Bradbury wins OEA and AFT/OSEA endorsements
Kari Chisholm
On Saturday, Bill Bradbury won the endorsement of the OEA and the newly-merged AFT and OSEA. From the Oregonian's Harry Esteve:
Oregon’s statewide teacher’s union just voted to endorse Democrat Bill Bradbury for governor, passing over its longtime ally, former Gov. John Kitzhaber, who wants to reclaim his old job.The decision by the Oregon Education Association culminated a big day for Bradbury, the former secretary of state, who also picked up endorsements today from the American Federation of Teachers and from the Oregon School Employees Association.
Willamette Week's Hank Stern explains the political impact:
The support of a large public employee union such as the 47,000-member OEA can be a huge matter in the primary because of the organization and money it can donate to a candidate. Bradbury made a big push for OEA’s support, in hopes it could help him catch up to Kitzhaber in the polls and in fund-raising. The question now becomes how much money OEA will put behind Bradbury, a decided underdog according to the polls.But for the moment, it was all cheers for Bradbury and his followers.
“It’s a huge, huge step forward,” said a smiling Bradbury while accepting congratulations from teachers and his supporters sporting green Team Bradbury T-shirts. Asked if he believed the teachers union would spend significant money on his candidacy, Bradbury said he hoped so and that he would begin work immediately to achieve that financial backing.
In a statement, AFT and OSEA discuss their endorsement:
"Bill Bradbury earned our endorsement because he is clearly a strong supporter of education, public services and health care. These issues are important to our members and middle class Oregonians in general," stated David Rives, AFT-Oregon President."It is clear to us that Bill Bradbury understands our schools and our students need support today - not sometime years in the future. He knows today's students deserve the high quality education they have been promised, and as governor he will fight for them, added Merlene Martin, President of OSEA.
At the O, Jeff Mapes has some additional analysis. The remaining major labor endorsements are AFSCME and SEIU.
Discuss.
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12:26 p.m.
Mar 7, '10
Full disclosure: My firm built John Kitzhaber's campaign website. I speak only for myself.
Mar 7, '10
I don't have a horse in the gubernatorial race, but OEA may not be the ticket to Salem for Bradbury.
Sure the rules are a bit difference, but OEA didn't deliver the primary for Novick in 2008, now did it?
Mar 7, '10
OEAin't -- the OEA's endorsement of Novick in the 2008 U.S. Senate primary certainly helped lend credibility and legitimacy to Novick's campaign, and was taken as a serious blow in the Merkley camp. I don't think one public employee union alone can "deliver" an election. Still, Merkley's win in the primary over Novick was quite narrow.
Mind, this isn't just the OEA endorsement for Bradbury. It's also the OSEA and the AFT. Those who care about education, and either work in the field as teachers, librarians, principals, educational assistants, counselors, administrators, etc., or are parents who have school age children, and work exhaustively all year long to raise extra funds just to have a librarian at their grade school, and still see educational assistants and teachers cut, want a governor who sees education as a top priority.
Kitzhaber doesn't. His funding proposals for K-12 when he was governor were always increased by the Republican legislature (see Jack Roberts op-ed).
And Kitzhaber says he wants to waste time re-studying the model for education, even though the Quality Education Model was produced by a commission Kitzhaber himself appointed when he was governor. His solution to funding so far has been vague talk about a sales tax at the debate in Lake Oswego. Maybe that explains the OSEA president's statement that "students need support today - not sometime years in the future."
Bradbury gets it. And these endorsements change the momentum of the race. Ballots won't be in the mail for awhile. Folks are just starting to focus on the governor's race (after the January ballot measure campaign, and the February legislative session). As voters focus in on this race, and evaluate these education endorsements, I suspect we'll see Bradbury rise in the polls and this turn into a closely contested primary.
3:17 p.m.
Mar 7, '10
Kari, there you go again posting a positive article about a candidate that you are not employed by. It is clear that this is a trick to generate more income from your work for Kitzhaber, by making the race more competitive. We won't be fooled by your multi-sided support of Democratic candidates.
3:28 p.m.
Mar 7, '10
Dammit--John made the same joke I was going to make. Day late and a dollar short...
But on the substance of the post--this is obviously a huge deal for Bradbury. It doesn't mean he'll win the election, but it does mean a large, powerful group of people want him to. I would love to have been behind the scenes as Kitz and Bill jockeyed for this endorsement. And also while they jockey for SEIU--another big one.
Mar 8, '10
I reviewed both Kitz and Bradbury's candidate questionnaires for my union (which has not completed the endorsement process) and while I personally have a lot of respect and admiration for Kitz... Bradbury seemed a lot more articulate and specific about addressing the needs of working families. He talked about streamlining basic court procedures so they are more accessible to the public, for example, as well as taking a hard line on holding financial institutions that received bailouts accountable (not that our Gov will have that power, but it was a smart choice to use that argument). Kitz's answers were all in the "right direction" but he was much less willing to commit to specifics.
Remember, Kitz also has the mixed blessing of having a proven track record as Governor with the unions in Oregon, too.
<h2>Not all unions represent the same interests -- sometimes they work together on common causes, but the stronger unions in Oregon represent a lot of different interest groups, so I can see how they'd be split over a race between two very decent candidates -- it is a tough call!</h2>