Westlund gets his turn in spotlight
Ads publicizing governor hopeful's petition drive will begin this week

STEVE LAW
May 18, 2006

Now that Democrats and Republicans have chosen Ted Kulongoski and Ron Saxton as their nominees for Oregon governor, all eyes turn to Republican-turned-independent Ben Westlund to see if he will make it a threesome.

Westlund, a state senator from the Bend area, said he will commence an aggressive petition drive to qualify for the November ballot and join the governor's race. That should quell speculation that he might not enter the race, Westlund said Wednesday morning, the day after the primary.

"We're going to turn loose our 390 volunteers on the street; that is starting this week," he said. Westlund also hired a petition-gathering firm to get paid signatures. He has until Aug. 29 to gather 18,000 signatures and has about 1,800 so far.

Westlund's campaign will begin airing a radio ad Friday to publicize the petition drive. He also will open a satellite campaign office in Portland next week and recently hired campaign field staff in Eugene and Southern Oregon.

Pollsters and political analysts say Westlund's prospects in the general election would be brighter if social conservative Kevin Mannix had won the GOP nomination Tuesday. Voters might find ideological differences between Saxton and Westlund more difficult to detect. Both, for example, support abortion rights.

Before Tuesday's primary, some political insiders predicted that Westlund wouldn't run if Saxton prevailed. Others noticed his low-key signature-gathering and questioned whether he'd enter the race.

But Westlund said a 2005 law muddied the petition process. He only can get valid signatures from fellow independents or Democrats and Republicans who didn't vote in the May 16 primary.

"Prior to the primary, it was a 20-minute conversation to get one signature," Westlund said. Volunteers had to explain the nuances of the law to people.

Westlund added that he was wary of having supporters not vote in Tuesday's primary because they wanted to sign his petition, especially with money measures on the ballot in his home territory of Deschutes County and elsewhere that required 50 percent voter turnout to pass.

The low primary turnout brought a larger pool of potential people to sign petitions, Westlund said. It also suggests that voters aren't that excited about Kulongoski and Saxton, he said.

Nobody outside the two major parties has been elected Oregon governor since Julius Meier in 1930.

Despite the long odds, Westlund's candidacy is being taken seriously. Gov. Kulongoski said Tuesday that he's running against "two Republicans." The governor is keenly aware of polling and anecdotal evidence that Westlund is appealing to disaffected Democratic voters.

Vance Day, the Oregon Republican Party's chairman, appeared gleeful that Westlund is in the race.

"Ben's going to pull more votes from Kulongoski than he does from Ron," Day said after Saxton coasted to victory in the GOP primary.

Many observers say Westlund has little chance to play more than a spoiler role.

A key test will be whether Westlund gains support from the big public-employee unions that snubbed Kulongoski in the primary.

Westlund's support for tax reform and universal health insurance has won him admirers among teachers and state workers. But he hasn't demonstrated a pro-union voting pattern in the Legislature.

"I think most of organized labor is going to be with Ted," said Ken Allen, the executive director of Oregon's second-largest state-workers union, Council 75 of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees.

Larry Wolf, the president of the Oregon Education Association, worries that Westlund could swing the race to Saxton.

"I think there's real potential that Westlund could be the Ralph Nader of this election," Wolf said, referring to speculation that Nader peeled away enough Al Gore votes in 2000 to tip the presidency to George W. Bush.

Kulongoski's support for a $6 billion school budget for 2007-09 pleased teachers, Wolf said.

"Ted, I think, on 90 percent of our issues has been there," he said.

If the race was between Saxton and Kulongoski, the teachers union would endorse the governor, Wolf said. Westlund is a "wild card" who might get the union's support, he said.

The largest state-workers union, Local 503 of Service Employees International Union, is more disgruntled with Kulongoski than OEA or AFSCME. SEIU supported Kulongoski opponent Jim Hill in Tuesday's election, and the other two big public-employee unions sat out the primary.

Kulongoski's relatively weak showing Tuesday demonstrated that "there is a lot of dissatisfaction around the state and a lot of disappointment in what we've seen in the last four years," said Joe DiNicola, Local 503 president.

But DiNicola demurred when asked to contrast Kulongoski's past support for labor with Westlund's voting record.

"I'd say this election is not going to be about the past; it's going to be about the future of this state," he said.
.