One Year Older, One Year Wiser.

[December 27th, 2006]

^July 12: "Red Dawn"

Last summer, WW ran a cover that forecast a looming shift in statewide power from Democrats to Republicans.

Four months after that July cover story cited GOP-friendly trends in demographics and voter registration, Democratic Gov. Ted Kulongoski easily won re-election despite some of the country's lowest approval ratings, and D's retained control of the state Senate and won back power in the state House for the first time since 1989.

Maybe WW was a decade or two early. Then again, it's also possible that the story was, in the words of the state's best-known pollster, "flat-assed wrong."

Pollster Tim Hibbitts took that flat-assed wrong tack before the election in the August edition of Brainstorm NW magazine. He wrote then that "cutting the Democratic registration edge from 4 to 3 percent over an eight-year period, while losing virtually every statewide election, hardly qualifies as evidence of an incipient Republican takeover.

In the wake of November's election results, Hibbitts argues now that the evidence is clear: "Oregon is a hell of a lot more blue than red, and is getting more blue," he says.

But political strategist Kevin Looper and analyst Josh Berezin at the union-backed political advocacy group Our Oregon say it's dangerous to confuse a snapshot with a long-term trend.

"It's like people who walk outside on a winter day and say, 'If it's this cold, global warming must be nonsense,'" Berezin adds.

Looper, who coordinated get-out-the-vote efforts in 2004 and 2006, says the Democratic sweep this fall was a combination of backlash against Republicans and a precisely targeted Democratic effort that may be difficult to replicate. Hibbitts' "analysis is based on endpoints, i.e., how many Democrats voted," says Looper. "He totally ignores the huge registration effort it took to get there."

He and Berezin point to newly released population statistics that show Deschutes County gaining more population from July 2004 to July 2006 than Multnomah County. "The growth patterns will continue to erode Democrats' registration advantage," he says.

Nonsense, Hibbitts responds. The pollster argues that even though Republican-leaning counties such as Deschutes and Jackson are growing fast, their absolute populations are insignificant compared to overwhelmingly Democratic Multnomah County and increasingly blue Washington County.

"You can say all you want about registration trends,'' counters Hibbitts. "But D's have won something like 19 of the past 22 statewide races."

—Nigel Jaquiss

^March 29: "One Soldier's Story"

The war in Iraq grinds on for the fourth year, and the Iraqi civilian and American military death toll climbs daily, but the story of one returning soldier—Sgt. 1st Class Sean Davis—shows there is life after war.

Davis, a Portlander who was the subject of a March cover story about his time in Iraq, was married last Wednesday, Dec. 20, to Kelly Herman at the Multnomah County Courthouse.

And the 33-year-old Davis is fleshing out the war journals he shared with WW readers last spring in order to shed light in his own book on the untold stories of America's latest war. They're stories in which soldiers are shot at constantly but issued speeding tickets for driving too fast on base while also being sold "Who's your Baghdaddy?" T-shirts.

Davis is also featured in a book published in October by Oregon historian John R. Bruning. The book, The Devil's Sandbox: With the 2nd Battalion, 162nd Infantry at War in Iraq, details the Oregon battalion's deployment in Iraq and devotes a whole chapter to the day Davis was critically wounded by a car bomb: June 13, 2004.

Calling the book "very John Wayne," Davis cuts a more modest profile.

Now at Portland State University earning a bachelor's degree in English, Davis also works for P-Town Independent Press, a local group dedicated to promoting writers, musicians and artists.

Davis says people often pepper him with questions about Iraq: "They think I should have all these answers for all these political views," Davis says.

But he is interested in informing people about the effects of post-traumatic stress disorder, which he has. "It's not the stereotypical person who suffers from it," Davis says.

—Beth Slovic

^Feb. 22: "My Name is Randy, And I'm Addicted To Oil"

Randy White has been busy since he appeared on WW's cover. In the past 10 months, White has gone from being just another Portlander concerned about the societal impacts of the end of cheap oil to one of the activists leading the charge to ready PDX for several "Peak Oil" scenarios when the global oil supply hits the wall.

In the wake of WW's story, City Commissioner Dan Saltzman appointed White to a 12-member city task force on Peak Oil—one of just a couple such municipal bodies in the country.

White also launched a carpooling website (carpoolcrew.com) that lets users find rideshares with similar political affiliations and interests; and a political blog (lawnstogardens.com).

Over a steaming "Monk Bowl" at the Pearl's green-chic Blossoming Lotus restaurant, White proclaims that the global energy situation remains dire. He waxes about the coincidental timing of the U.S.'s proposal to boost naval strength in the Persian Gulf, and Iran's decision to trade oil in Euros, not dollars. He muses about societal collapse in the aftermath of an energy crash.

Patting an 80-page draft of the Portland Peak Oil Task Force's report, White says: "This is nothing less than a revolutionary document. It will be able to serve as a model for other cities."

Due out early next year, the report outlines 12 concrete steps Portland should take in the wake of the looming Peak Oil crisis. Topping the list: Cut consumption of oil and natural gas in the city by half over the next 25 years, which the report says mirrors the projected decline in world oil production during that period.

Other recommendations include preserving local farmland and developing an emergency plan for food and fuel distribution in the wake of an extended shortage.

"I'm no angel," White says. "I am still addicted to oil, limited in what a single family can do.... I also believe when the first oil shocks hit, people will really, really wake up."

—Ian Demsky