Desperate, yes, no doubt, but also kind of cool. I often criticize Republicans for being anti-democracy because they rely on low turnout to attempt to win elections in this and many other states. There is something appealing to me about broadcasting broadly to the masses to get people involved.

Getting candidates who can win and getting candidates who can put their name on the ballot and don't have a snowball's chance of winning are two different things.

As evidenced by the last minute filers (actually with most of the R candidates in Lane and Multnomah counties in general)they clearly got the latter.

I actually think its a pretty interesting idea. Yea it shows that the GOP may be desperate in a few districts but you have to give them props for trying to recruit people to run. Maybe those people will have no chance of winning or maybe they do, but by simply having a candidate they make it so the democrat needs to put some work in, in order to win. In an ideal world, the GOP would get 4-5 interested people and encourage the two strongest candidates to run so they would get a good primary contest, gets the base mobilized, and ideally have a good general election. While we like to think the GOP lives in the stone age, they have actually developed a series of extremely effective campaign tactics over the years and this could be one of them, or this could be a complete bust.

But from the GOP's perspective, it's better to have a candidate that don't have a decent shot at winning than to have no candidate at all, right? So, yeah, they're desperate, but I can't really fault them for trying to get someone to run.

"doesn't have a decent shot." Time for coffee...

"Have you ever wanted to run for office and help Republicans in our state take back our state government?"

So we can shoot it, truss it up, and skin it

Kari Chisholm posted here: Republicans have candidates filed in 59 of 60 races. (Only Lew Frederick is going unchallenged.) Democrats have candidates filed candidates in 57 races.

Sounds like maybe the Democrats should have tried something similar.

Regardless, certainly better than party bosses hand-picking candidates whose chief and maybe only qualification is party loyalty.

I agree with Julie and the 20yearoldwithanaopion. Smart political strategy to get people engaged as long as they are aware that the role they are playing is one of cannon fodder and that this is a training run. If not it can be pretty devastating for the candidate but, as Hillary said, this is politics not tiddlywinks and anyone who gets involved should understand that.

They might just have gotten crazy people, but you never know. Maybe there's some Republican lawyer out there who always thought he/she would be a good legislator, but never really seriously considered running because they're in a strongly Democratic district. If I were Bob Tiernan, I might be willing to wade through a bunch of nutters if there was a chance it could turn up someone decent.

(as an aside, there's all this research out there about how women don't tend to run as frequently because they feel like they need to be "asked" -- so, who knows, maybe a robocall would be enough of an "ask" to get them to run)

Check the list of candidates, not credible threats at all.

Carla - I guess I just don't think that it's outside the realm of possibility that robo-calling might turn up someone who could be a good legislator. I mean, I recognize that it's not very likely. But it's not impossible. Especially in the instance where you have a Republican in a heavily Democratic district (or vice versa). They might have never thought to run because of the improbability of winning -- but if a robo-call can convince them that there's value in just running, maybe they decide to go for it.

I, personally, don't care as much about whether The Party has vetted a candidate, so I wouldn't have a problem voting for someone who'd been recruited this way as long as they're actually a good candidate. The candidate will obviously be "vetted" by myself (before I decided who to vote for) and the electorate.

Anyways, I certainly wouldn't advocate this as best practice for candidate recruitment, but if you've got nobody and it's three days before filing deadline, you don't have too much to lose (unless, I suppose, some true nutter comes forth, you can't convince them not to file, and then they run and embarrass the GOP).

I certainly wouldn't advocate this as best practice for candidate recruitment, but if you've got nobody and it's three days before filing deadline, you don't have too much to lose. . .

Which is why "desperate" applies. I don't underestimate their ability to defeat Dems this year, but the state GOP is badly disorganized. And it's telling that with a lack of an organization and activists to recruit candidates through normal social channels, they turn to a method they can activate simply by throwing cash at it.

I have nothing against people who make robocalls but if you had only a few days left and were using robocalls to recruit, say, a housemate, a childcare provider, a physician, or someone to do work on your house or car, would "desperate" not be an appropriate description?

Full disclosure: I share an office with Carla, and neither of us got our job via robocalls.

Carla, I think yours is a very good question and I'm somewhat surprised at the responses. I wouldn't robo-call for a surgeon to people without medical training, even though I might get lucky and find someone who is naturally adept at telling a liver from a lung. I'm sure it would be a hoot to go to Salem and make multi-billion dollar decisions all day without a good idea of what I was doing. Fun, but not responsible. It seems to me any party leader would want a candidate with some modicum policy and legislative background (unless of course you were looking for a puppet to maneuver to your agenda). I can see robo-calling for PCP but not a legislative candidate.

I think its a smart move. The people in the legislative body are no more qualified than the people on the street. True they have a lot of information but no more foresight and worse princples. The longer they are there the worse they become. This is true of both Dems and Republicans. The real deal is this. People are pissed off at the Dems, but that does not make them want to be Republicans.

Elephants nationwide think this year is really 1994 all over again. They're all running against Obama care. They think all they have to do get candidates on the ballot and voters will sweep them into office. Must be some powerful mushrooms mixed into the elephant chow!

"No, the Democrats shouldn't "try something similar". Tiernan is basically asking for all the crazy people to call him up and run for office.

We have enough of that crap going on already."

Yeah. We republicans have to call up our crazy folks and recruit them. The crazy democrats are already in office. Once again, Carla, you brilliant tacticians are just one step ahead of us.

It's as if Oregon is more like a big county in Texas than a real state. It holds true for the both the Left and the Right: we have universal feather weights across the board. Does anybody really believe that Tiernan, Alley, Bradbury, or Kitzhaber are the best leaders in the state? I don't.

Are robocalls the method the GOP used to recruit Tony Marino in his failed attempt to take HD 35?

Whatever happened to recruiting candidates at the local level by having a farm league system at the school board level, move them on up to the minor leagues at the City Council level, and if they prove to be a good candidate, then move them up to the state legislative level?

Bob Tiernan was put in place to replace the system that recruited individuals such as Tony Marino who are very charismatic on a personal level, but have a very shady past with bogus PhDs and whatnot.

From Matt Davis and this post, it looks like the bureaucracy of the Oregon GOP has just shuffled chairs and changed upper management to give the illusion that they are fundamentally changed for the better.

The Oregon Democratic Party do not have to worry with the Oregon GOP operating as it was in the mid and late 1990s.

I am not the first and will not be the last to tell you, but if the Oregon GOP is still operating the way it was with the same people in different positions, then the Democrats will win big in both 2010 and 2012.

Hell, let me state it simpler. The Oregon GOP will not oust DeFazio, will not oust Schrader, will not oust Wyden, and will not gain more than 5 seats in any Oregon State Legislative chamber in 2010 and 2012.

Galen, et al.,

<h2>When Phil Knight has an opening on the board of Nike do you think he places a robo-call? Isn't the business of Oregon at least as important (and complex) as the business of making sneakers?</h2>