Westlund clears hurdle for signatures needed

By James Sinks / The Bulletin
July 15, 2006

SALEM - While Oregon's two major party candidates for governor jabbed at each other in their first debate Friday, independent candidate Ben Westlund announced he has reached a key milestone.

Westlund, I-Tumalo, an agribusinessman and entrepreneur who represents Deschutes County in the state Senate, has officially obtained enough signatures to appear as a gubernatorial candidate on the November general election ballot, he said.

He must submit 18,368 by the end of August; as of Friday, his campaign had collected 18,390.

"We're looking very good and we're picking up steam," he said.

Still, the benchmark is largely symbolic because he will need to collect thousands more as a buffer. Hundreds of signatures will inevitably be invalidated, in part because of a new law passed by the 2005 Legislature to make it tougher for independent candidates to enter Oregon elections.

Still, it's notable how quickly Westlund petitions have started pouring in for his gubernatorial bid.

The veteran legislator abandoned the Republican Party and declared his candidacy on Feb. 14, and as of July 1 had collected 8,400 signatures - an average pace of less than 2,000 a month.

But in the past two weeks, he pulled in roughly 10,000.

Stacey Dycus, his campaign manager, said public interest in Westlund is soaring in part because of a new television advertising campaign, but also because disenchanted voters are looking for a viable alternative to Democratic Gov. Ted Kulongoski and Republican Ron Saxton, the nominees of the two major parties.

"People are ready for a leader who will bring together people from both parties to solve Oregon's problems," Dycus said.

Asked to react to Westlund reaching the signature threshold, representatives for both Kulongoski and Saxton said they don't perceive Westlund as a viable candidate, and one of them will be elected in November.

The Westlund campaign began paying a professional firm last week to solicit for signatures, but only about 2,000 have come from those sources thus far, Dycus said. The bulk have come from volunteers and campaign staff who will be fixtures at summer festivals and county fairs for the rest of the month, she said.

The campaign is also receiving signature sheets in the mail daily, and forms continue to be downloaded from Westlund's Web site, she said.

She would not disclose the campaign's goal.

Signature gathering is an imperfect science and many names are ultimately rejected as duplicates, because the names are illegible or because the petition circulator didn't properly validate the sheets.

Westlund's campaign also faces an additional hurdle. Thanks to a new law passed in 2005, registered Democrats and Republicans who voted in the May primary cannot also sign a petition to nominate an independent candidate.

The campaign expects some signatures will be invalidated as a result.

Westlund also announced Friday his first major campaign endorsement, along with a $25,000 check, from the political committee that represents Oregon's correctional officers.

"I started out in favor of Kulongoski, but Ben changed my mind," said Bryan Goodman, a corporal at the Oregon State Correctional Institute and president of the association.

He said polling that puts Westlund at a distant third is misleading.

"Ben is going to start catching up really fast because once people listen to his vision for Oregon, they are going to be drawn in," Goodman said.

Westlund was not invited to Friday's debate, in part because Kulongoski said he will not share the stage with candidates who aren't officially on the ballot.

Westlund spent the day instead in Newport, where he attended a demonstration of proposed power generation from ocean waves. Alternative energy development is one of the planks in Westlund's campaign platform.

James Sinks/ The Bulletin.