It s the Mercury s Endorsement Guide
YOU VE GOT SOMETHING pretty important in your hands right now it s somewhere else in your house, like under a bunch of unpaid bills, or some library books, banco patagonia atencion al clienteor last Friday s crusty dinner plates.
It s your ballot! It showed up sometime after Wednesday, October 15. And it s your latest and best chance to lay your claim to a mopatagonia better sweater insulatedre perfect Oregonpatagonia better sweater mens 1 4 zip. In fact, it s all about you.
You get to decide whetherpatagonia fleece sale gift1 Oregon gets in on a daring experiment in states rights, legalizing marijuana for recreational use and erasing some of the ills of prohibition.
You get to decide whether Portland ought to keep fixing up its cherished parks and public spaces.
You get to decide whether a reliably progressive US senator should give way to an earnest brain surgeon who maybe relied on Republican talking points a bit too much.
And you get to decide whether our lackluster governor deserves a fourth term of handing the job to some downstate Republican with dubiously reactionary social views.
But here s the thing: Marking your ballot the right way won t be easy. It ll take guts! It ll take strength! It ll take moxie!
Which is where we come in. We ve spent the past few weeks sifting through this fall s most consequential races and then taking our best shots at the smart plays. Hopefully that makes your hard work just a little bit easier. Hopefully it means you ll vote.
Because seriously. vote, goddammit. Vote.
Mercury editorial board is a fancier way of saying news editor Denis C. Theriault and news reporter Dirk VanderHart.
JEFF MERKLEY isn t going to win many charisma contests. Oregon s junior US senator is soft spoken, and frequently sort of looks down and to the left when he s answering your questions. Is it deep concentration? Boredom? A habit Merkley picked up along the way to political office that has no real import? We can t say, but some of the Beltway polish typical to senators is missing in the man.
His main challenger, Republican Monica Wehby, struck us the other way. In what s been an ugly and at times embarrassing race, Wehby has maintained a winsome charm if it does lean a little heavily on her Southern roots. And contrary to many of the accusations levied against her, it s clear the pediatric brain surgeon is running a sincere campaign. We were somewhat surprised to find we believed Wehby when she said she didn t intend to be a Republican rubber stamp.
Which is not to say we believe she wouldn t be. You should definitely re elect Merkley.
While the senator may lack style, he has by far the best combination of background, values, and experience of any candidate in the race. Mostly, though, he sees a need for action in areas where Republicans, like his opponent, are pushing the status quo.
The list of issues Merkley gets right that Wehby doesn t regulation of carbon emissions, more stringent gun control, increasing the minimum wage, to name a few as well be a craggy signal post where two roads diverge.
And that Wehby road? It s the wrong way.
That s not to say there aren t legitimate gripes about Merkley s first term. As an outspoken supporter of the Affordable Care Act, he spouted uncritical views of Cover Oregon, the law s disastrously flawed local arm. These days he s more realistic, calling the broken rollout a complete debanew $329 m's patagonia primaloft h2no alpine climbing ski nano storm jacket xxlcle.
But Merkley s also defiant. He points to hundreds of thousands of Oregonians who ve been able to sign up for insurance under the law. And when one of his opponents, Constitution Party candidate Jim Leuenberger, griped during our interview that the Affordable Care Act had cost hpatagonia fleece sale gift3im his insurance plan, Merkley pledged to have his staff look into the matter.
Merkley s also frequently called out as one of the Senate s staunchest liberals. It s relatively rare for the senator to cross the aisle to co sponsor legislation, which is not likely to be helpful in a year Republicans are expected to make gains in both houses.
But come on. Wehby based her entire campaign on health cpatagonia better sweater jacket womenare expertise we have no doubt she possesses then didn t take care to make sure her staffers hadn t baldly copied widely circulated Republican talking points on the matter. As BuzzFeed pointed out, she cribbed points from a Karl Rove affiliated group and her opponent in the May primary, Jason Conger.
We understand campaigns are hectic and busy. And we liked Wehby, and her willingness to (mostly) buck the party line on issues like marriage equality and abortion. She even acknowledges human caused climate change, though she doesn t seem to think we need to do anything new to stop it.
But any credibility she had on patagonia discount code 83her whole rubber stamp argpatagonia employee benefits of directument went into the garbage when she couldn t be bothered to pen original sentences on her signature issue.
There are other candidates in the race. Christina Lugo, a lawn care company owner running under the banner of the Pacific Grepatagonia fleece sale gift2en Party, is likeable and as lefty as you can get. She wants us out of the Middle East, to cut carbon emissions, and provide a living wage to workers, etc. But she also deferred to Merkley s good work on many issues (and even asked us to take a picture of her and the senator).
Libertarian candidate Mike Montchalin lives in Pendleton, and didn t want to make the trip for an interview. And Leuenberger? He was genipatagonia everlong review 500pxal enough, but absolutely do not vote for Leuenberger.
Charisma or no, Merkley embodies most of the qualities we want in a senator. Send him bapatagonia freeport maine storeck to Washingtonpatagonia fleece sale gift, DC.
IT S HARDLY been the coronation Governor John Kitzhaber might have privately hoped for in 2013, when he wasn t certain if he d run for a fourth term no other governor in Oregon has ever won.
Health care reform hadn t yet become an easy punchline for Kitzhaber s foes, thanks to the millions burned up in what s become a fiasco over Cover Oregon state s mismanaged and still troubled health care enrollment website. The New York Times, in those halcyon days, was lionizing the governor, an emergency room doctor, for the policy chops that brought an extra $1.9 billion in Medicaid cash, meant to help Oregonians at risk and in poverty thrive under coordinated care organizations.
Kitzhaber was still seen as an able centrist willinpatagonia fleece sale gift0g to buck some of the people who helped put him in office employee unions staging a grand compromise that cut government workers retirement paychecks someday to pay for more teachers and fatten education budgets right now. (Yes, yes, that bargain also cut another spigot of cash that might be handy now: business taxes.)
He gambled again on prison reform, agreeing to see if county officials might head off a forecasted expansion of prison beds if only someone would give them money to keep better track of parolees and probationers, and work on the roots of recidivism.
