarantula.  Or smashing watermelons with an oversize hammer. It is so weird and desperate that the audience laughs in some mixture of horror and admiration that the comic did something so outrageous.

 The cliche is to set your hair on fire. That is one thing Trump does not do. He coddles his hair.

He is in the news today for spending $70,000 on his hair in one year, and taking it as a tax deduction, as does Ivanka Trump with her $110,000 in grooming deductions. Trump paid zero taxes most years over the past fifteen, and $750 a year in 2015 and 2016, according to a NY Times report out Sunday. Say what? If voters put their minds on that they would think Trump was cheating on his taxes, living with private planes and gold toilets while the rest of us paid 20, 30, 40% and more of our income in taxes. What a rip-off. What a scoundrel. 

All this would be trouble for Trump if people noticed it and cared. The people whose attention matters, do not. 

Trump supporters don't care; Trump supporters have already decided Trump is a cheater and bully, but he is a fighter on their partisan side and that is what counts. He is trolling Biden, after all, and all is fair. The unengaged, low-information swing voters, and there are enough to swing this election, don't notice because Trump is doing what he does brilliantly. He distracts. He seizes the subject. It isn't COVID, unemployment, jobs, or his taxes. It is Biden on drugs.

In North Carolina Trump said Biden got "a big shot in the ass and he comes out and for two hours he is better than ever before. We're going to ask for a drug test."  The crowd loved this. Trump continued with this theme at a press conference on Sunday. "People say he was on performance enhancing drugs."  Trump had a hit idea in his schtick, and he is running with it.

Amid this, serious things are happening. The Trump policy on COVID has the consequence of making the USA an outlier among developed nations. We have more cases, more deaths, and are facing longer, worse economic shutdown than are peer nations in Europe and Asia. Trump said COVID was a hoax, then maybe not, and that masks and social distancing aren't all that important, then are, then aren't. Trump's unstated policy is one of protect yourself, herd immunity, and fast track a vaccine. This policy has consequences that cannot be said aloud, that herd immunity means lots of people will get the disease, some get very sick and some die, "it is what it is." Take our licks. Focus on the herd immunity, not the extra million--maybe two million--people will die sooner rather than later. The big policy question, whether people are OK with that, isn't actually discussed. Who notices, amid the firehose of news from Trump?

There are consequences for being a sweat clown. Some are good. The outrageous comment makes people think about the underlying premise, that Biden is a doddering senile fool, propped up by drugs. At Tuesday's debate some viewers will be looking for signs of frailty, and if people expect to see something then confirmation bias inclines them to find it. The fact that a drug test challenge is outrageous does not make it ineffective.

Comic, smashes watermelons for laughs.

And it is better for Trump to put attention on Biden's frailty than his own taxes or on COVID. And while Trump may be over-exposed for people paying attention, he may not be for people who barely follow politics. Compared to Trump, any politician would be boring, especially Biden. 

There is the downside for Trump. Trump looks deeply, fundamentally un-serious. He acts like a clown. In the campaign of 2016 voters may have thought this was a campaign act, and then he would become "presidential." It turns out to be the one and only Trump act. Lots of informed, engaged voters, both detractors and supporters, are uncomfortable with that.

But to his supporters, there is a saving grace, this third Supreme Court nomination. He is a clown and a con man, but he (and the Federalist Society and Mitch McConnell) get serious about judges. His supporters can not help but notice that Trump is not reliable on lots of things but by gosh one thing he gets seriously right: appointing very conservative judges and ramming them down the throats of whining Democrats.

And Trump smashes Democrats the way that the comic Galloper smashes watermelons. Fun!

There is a market for that kind of thinking and Trump connects with it. Democrats should not under-estimate that. A slapstick comedy show will get better ratings than does C-SPAN. 

Is Oregon vote by mail corrupt???

 Oregon has universal vote-by-mail elections. They seem to work just fine.

President Trump says they are corrupt.

What say the candidates for Oregon Secretary of State?

President Trump has put mass vote-by-mail front and center of national consciousness. He has said we cannot trust mailed-in ballots, unless they have been specifically requested by the voter. 

In February Trump said "they found a million fraudulent votes in Los Angeles." In June he tweeted "MILLIONS OF MAIL-IN BALLOTS WILL BE PRINTED BY FOREIGN COUNTRIES, AND OTHERS. IT WILL BE THE SCANDAL OF OUR TIMES!" In August Trump said “Mail ballots, they cheat. Mail ballots are very dangerous for this country because of cheaters." In early September he said mail ballots will make the upcoming election "the greatest scam in the history of politics." Trump is making comments disparaging mailed-in ballots daily now, and in the strongest of terms.

The stakes were raised this week when Trump refused to say he would abide by election results that included mailed votes, especially ones counted after election day--something required by law in some states, including the most likely tipping point state of Pennsylvania. He said because of mailed ballots of unknown legitimacy, the 2020 election would not include a transfer of power, but rather a "continuation," determined by the courts, not ballots. That got attention.

The Atlantic published an article outlining a strategy now underway. It involves lawsuits protesting mailed-in votes, stopping vote counts in swing states with Republican legislatures, and calling on those legislatures to direct their electoral votes to Trump. A compliant Supreme Court could resolve the frozen vote count and disputed electoral college delegations in favor of Trump.

Kim Thatcher, Republican

The strategy hinges on casting doubt on mailed-in votes.

There is an opportunity for leadership by the candidates for Oregon Secretary of State. 

Two State Senators are vying for the position, Shemia Fagan (D) and Kim Thatcher (R). Vote by mail (VBM) has not been particularly controversial in Oregon, and earlier races for Secretary of State dealt with issues like the Secretary of State's audit function, not election security. Oregon began doing VBM in local elections in 1981, in statewide elections in 1993, and in the general election for president in year 2000. 

Now the issue is on the table. Oregon is doing exactly what Trump, Barr, and other GOP officeholders with national reputations are saying creates illegitimate results: mass vote by mail. Oregon mails a ballot to every registered voter, unsolicited, about 3 weeks before election day. In Oregon envelopes get a signature check, are opened as they come in, must be received by 8:00 p.m. on election day, and are counted with preliminary results ready shortly after the election day close. Ballots that come in on the last day or two--but before the 8:00 p.m. deadline, are processed and added to the vote count over the next days.

Shemia Fagan, Democrat

Shemia Fagan's position on VBM is evident from her campaign material urging what would be expected by a Democratic candidate, that every vote should count. Vote by mail itself is so commonplace and expected for a Democratic candidate in Oregon that I do not see in her campaign website a clear announcement that she favors it. For a Democrat it would be equivalent to saying that she breathes air. What else? 

Still, I don't see a clear announcement of support. www.shemiafororegon.com

Kim Thatcher, as a Republican, has a greater opportunity to make a splash. Trump is providing leadership: his position is ALL CAPS opposition to universal VBM. Either way, she sends a national signal. If she agrees with Trump she would be reversing the settled tradition in Oregon--a powerful signal of condemnation of VBM from someone with presumed experience with it, and a strong message of support for Trump. However, she could go the other way, contradicting Trump, saying that VBM can actually be done right, that past election results in Oregon have been legitimate, as would be hers if she is elected. 

It would force her to do something Oregon Republicans have been hesitant to do: contradict President Trump. Either way is newsworthy. If she were to disagree with Trump it would send an important signal that Trump is making a false charge and that GOP officeholders and candidates with actual on the ground experience with VBM won't go along with undermining the election. Or she might agree with Trump. At this point, her website is silent on the issue. www.kimthatcher.com

I have written both candidates asking them to make a clear statement on whether or not they believe voting by mail creates reliable, legitimate election results.

I don't expect Fagan's response to be surprising and newsworthy, but I stand ready to hear what she says. I don't see how Kim Thatcher's response can fail to be newsworthy. I will share what I learn.