The Decline of the Oregon Republican Party

When I was a kid, the Oregon Republican Party was a real and legitimate enterprise. It elected senators that remained in office for a very long time (Mark Hatfield, Bob Packwood, before that Wayne Morse even if he eventually switched parties). It elected governors like Vic Atiyeh and Tom McCall. It could win the state legislature.

Then the state changed and the state Republican Party changed. As the state moved away from the timber industry and toward a urban focus, the Republicans decided to emulate their brethren in Idaho and Alabama and take up ever crazier positions (in truth, Idaho used to be a fairly bipartisan and moderate state as well, electing politicians like Frank Church, but at least the party and the state populace moved in the same direction). Now it can’t win anything. In a massive Republican landslide year like 2010, the best it can do is run a former TrailBlazer who doesn’t believe in anything except that he doesn’t like paying taxes and still lose the governorship.

Now the Oregon Republican Party has named a new chairman that really sums up its nuttiness. He’s Art Robinson, who has been the sacrificial lamb to run against Peter DeFazio for Congress a couple of times and is a true nutjob who among other things thinks that nuclear waste is safe and that public schools should be abolished.

So as you can see, the Oregon Republican Party is on its way back to statewide relevance.