I think that Dean coming to Portland in support of Bradbury is really going to be a boon for his campaign. Not only did they raise a bunch of money, they also received media attention and caused a stir in the party - something that wouldnt have been apparent during the time of the poll.

Also, Kitzhaber hasn't reported expenditures in a while. Kari's (biased?) comparison fails to point out that Bradbury's campaign has reported their expenditures regularly and they've already raised over $200,000 which is a substantial sum.

It's hard for me to believe pollsters, especially after the Obama election that was notorious for their inability to predict the right outcome.

I'm a political science honors student at Oregon and I've seen Mr. Bradbury come speak several times in the last couple of weeks, and I have yet to see Kitzhaber.

How was this poll conducted??

I don't plan on joining Kitzhaber's $10,000 club, but I do plan on volunteering my ass off to make sure Bill wins. GO BRADBURY!

Bradbury fans:

I'm no fan of polls, but this afternoon on Ed Schultz, a former ND St. Sen. was talking about details of the ND State Bank.

The Nonpartisan Alliance took over the ND government a long time ago and much of their work has since vanished --but the state bank and a few other things survive.

There is no deposit insurance with the ND state bank---it is backed up by taxpayers. They make all kinds of loans, they sometimes partner with community banks. There is a bank president and a board of elected officials (much like Oregon's Land Board) which is the bank's board of directors. It includes the Gov., the AG, and someone else (forget who)---all elected officials. AG being top law enforcer in the state was mentioned as a good thing for a state bank to have.

So far what I have heard from Bill is "Vote Bradbury because we need a state bank".

OK, can Bill compare and contrast his view of an Oregon state bank with the ND state bank?

Would AG Kroger want to be on a state bank board?

What about these topics: Organization and oversight? types of loans it would give? coalition behind it (ND state bank was put in place when the Nonpartisan Alliance won the legislature and the Gov. race and controlled the whole state government). How many legislators have signed onto the idea? Any local bankers?

There are some of us who decided that this is the year we would demand specifics from all candidates who wanted our vote.

If the Bradbury campaign can't answer the above questions, snide remarks about Kitzhaber won't carry the day.

Be For Real!!

"Full disclosure: My firm built John Kitzhaber's gubernatorial campaign website. I speak only for myself."

5 comments down in the article is NOT Full disclosure... There is a convenient side note

As I've said many times before in many workshops, if a candidate can't get a few friends to say nice things about 'em in public over their real name, they've got a much bigger problem than the blogs.

What's that say about the guy running the blog who can't seem to disclose his employment for a candidate until an after-the-fact comment?

p.s. thanks for calling out my roommate on sharing an internet connection with me.

Lt,

You certainly should expect specifics from our candidates. I'd like to to point out, that at least Bradbury has given us a concrete idea, i.e. the Bank of Oregon. What concrete idea has Kitzhaber proposed?

Lt,

You certainly should expect specifics from our candidates. I'd like to to point out, that at least Bradbury has given us a concrete idea, i.e. the Bank of Oregon. What concrete idea has Kitzhaber proposed?

If you call Bill Bradbury a friend then you should make sure to include the fact that you've done work for Kitzhaber in your posts, not in the comment section.

Also, I found the entirety of Bradbury's statement on his website (in all of 5 minutes searching), so your paragraph quote doesn't exactly do their campaign justice.

Some of you may have seen that the Kitzhaber campaign released a poll today showing a lead for Governor Kitzhaber in the Democratic primary. I wanted to take a minute to comment on this poll because when you look at the numbers it is actually very good news for our campaign.

First and foremost this poll tells us nothing other than Oregon Democrats recognize Governor Kitzhabers name. The fact that the pollster failed to release the strong support for each candidate versus leaners in this head to head match up is very telling.

I also find the timing of this release very interesting. This is Governor Kitzhaber’s attempt to change the conversation and the momentum in this race. The past two weeks have not been kind to the Kitzhaber campaign. First we had Howard Dean’s unequivocal endorsement of Bill Bradbury calling him “The ONLY progressive in this race”, followed by Governor Kitzhabers disastrous performance at the Willamette Woman’s Democrats Forum where he derided the hard work of those who passed Measures 66 and 67 as a “massive wound” that created “rancor, division, anger, polarizing, suspension by the ballot measure election” and finally a poll of progressive listeners on KPOJ that showed Bradbury leading Kitzhaber 62% - 37%. The former Governor had to do something. I would point out this poll occurred before all three events.

This poll is actually good news for our campaign. For a two term Democratic Governor to be polling barely over 50% in his own party shows a real weakness and an opportunity for us to get our message out that Bill Bradbury is THE democratic candidate in the race. Furthermore, I highly doubt they tested with Democratic voters such facts as the former Governor’s failure to vote for children’s healthcare and to protect our farm and forestland or his plans to move funding for public education to a “performance based system” or his refusal to take a stand against LNG.

Frankly, this tells us what we already know, that John Kitzhaber is the establishment candidate in the race with a high name ID. If you want to return to 1994 and the politics of the past than Governor Kitzhaber is your guy.

We think that voters are hungry for change and hungry for new leadership with new ideas. Bill Bradbury offers that new leadership for this new decade. We look forward to sharing his vision with the voters in the coming months. The campaign has just begun.

p.s. thanks for calling my roommate a coward - professional.

Lewis, I have read all sorts of ideas on Kitzhaber's website, but that is not the point.

Unless Bradbury or his supporters can provide the state bank details (along with where Bill stands on many other different issues I didn't see addressed on his website or hear addressed when he was on KPOJ or when I saw him speak) potshots against an opponent do not help his case.

Believe it or not, there are people who vote against ANYONE who says "vote for our guy because he is not the other guy".

My impression of the Bradbury campaign is the "themes" nature of his campaign: It would be great to have a state bank It would be great to have fully funded education It would be great to protect the environment.

Having read the exchange between them about education (as someone who has worked in education) I think there are parts of the system that work well and parts that are broken.

This state hopefully will do kicker reform before the economy rebounds enough to make the kicker kick. Let's suppose that happens, the economy is booming, and education is fully funded to the levels of the QEM---but nothing else changes.

Would that make education perfect?

Should any district in a state funded system give car allowances to central office administrators who earn over $100,000?

How are administrators evaluated?

How important to a well functioning education system are top quality principals and vice principals?

Is the teacher certification system working well or such a mess maybe it should be rebuilt from the bottom up?

With all the talk about virtual schools, what skills are better taught face to face: teamwork, essay writing, public speaking, art & music, PE?

What role do community colleges play in training people for 21st century jobs?

I had this same frustration with the Bradbury campaign for US Senate---not enough detail.

If you don't like Kitzhaber, that is fine. But don't pretend that bashing Kitzhaber earns votes for Bradbury.

Read some of the blog posts and comments here from the 2008 US Senate primary and decide for yourself how helpful it was for supporters of one candidate to bash the other one on a blog.

One only has to look at a story such as this one to see what separates the traditional hacks from those that would move the Republic forward by moving on to proportional representation. 1 in 5 potential voters support Bradbury compared to 2 1/2 per 5 for Kitz, and that's a blow-out! One in five eligible voters (doing the math. on the other side as well) are being told, basically, to not bother, and you wonder why the system doesn't work. Many of those traditional hacks like to call themselves progressive. Can you see why some progressives have a real problem with your "progressivism" being rooted in the fat, dumb, centrist majority, simply because our 50%+1 magic vote system allows you to ignore huge swathes of the electorate?

No, I didn't think so...

Ahem. Is there a reason the poll was conducted by a California firm? Seems to me that there are some very skilled pollsters in this state that could have kept that money in our economy.

But then, you might need a campaign manager from Oregon to make that happen.

Yes, Oregon pollsters often get better results in Oregon elections.

However, this year we may well see a test case of something being talked about as the way voters see things these days.

Once upon a time, many political types believed "negative campaigns work". There have been those who believed that as long as the "other side" was attacked in blogs and elsewhere, that would be a winning campaign strategy.

However, there has been an alternate point of view for over a decade. In Jan. 1996, Wyden overruled advisors (incl. some from out of state?) who complained "no one has laid a finger on Gordon Smith" and went 100% positive.

Jack's remarks are very interesting:

"For the record, Nick and Kari are correct. I do beleive the poll numbers are about right and that the skepticism about the accuracy of polling generally are not well-founded.

Even if these numbers are accurate, however, it doesn't mean the Democratic primary is over. What it probably means is that Bradbury will have to be more aggressive in going after Kitzhaber in an effort to bring down his numbers; simply convincing the undecideds won't be enough."

Polls have been wrong, sometimes spectacularly so.

Not only that, there are those who believe Bradbury's ideas are too vague---a vision for the future but no specific plan to carry it out. For instance, he wants a state bank like N. Dakota. That bank was started many decades ago when the Nonpartisan Alliance briefly took over N. Dakota--both Gov. and legislature. I heard a former N. Dakota legislator on the radio talking about this.

There is a board (much like Oregon's state land board) which overseas the state bank. The board is all elected officials, incl. the Gov. and AG.

To use this example, it is valid to ask Bradbury which legislators/legislative candidates support his state bank idea, whether AG Kroger would like to serve on a bank board, whether an Oregon state bank would have no deposit insurance because taxpayers would guarantee deposits like they do in N. Dakota.

What if it turns out attacking Kitzhaber only makes Bradbury look bad, Jack? If people want specific proposals, why would attacks win over voters? And if it got too nasty, and for some reason Bradbury won a the nomination--esp. a very close vote---why would Kitzhaber supporters then pledge their free time to volunteer for Gov. in the general election when there are all sorts of other campaigns out there?

My guess is that the Gov. primary may be decided in a number of ways which polls can't measure and many political professionals will never know about. The same kind of person to person conversations which played a part in the 66 & 67 election.

If someone likes a remark made about an issue by one of the candidates and says in debating that issue something like "Kitzhaber put it very well when he said....." what if that sort of thing turns out to have more power than attack ads?

LT:

"My impression of the Bradbury campaign is the "themes" nature of his campaign: It would be great to have a state bank It would be great to have fully funded education It would be great to protect the environment.

Having read the exchange between them about education (as someone who has worked in education) I think there are parts of the system that work well and parts that are broken."

I agree education reform is more than increased funding. However I want a governor who is not bashful about loudly communicating that funding is part of the problem. Has Kitz communicated this?

One more thing. I work in education as well as many family members. I'm sure you're aware of the high drop out rate in teaching. I think about 40% of teachers leave the profession in the first five years. It makes sense to me to at pay more on the front end of a teaching career even if you sacrificed some pay at the back end. This would help draw better teachers, help keep new teachers happy/afloat and therefore retain more good teachers.

What do you think?

By the way, your commentary is always very appreciated.

"I see no reason to imagine that the Dem primary is going to produce an electorate much out of historical norms"

Jeff, over the decades I have been involved in primary and general elections where the turnout/ result surprised people who thought they understood the historical norms.

You say we only remember the wrong polls. I am sure that is accurate.

What did the polls say about Novick in Feb. of 2008, Paul Evans 3 months before he came within about 20 votes of taking Polk Co. away from legislative "icon" Jackie Winters, 2008 and 2008 legislative elections, etc.?

There are people who live and die politially by polls. There are those of us who don't like poll driven campaigning and government. Call us bad names if you want to, but that won't make us obey the Gospel According To Polls.

Both Bradbury and Kitzhaber would be horrible for the state, but at least Bradbury is a nice guy; someone you can actually stand to be around for an extended period of time.

I think that Bill Bradbury would make a better governor for Oregon 2010 then John Kitzhabor. I remember in year 1993,when the OHP ( oregon Health Plan) was started Canadian healthcare officals monitoring Oregon wondered how Oregon could cover DENTISTRY, even with an 8% payroll tax,when it's national healthcare system , started in 1971 each family must pay for $500 per year for dental insurance. Kitzhabor ran a FANTASY scheme in Oregon in 1995, but Bradbury and President Obama deal with the real world.

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