OR-GOV: Bill Sizemore runs for Governor. No, really. Not kidding.

Kari Chisholm FacebookTwitterWebsite

Bill_sizemore Yes, ladies and gentlemen, Bill Sizemore has filed to run for Governor - setting up a possible Kitzhaber/Sizemore rematch, pending primary races in both parties. (Kitzhaber beat Sizemore in 1998 by a margin of 64% to 30%.)

What do his fellow Republicans think? At the O, Jeff Mapes got the great quotes:

"I don't know why he would do that," said [Oregon GOP chairman Bob] Tiernan, adding that he thought Sizemore "went off the deep end eight or nine years ago."

Ross Day, who heads Common Sense for Oregon, a group planning its own conservative ballot measures, called Sizemore's candidacy "unbelievable."

"This is a complete surprise," said Day, adding that "I wouldn't expect him to have" much impact on the Republican primary.

Among Sizemore's challenges: a court order prohibiting him from raising campaign funds. From his statement, posted at NW Republican:

A Multnomah County judge has said that Sizemore can't raise and spend money on politics. He says he asked the Oregon Supreme Court a few weeks ago to overturn the judge's a blatantly unconstitutional order, but they declined to do so.

"I may have to run my campaign from inside a jail cell," Sizemore said, "but either we break the stranglehold the public employee unions have on this state or the future of Oregon will be a grim one."

When we launched BlueOregon in 2004, one of our taglines was "With one eye on my beer, and one eye on Bill Sizemore."

So yeah, this is going to be fun.

p.s. Feel free to wipe the coffee off your computer screen now. Sorry about that.

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    And here I was saying that I thought Kevin Mannix would get in the race. Wow, I am shocked. He may have to eat his own words about running a campaign from his jail cell though.

  • Cartier Francaise (unverified)
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    He may have to eat his own words about running a campaign from his jail cell though.

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    Oh the gifts they bring! Palin in 2012 (after the apocalypse of course) and now the kids who actually felt the impact measure 5 will get to vote Sizemore down? It's like they want us to win! Go, um, ah, I can believe I am going to say this - Go Bill and Sara?

  • Bob Tiernan (unverified)
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    Kari:

    So yeah, this is going to be fun.

    Bob T:

    I don't think so, Kari. I really doubt that he'll get more than a few percentage points in the primary.

    Bob Tiernan Portland

  • In Plato's Cave (unverified)
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    All I want for Christmas is a Sizemore win in the GOP primary -- great theatre, and a stake in the fat, black heart of Oregon's Republican Party.

    Run, Bill, Run.

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    Just a little note for everyone: the Bob Tiernan in the post (the GOP state chair) is from Lake Oswego - and is NOT the same person as our regular commenter above.

  • Scott in Damascus (unverified)
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    Run Bill run!

    And keep the spigot of Loren Park's Nevada money running endlessly through Oregon's media outlets.

  • Paul Cox (unverified)
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    "I may have to run my campaign from inside a jail cell," Sizemore said, "but either we break the stranglehold the public employee unions have on this state or the future of Oregon will be a grim one."

    Come on Richard, matthew ventress, Ricky, Old Ducker, Buckman Res, K arlock and rally 'round the candidate! At last someone with "our" message. It's now "on topic" at Blue Oregon!

    This is yet another example of how you can't think and "the system" is run by us. So, Tre Arrow could run for Governor? Isn't it obvious that the system wants us to succeed, whereas you have to fight everything? That's a message that the Democrat Party just ins't getting! You ask the right question for once, about why he isn't in the conservative wilderness. Christian connections, in a word. You are always forgiven (as long as you're on message, and he is ON MESSAGE).

    He's using the tail to wag the dog. He knows he can't directly get involved in political fund raising, so he's using the "anybody can run, can't they" sad song to get a toe in the door and start wiggling. Bottom line he has Jeld-Wen sympathies and money and you only have spiteful whining.

  • Charlie Burr (unverified)
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    I sense a Mandate Media-orchestrated conspiracy to get rid of the remaining "Bill Sizemore owes me money too" bumper stickers in Kari's basement.

    Seriously, this is fantastic news. This race is shaping up to be one retro affair.

  • matthew vantress (unverified)
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    i will vote for sizemore.at least he has a vision and cares unlike any of the do nothing democrat candidiates h who have never done anything to make oregon a better place to live.

  • Roey Thorpe (unverified)
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    Go Bill Go! Come on conservatives, stand by your man.

  • Lord Beaverbrook (unverified)
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    (Kitzhaber beat Sizemore in 1998 by a margin of 64% to 30%.)

    Is this why no one takes calls for parliamentary democracy seriously? 1/3 of your voters are complete idiots is definitely one of the better arguments I've heard...

    I've never lived in an industrialized country that would cast 3 votes for him. It is very hard to talk about solutions when a very large chunk of the population can best be characterized as complete and utter shitheads. 15 years ago today, Scientology won it's 40 year legal battle to be a tax exempt, as a religion. All they had to do was keep Travolta and Cruise on board, and the weight of stupidity would eventually come down in their favor. Dems are not making any progress. You got elected twice sicne then and have zero to show for it. Clinton's balancing the budget doesn't count, as Dems in Congress laid down with the Reps and pissed it away, mainly in a misguided colonial adventure.

    We are never going to have a progressive republic as long as we have the bulk of opinionated, know-nothings that we do. It's as simple as that. Talk that Reps and TEA people don't care about ed. is all wrong. They care a lot that people are ignorant enough to believe their view of the world, and that wasting that money is the best way to make points to the saner half of the electorate. A lot of that 30% are education middle managers "doing the best we can" with monies taken from you under threat of violence. They waste it, ask for more, then run home, don their teabags and protest that they're taxed enough already.

    Forget that banality for a minute. How weak is the system when that works?!? So weak you suffer daily from the abuse of religion, and won't consider revoking tax exempt status, while telling the barely surviving mom and pops to pony up. You know, I've never lived in an industrialized country that could tell our two parties apart. Is that more a GOP or Dem failing? Given the differences on the ground, how can that even be? One has to lay the lion's share of the problem at Dem feet.

  • Bill Bodden (unverified)
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    "Go Bill Go!"

    Why not? He seems to be addicted to being in the spotlight. I'm reminded of a friend who used to joke, "I don't care what they say about me, just so they say something." Maybe, in addition to the Oregon lottery sponsoring programs for people with gambling problems they can do something similar for political narcissists.

    This is the scary part of Kari's post: "(Kitzhaber beat Sizemore in 1998 by a margin of 64% to 30%.)" Thirty percent of Oregon voters voted for Sizemore?

  • Greg D. (unverified)
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    Unfortunately I don't think the R's will nominate Bill. If they did, Kitz could set a new record for one-sided elections. Our friends on the right can do better than Bill. Who is Oregon's version of Sarah Palin?

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    Wow, and it's not even my birthday. Thanks, Bill!!! You keep on chugging there, you failed idiotic criminal. Woot!

  • Garrett in SE (unverified)
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    This is fantastic news. I wonder when the failure that is Kevin Mannix will announce his candidacy?

  • Unrepentant Liberal (unverified)
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    Oh thank you Jesus for your gift of humor and levity during these trying times. Not only have you given us Sarah Palin to tickle our funny bones during these long winter months, you've seen fit to doubly bless us with the delusional gubernatorial dreams of one of the all time biggest losers and felons in Oregon politics; Bill Sizemore.

    Lord you are mighty and have one wicked sense of humor. Thanks, and amen.

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    Wouldn't it be fun to have the ultimate bumpersticker Sizemore/Bradbury general election?

    All the signs would say "I'm voting for Bill"

    As my pal Walt Trandum likes to say, "That would be a '3 if' scenario."

  • Brian Collins (unverified)
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    I'm beginning to wonder if I'm caught in a time warp!

  • Katherine Pfeiffer (unverified)
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    Sizemore's above mugshot reminds me of Nick Nolte's. Can't wait to see what his campaign website will look like.

    Maybe Loren Parks will spring for a good photographer?

    I have to agree with folks on this: This is going to be way too much fun! Talk about delusions of grandeur! HA!

  • LT (unverified)
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    Here's the deal: Sizemore in the race will show what the other candidates are made of. Do they agree with him on anything, or do they state the opposite in as civil a manner as "Buffalo Bill Seizemore " (always loved that nickname) is rude and sarcastic?

    If you search CSPAN.org you may find the panel discussion with C. Cook, 3 Repubulican consultants and 3 Democratic consultants talking about future elections. Pollster McInturff said that to win, Republicans would have to come up with concrete plans to aid job creation and solve other problems, and "please God, let it not be just tax cuts".

    Although it is apparently still under construction, at the end of that progream, there was a url for bipartisanpolicycenter.org.

    When all of the young legislators won in 2008, were any of them under 30? The kids that not going to say mentioned were in high school when Sizemore was riding high in the mid-1990s, and those folks must be just short of 30 by now.

    OPB (?) did some sort of civic journalism where high school kids went to a facility somewhere in the Portland area and were divided into groups of maybe 8 kids.

    Each group came up with one question to ask one or more adult panelists. This was mid-1990s and Sizemore was a panelist. The question for him was "Have you visited our schools and seen our overcrowded classrooms?". He brushed them off with some comment about having visited a couple of schools to speak to someone--but in a very dismissive tone. As if they didn't matter, they were only kids.

    Does anyone believe those students grew up to be anti-taxers? Or is it possible they could have grown up to have helped elect the young legislators, or even maybe be one of the young legislators? 14 years since his last run for Gov. means a whole new generation of voters.

    If a GOP candidate for Gov. totally breaks with Sizemore and outlines an intelligent vision for the future of Oregon and plan to carry it out, and Sizemore attacks that person, that would be the opportunity those who are tired of the current GOP could have to rally around the brave person willing to publicly deny Sizemore's vision.

    Then maybe they could get back to the intelligent GOP which once ran intelligent statewide candidates, and there will be more intelligent Republicans than just Frank Morse and Max Williams.

    Lots of people I know would love to have 2 intelligent parties debating serious issues---it has been a long time since that happened.

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    I sense a Mandate Media-orchestrated conspiracy to get rid of the remaining "Bill Sizemore owes me money too" bumper stickers in Kari's basement.

    Ah, those were good times, weren't they? If only I actually had a box of those stickers around. They sold out a decade ago...

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    I love that picture.

    You really have to hand it to the Republican Party--for sheer entertainment, they deliver more than Jim Cameron. When I heard the news this morning on OPB, Geoff Norcross led in by saying we had an unexpected entrant into the gov's race. I sat up straight--DeFazio!? When he said "Bill Sizemore," I literally laughed out loud. Sizemore!

  • Dan w. (unverified)
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    I think the Democrats are a lot more vulnerable now, especially with ClimateGate. Predators like Sizemore sense this, they sense the weakness.
    Obama is turning out to be a lot like Carter.

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    climategate

    A story by a right leaning author in a British right wing paper about research scientists devising strategies to keep deniers from purchasing and perverting scientific journals or otherwise monkeywrenching actual test results doesn't quite make a gate.

    I actually read this story this AM and you can only see this as a final nail if you've been holding a hammer in your hand for the past decade or two.

    But enjoy. We all need hope.........Go Mannix!!!!!

  • Greg C (unverified)
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    Settle down, I predict this is just an attempt by Sizemore to legally challenge the court orders that direct him to not take part in politics. The first road on his attempt to make himself relevant again. I agree with Bob T above, Sizemore couldn't get elected to a Repub precint comitteeman position much less to the gubernatorial nomination.

  • Jimbo46 (unverified)
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    Clearly we should all change our voter registrations to Republican for this primary. (Either Dem. candidate will be equally fine anyway.) That way we can all vote for Seizemore and insure the R. Party is properly represented in all its "purity" (http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2009/11/24/rnc-resolution-wont-handcuff-steele-co-sponsor-says/)and not subverted by the weakling RINO wing of the party that might attempt to insert some R.-Lite candidate into the contest, thus diluting the "brand". I'm sure Rush would approve.

  • Pedro (unverified)
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    Damn - Greg C beat me to it. Sizemore is trying to beat the court order that denies him the ability to run his initiative scam and keep the cash rolling in. Poor bastard doesn't know any other way to make a living.

  • j. loewen (unverified)
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    Sizemore is my idea of the perfect GOP candidate after setting the record for getting beat worse then any other candidate of either party. But then I am a Democrat and maybe Bill Tiernan will finally be right and he'll vanish in the primary.

  • Ms Mel Harmon (unverified)
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    Have to admit, first thing I did was look at my calendar....nope, not April 1st. But I agree with above comments that Bill has other motives. That man is slicker than goose shit on teflon.

  • Lord Beaverbrook (unverified)
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    Posted by: Dan w. | Nov 24, 2009 2:27:03 PM

    I think the Democrats are a lot more vulnerable now, especially with ClimateGate. Predators like Sizemore sense this, they sense the weakness. Obama is turning out to be a lot like Carter.

    Add this to K arlock's list of aliases. You fell for it Pat.

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    I will answer an occasional Troll if the latest lie is still pretty fresh (and obvious). I'm mindful of Leaners that could use an alternate viewpoint if/when they follow the link.

    Undoubtedly nearly useless, but I keep thinking about that one pilgrim........

  • LT (unverified)
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    Over on Jeff Mapes blog, Sizemore comments, "John Kroger chose to indict us via a secret grand jury,"

    Hate break this to you Bill, but grand juries are supposed to be secret. That's how the process works.

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