On Saturday, the Oregon Republican Central Committee held its winter meeting in Albany, where they arrived at an especially brain-dead "decision": Voters who are not affiliated with any party will be able to vote in the Republican primary for three statewide offices.
Apparently, it hasn't occurred to the brain-trust that a big reason why people choose no affiliation is due to disgust with the antics of both major parties. Rather than adopting principled stands and adhering to them, the ORCC has decided that pandering is just the ticket to convincing the NA's to join the GOP. It isn't going to work - and better yet, the heavy thunkers in ORCC just handed Democrats a great reason to re-register as non-affiliated (temporarily). Apparently not content with the whole "Keep Portland Weird" meme, Alley and the others want to outsource it statewide. There were those who once believed Alley was smarter than this.
On the egocentric side of things, Corvallis seems to be engaged in a battle with Portland politicians in an effort to determine which municipality has the most inflated sense of self-importance: they wanna have a citywide advisory vote on the U.S. Supreme Court’s controversial Citizens United decision, which basically says that corporations (ick!) and unions (yay!) can spend as much money as they darn well please in order to influence - if not outright purchase - elections.
Yessir, there's a sure-fire way to gain the attention of the Beltway crowd: the City of Corvallis, its students and its faculty, agree by majority vote that they believe that Congress should Amend the US Constitution so that corporations can't buy elections. Put a Beaver on it!
Allen Alley pisses me off pretty much every time he opens his mouth. When he subs for Lars on the radio, I about herniate myself lunging to change the station. How in the world a guy who used to work for freakin' Kitzhaber got to be in charge of the OR GOP is a head scratcher. Actually, no it's not. We are surrounded by fools.
(Especially here in Corvallis)
Posted by: innominatus | February 06, 2012 at 03:30 PM
If Alley's on the radio, I turn it off and switch to another online. I've listened to him a few times, and I just can't stand it.
On the other hand, I generally don't listen past the first few minutes of Lars, either. He usually makes it pretty clear that he's going to hammer away at something for three hours, and while his fortitude may be admirable, I already know what he's going to say and it gets boring after a while.
On working for the Kitz: seems to me as though he and Huntsman were dropped on their heads from the same mold. I believe they regard that as "reaching across the aisle". It's one of the reasons why I keep a machete close by at all times - gropers really freak me out.
Posted by: Max | February 06, 2012 at 05:54 PM
There's a reason (or millions) why the GOP is called the stupid party.
Posted by: Sam L. | February 07, 2012 at 07:24 AM
They do seem to have a special talent for shooting themselves in the foot.
Posted by: Max | February 07, 2012 at 05:19 PM
Problem is, when they shoot themselves in the foot, the rest of us feel the pain.
Posted by: fallingpianos | February 08, 2012 at 07:01 PM
Nice catch, FP!
Posted by: Max | February 08, 2012 at 09:27 PM