With Sincere Apologies to my PDX/Metro Friends

Paulie Brading

Today's mailer supporting the Sal Esquivel campaign arrived with a very attractive photo of Lynn Howe. Behind her is a beautiful night time shot of Portland bridges with lights reflecting off the water. Some of Portland's most familiar buildings on the West side are glowing in the distance. It looks like a postcard we'd send to friends inviting them for a visit, except the post card reads...

A Better Fit for Portland (screams the header)

Lynn Howe's support for Government Health Care and New Taxes Makes Her a perfect fit for Portland, Not Southern Oregon.

Lynn Howe's Political Agenda: Government Health Care, New Taxes and Taxpayer-Funded Political Campaigns. Is That What You Want?

Lynn Howe...Isn't She a Better Fit for Portland?

Should PromoteOregon Leadership PAC send one of these against Val Hoyle of Eugene? Val Hoyle - Isn't She a Better Fit for Portland? The inference that any Democratic candidate running from outside of Portland is a better fit for Portland than the district where they live. Try telling that to our State Representatives from Eugene, Corvallis and Bend!

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    Yes, they did basically the same thing in HD24 (sounds like the same photo).

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    Actually the message on Val was that she was tied to the icky South Eugene politicians.

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    That's ridiculous. "New taxes" means new taxes on RICH PEOPLE. Who mostly live in or around Portland. She'd be horrible for the rich people here.

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    Personally, I think Lynn Howe would be a better fit for Michigan from whence reportedly (and recently) she came. As near as I can tell, she is just a promised party vote for a Willamette Valley Democratic stronghold.

    San Francisco has a a more notorious Democratic Party but it has not ruined the whole city. Portland, take a clue.

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      Shorter Sally Schott (say that three times fast): Oregon is eeeeevil cuz so many of its residents choose to live in Portland.

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        I can figure out that the first half of your sentence is a personal insult but I don't know what it means. The second half is also your own rather bizarre misinterpretation.

        Make that wholly bizarre.

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    Sal Esquivel a better fit for Xanadu

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    The real cringe factor is the mailer is it disturbing example of bigotry and polarization. The mailer plays a heavy hand in fostering isolationism and intolerance between two cities.

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      This is what I would call using a Howitzer when a pea shooter would do.

      The urban/rural political divide in Oregon is hardly "news" and was a lot bigger story in my recollection a decade or two ago.

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        My parents moved to Southern Oregon in the 40's, they were among the many who participated in the migration of World War II Vets who came from all over the country to raise their families.

        In the 19th Century, Oregon was a rural and agricultural/natural resourced based economy that has evolved now to the 21st Century. Since then, Oregon has experiencied major demographic shifts, continued urbanization, increased globalization and technological advances.

        Jackson County is a popular retirement and recreational center that draws people from all the country. My neighbor is a well known physicist who regulary jets to meetings all over the world right from the medford airport. My friend in Portland works in Germany and is home most weekends with his wife and kids.

        The era of city slickers and country bumpkins has been replaced. You can live in a yurt in Montana with a lap top conducting business for your employer in Boston earning Boston wages.

        We live in both worlds creating a flexible life. We can plan a conference from a motel room in Amsterdam or in a converted barn pecking away on our lap tops, conference call our meetings and afterward go sit in a coffee shop on Hawthorne Ave or lay in a pasture in the Applegate.

        More and more of us are done with polarizing urban and rural.

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          Well that's a happy economic future. Not much has panned out too well since the timber economy collapsed but maybe this one will. You and I are presumably on the same side of the divide in the direction we think the County ought to at least attempt to grow into some kind of sustainable economy.

          Some of the problems Jackson County has are state problems; some are not.

          Jackson and other counties outside the Willamette Valley are still the redheaded stepchildren in the state; the handling of Treasury aid and grants this past summer more than proved that.

          Jackson County vote totals still more often than not are not one with Multnomah, Lane, Benton & Linn. Am I wrong?

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