I'm right there with you. God help us indeed.

Dudley would be an awful, awful choice. Look at his background, he is barely intelligible, seems easily controlled by money. Kitzhaber did well and he won't make drastic changes.

Dudley graduated from Yale. He was president of the NBA players union. He's an ex-Blazer. He's dealt with diabetes and helped others to do the same. Kitzhaber has no logical reason to do this, except maybe to meet some new young women. You keep talking, but it's going to be a race.

Your every word has me nodding in agreement: about how I'll vote, what Kitz failed to accomplish, and -- unfortunately -- also getting a little queasy in my tummy.

Tums all around.

"You keep talking, but it's going to be a race."
===

Smackdown!

Race it will be! Dudley will benefit from the anti-incumbent mood, and Kitz is very much the incumbent.

Are you better off today than 8 years ago? 12 years ago? Is Oregon still ungovernable?

Can Multno county tar Dudley as a Sizemore clone? Nope. Maybe they can keep calling him a (Yale grad) dunce. LOL.

Kitz wants to put everybody back to work rebuilding all the school buildings in the state and making them Green.

Now why didn't Teddy think of that?

When did Dudley serve as President for NBA player's union?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NBA_Players_Association

Dudley has a very good chance. If he becomes more explicit on how he will reduce government debt, address PERS, continue and elaborate his stance to abandon state funding by lottery dollars of Milwaukie Lightrail, take a position of CRC, address across the state issues outside of Portland, question and throttle down the misuse of urban renewal statewide, lessen the morass of trying to do business in Oregon, and avow spending restraint over taxation, then he will be governor.

Kitzhaber's track record, incumbency, and his inability to get off of platitudes will be his failure.

Kitzhaber's anti-growth policies were a disaster for rural Oregon economies. He's in no small part responsible for the decline of many rural school districts, whose fortunes are tied to the economies of their communities. I don't know much about Dudley, but I sure won't vote for Kitzhaber--if only to keep his margin of victory down.

When did Dudley serve as President for NBA player's union?

Thank you, Blue Troll, for the correction.

Dudley was even more than the president of the union. He was both treasurer of the union (not president) and a plaintiff in legal claims against the management of two NBA teams:

Dudley wound up fighting with the league's top leadership. When he signed his first contract with the Blazers, NBA officials angrily declared that he was trying to evade the salary cap by including a one-year opt-out in the agreement.

That opt-out would allow Dudley to play for Portland for a year and then negotiate a new contract that exceeded the team's overall salary cap because teams were allowed to pay more to re-sign their own players.

The league went to court in a futile battle to negate the contract, and Dudley said the high-stakes dispute helped turn him into a labor activist. He became the union's treasurer in 1996, calling himself a "pragmatic hard-liner" who wanted to take a tougher negotiating stand against the league. And he fought and won a similar legal battle with the NBA when he signed with the New York Knicks in 1997.

Though Dudley was not heavily involved in direct negotiations, he was part of the team of union officers who plotted strategy during the bitter 1999 bargaining that led to a lockout and a shortened season. Many analysts saw the players as the big losers in the resulting settlement, but Dudley argued that the union did a good job of stopping a "hard cap" that would have strictly limited each team's payroll.

I'm sorry he scares you so much, but watching John Kitzhaber makes me want to take a long, hot shower.

After living through the last 12 years of Kitzhaber/Colonoskopi I say pass the ball and let someone else try that 3 point shot.

Jim C is right- 12 years is enough-

and oh by the way- Tom McCall was a Republican=does that mean you wouldn't have voted for him?

It would have been tough. But Oregon Republicans used to be likable -- Hatfield, even Packwood (without the tongue). That's all over now.

I'm a registered Democrat, and it takes a lot to get me to even think about voting for a Republican. But Kitzhaber's a professional political manipulator who really has little to show for his years in office. He seems greasy. I'm not sure I want to go back there.

Kitzhaber was a disaster before, and could kill this state for good if given the chance to go back to Salem. Dudley strikes me as intelligent, moderate, and sincere - qualities you don't often see in a politician in this state. My vote for Dudley is motivated largely by my distaste for Dr. Denim, but it is a vote for Dudley nonetheless.

Jack, I'm a registered Demo too. But I admit I worked on Alley's campaign because I prefer candidates that research, knows as best they can the facts, and then to take a discernible position. Kitzhaber is incapable of such. That's what I posted above. I hope Dudley follows Alley's lead.

I switched from independent to Republican a month ago to help choose a candidate strong enough to maybe beat Kitzhaber. However I'm hardly thrilled with Dudley. He has a mixed record but some successes.

For eight years Kitzhaber had to work with a Gingrichite Republican state legislature made even more uninterested in solving basic Oregon problems by term limits (by the time a Republican representative would realiaze that cutting taxes wouldn't solve anything they would be term limited out of office). I'm not sure what a nice enought seeming guy with no experience in politics and with only one answer to the states problems (lower taxes) really has to offer.

I'm not sure what a nice enought seeming guy with no experience in politics and with only one answer to the states problems (lower taxes) really has to offer.
JK: Lower taxes brings more jobs.
Lower taxes helps people feed their kids and still afford clothes and books. Do you have a problem with this?

And the state can actually improve its financial condition, with lower taxes, by a simple housecleaning of waste. Light rail is only a tiny start of the waste that needs to end. The next low hanging fruit is developer subsidies in the form of urban renewal. And lets not forget streetcars and bike paths as more waste.

We might even look at the almost 1/2 BILLION annual Trimet budget. How much of that actually helps the needy get around an how much merely gives transport welfare to well off downtown workers. Maybe there is a better way to finance it if its major function is to serve the downtown businesses. Maybe riders should pay 100% of the real cost instead of 22% with transit vouchers for the needy. In any case bus stops should NEVER be places so as to force the bus to block traffic as is now Trimet’s official policy.

Then there is the waste from traffic congestion. Our multi billion dollar "investment" in light rail has been an utter failure at reducing congestion with its average effect of carrying 1/2 of one lane of freeway at many times the cost and in the space of one freeway lane.

Then we could start looking at how many employees are really needed to run the state. And how many agencies are performing NO useful function. Or even causing harm!

thanks
JK

I am sorry but Dudley so obviously has that sound bite made for TV packaging that makes me think he is a talking head for big money interests. That is all Bush was as well, and we don't need Oregon's version of Bush as the governor.

Dudley is Oregon's version of Sarah Palin, except without the media savvy. He's a train wreck when having to speak on his toes and leaves his talking points. Like Palin, he doesn't seem to have any personal convictions other than get into office and further his political career by any means necessary.

People around here might not like Dr.No, but he had to deal with the bat s**t crazy Oregon Legislature during his tenure.

I'm glad Dudley won. He has name recognition, personable and isn't a political insider. Alley has more experience and would do a better job but didn't have a chance of beating Kitz.

"Kitzhaber did well and he won't make drastic changes."

What exactly did he do so well? He got handed 8 of the best years ever for the Oregon economy and I didn't see one improvement and was last seen walking out the door muttering that Oregon is ungovernable.

I don't live in Oregon anymore, but if I did I think I'd vote for Dudley as well.

I support Democrats nationally and I think Republicans have gone insane. But I would never vote for Kitzhaber. I remember when he left office and he was bitter and angry. Oregon can do much better.

I'm no big Dudley fan, but Kitzhaber was the biggest loser Governor this state ever had......Oops, I forgot about Kulongowski....Oops, I forgot about Roberts. Oops....

One need only listen to Bradbury's comments in defeat.

Bradbury, "Every Democrat needs to get behind John Kitzhaber. The future of Oregon is at stake".

Really Bill?

That's how entrenched the dysfunctional status quo establishment is. They can't imagine any disruption will be anything but the end of times.

The fact is every state agency and others run by governor appointed boards, TriMet, Port or Portland, need purging in the worst way. That's unacceptable to those running these long held institutions.
They've spent decades of reckless abandon shifting their missions to facilitate the left wing agenda.

If all we look at was education we can imagine a Dudley governor appointing a new board of education that will end the perpetual meddling which began nearly 20 years ago with CIMCAM.
Which still exists without the certificates.
One would hope Governor Dudley's board of education will give Castillo some new orders.
Likewise Dudley would end the Goldscmidt era at TriMet and the Port which Kitzhaber will certainly preserve.

"After living through the last 12 years of Kitzhaber/Colonoskopi I say pass the ball and let someone else try that 3 point shot."

Sounds like someone who never actually watched Chris Dudley play basketball. Even though he played in the NBA, with Oregon's future hanging on a basketball shot, I'd rather have Kitzhaber take the 3 than Dudley :-)

[i]JK: Lower taxes brings more jobs.[/i]

Poppycock.

Enterprising genius and a ready market for its product brings more jobs. Higher taxes can impede this process, but tax levels too low to provide an adequate public infrastructure to support production can impede it as well.

As usual, it's not how much or how little one taxes, but how judiciously one uses the revenue. Here, we fail enormously and need to restructure revenue control and usage, not necessarily reduce taxes. I think we could stand to shift the burden of the entire tax structure so that those who pilfered the public till so heavily over the past twenty years are tapped more heavily to provide the support for the infrastructure which keeps them on the top of the income and wealth generation machine.

JB: "Dudley graduated from Yale."

Remember the other Yale graduate that is a likable guy you'd love to have a beer with, that really could do no harm, and had a history with professional sports and gee wiz wasn't an insider? That experiment turned out well.

Dudley is a tool in the making.

That's no surprise. What bothers me is the people he has decided to align himself with in those terms.

Remember....He has aligned himself with the demagogues of the Repugnantcan Party.

He did not need to do that.

No good choice between these two. Kitzhaber, however, doesn't pass the "John Edwards Sniff Test" in my opinion. I find it unsavory that a guy serves as governor, moves to the Pearl (was that property tax free?) and then wants to move back to the governor's mansion. Yuck. Dudley: A Republican Yale Grad Jock. Not so appealing in my book. At least he's keeping his mouth shut for the most part.

I think change is a good thing at all political levels in Oregon at this point. I am not a conservative. I prefer moderates and independents, but end up voting for dems a lot fo the time.

But Oregon needs fresh thinking across the board. Actions like spending $20 million from sewers to further a bike plan in the middle of horrible budget cut backs? Things like this come up only in an environment where established politicians from an entrenched party with entrenched special interests have grown accustomed to never being questioned on their actions.

With the dems in charge of the legislature, there is real danger of this mind-set sinking in across the state. Once one party becomes permenantly ensconced, look out (and frankly, it may already be too late in Oregon). You want to know where we would be headed, look at California.

If Alley won the choice would be be wasy: Alley in November. But Dudley just seems like he has no substance; just empty platitudes.

Kitz had to deal w/a GOP legislature for all 8 yrs he was governor. Brady Adams (then senate prez) killed a lot of Kitz's initiatives.

Still the opportunity to clean out boards like trimet tempts me to vote for Dudley.

What is Dudley's position on the Arizona illegal immigration law? Would he sign such a law if he could?

"I am sorry but Dudley so obviously has that sound bite made for TV packaging that makes me think he is a talking head for big money interests." Swimmer, you must have been at our bus stop this morning. This is exactly what we concluded.

Adler, Swimmer, et al. Let's not forget that the unions are the biggest "money interests" in this state.

What is Dudley's position on the Arizona illegal immigration law? Would he sign such a law if he could?

I doubt it. We already have a statute that says the police or public officials cannot ask citizenship status.

I would be happy with just requiring proof of citizenship for driver's licenses and public assistance.

And didn't Kitzhaber say that Oregon was "ungovernable?"

I was a big Alley supporter. He really did research the facts and always deduced reasonable conclusions. I found Dudley to be, well, a dud. Platitudes, etc. BUT, I think that having someone in there to veto more useless and insane Oregon laws (remember when we had to go 20 in a school zone at 3am in the middle of summer?) would be better than "accomplishing" anything, so I will vote for Dudley.

I am a bit naive here, as I was too young to know. What exactly did Kitz squander? It's an honest question, I'd like to know.

By the way, I got all fired up seeing all the negative comments on this blog towards the city council et al. I thought for sure we'd get rid of status quo and boot Saltzman. But no! Portland and Oregon love recycling leadership deficient "leaders." WTF??? I now realize that those 30 to 40 negative comments per article are in fact, the only 30 to 40 people in Portland who think that way. CRAP!

I'm just worried about what Dr. Veto would do with a democratic supermajority legislature, rather than the wingnut right-wing legislature he had in the 90s to keep him in check.

They don't get much done down there because the current Governor is napping it out in his office. Put this guy in there, with that legislature, and you're going to have a rubber-stamp session for every wasteful spending bill that the unions can write.

Electing Dudley would get the Columbia River Crossing Project finished up in short order.

After all, the new governor would want an express route to the home he'll buy across the river to once again avoid paying taxes.

"What exactly did Kitz squander?"
===

The biggest economic expansion in Oregon's history. Huge tax inflows, very hard to piss it away, but Kitz did just that.

He spent it all, every last dime, and left Gov Kulo holding the bag during the hangover recession of 2001-2002.

I too liked Alley. Hell, I used to be a democrat. I hung on for ever, and then went independent. I saw all the same things Jack opposes. It made me sick. Now I find myself in this primary registered as a republican. WOW! I never thought that would happen. And you know what? I am about to vote for a republican for the governor for the first time! And I can't wait to do so.

Here's something to dwell on all you "instant" Dudley haters: For 2011-2012
the State of Oregon's budget is allegedly 2+ BILLION DOLLARS in the hole - and the current crop of Democrat idiots in the Legislature have no clue where the money will come from. Even worse, almost no new businesses are moving into the state.
At least with a Governor not in the Legislature's pocket, they might have to make some serious efforts at correcting the state's enormous spending problems. The alternative is to look at the mess in California, and see what Oregon will look like in another 3-4 years. Don't think it can't happen in Oregon? Guess again!

Too bad we can't try "none of the above."

tell us folks what is kitZhaber saying that is actually wowing anyone?i dont see any plan from him to get unemployment down or the private sector back to work.