At the Pavilion Ballroom of the Portland Hilton, milepost No. 1 in what Oregon Republicans have proclaimed the "Road to Victory," gubernatorial primary winner Ron Saxton was welcomed by a throng of 350 Tuesday night.
That's almost as many people as were biking down Southeast Hawthorne at that hour, or nursing warm beer on the sidewalks along Northwest 23rd.
Few people in this city paid any attention to the primary and on a glorious Oregon evening, even fewer watched it grind to a halt. They were, instead, gathered at picnic tables outside the Barley Mill Pub, lined up at the CineMagic, drifting down the river or curled up in their backyards. Only one in five Oregonians even voiced an opinion in the governor's race. Most of the rest either didn't have a dog in the fight, or recognize dogs when they see them on a mail-in ballot.
Three turnout-based thoughts:
Independent Ben Westlund can't enter the fray fast enough.
Ted Kulongoski, the anemic incumbent, is running against three Republicans this fall.
And Saxton has picked an interesting word -- "change" -- to hang his campaign on, given the seismic partisan shift scheduled for Capitol Hill and all points west in November.
Although the scale of the GOP's midterm elections disaster is still taking shape, the Republicans are on their way out. That's why Kulongoski slapped a pursed-lip photo of the president on his latest mailer and the question, "Had Enough?"
The mailer asks us to believe that the governor has been "standing up to Bush to protect Oregon values" and that what Ted has generated to date rises from listless babysitting to "effective leadership."
Small wonder, then, that Saxton is beating the drum for "a change of direction, a change of ideas, a change of leadership. I stand before you tonight," he said at the Hilton, "with a simple message: My fellow Oregonians, change is on the way."
Only when Saxton keeps the message that simple, of course, is it palatable. Each time he elaborated this spring on the changes he has in mind, he dramatically misrepresented the problem -- particularly on government efficiency and school performance -- and demagogued the solution.
To his credit, Saxton is not a James Dobson Republican or a Tom DeLay Republican, but he forfeited an opportunity in the primary to run as a Mark Hatfield Republican this fall. Instead, he displayed a bizarre mean streak, moving to the right of Kevin Mannix on immigration, to the right of the Corleone family on payday loans and to the right hand of Don McIntire on hamstringing the state budget.
Saxton and Kulongoski accomplished very little by out-campaigning the likes of Mannix and Jim Hill, and impressed almost no one. That's why Tuesday's results should be especially encouraging to Westlund, the former Republican from Bend running as an independent and the guy who will be, by far, the most creative thinker on the November gubernatorial ballot.
Westlund has a dynamic challenge facing him: He must convince moderates -- who see no reason to reward Kulongoski with four more years -- that votes for the independent don't so split the field that the conservative block hands Saxton the keys to the governor's mansion.
But so far so good for Westlund. As results limped in Tuesday, he saw that Multnomah County voters were discerning enough to pinpoint which incumbent -- Diane Linn, take a bow -- deserved to be bounced from office.
And during a week in November when the entire country will be given the opportunity to regroup, voters from Nyssa to Gold Beach just might figure out who truly represents change, who really has something to say on taxes, and who's worth celebrating on election night.
