[April 30th, 2008]

Will Hobbs

Tattoo he’d get: “Brotherhood” on his right arm.

We know. Who the hell is Will Hobbs? Briefly, he’s a 60-year-old senior engineer at Intel who emerged as the most surprisingly appealing challenger we interviewed.

He’s challenging five-term Rep. David Wu, a reliable if not very exciting incumbent. The 25 bills he’s sponsored since January 2007 include the usual flotsam—such as renaming a Beaverton post office and “marking the 225th anniversary of the Treaty of Paris”—and some good ideas, such as upsizing Pell Grants and setting up “green transportation infrastructure” research centers. He’s also taken a few strong stands we applaud, including a bill “to preserve the right to habeas corpus”.

On balance, Wu’s voting record is OK, save for some blemishes like his 2001 vote for a bankruptcy “reform” bill that has pushed the victims of usurious lenders into poverty. He was against the war from the start (good) but, unlike fellow Oregon Rep. Earl Blumenauer, he won’t vote against the Pentagon budget that helps pay for it—and if voters sent no other message in 2006, it was to end the war by any means necessary.

And we credit Wu for standing up to Nike and Intel, the big money in his district, when it comes to trade with China. Both companies don’t like his opposition to “most favored nation” trading status with China, on account of that government’s routine human-rights violations.

But on today’s China Question No. 1—whether or not to boycott the Beijing Olympics—Wu, who was born in Taiwan, is less outspoken. He wouldn’t attend, but he’s not asking anyone else to skip it. Talk about playing it safe. Wu is too coy. And that is his biggest weakness.

Coyness won’t be a problem for Hobbs, given what we heard from people who’ve worked with him, both as peers and as superiors. (For a tech guy, Hobbs isn’t a total nerd: He used to be in a folk-rock band.)

Yes, it can be hard to imagine somebody who’s never held office succeeding in Congress. But a decade ago, that somebody was David Wu. And while this paper has never believed in term limits, we also don’t believe inertia should be the decisive force in casting a vote. Hobbs impressed us with his frank style and broad intelligence. He comes off as a pragmatic lefty, favoring single-payer health care, rapid withdrawal from Iraq, ending torture and—this is an important one, where the Democrats have failed—“restoring Congress as a coequal branch of government.”

It was really something to watch a guy with zero name recognition walk in off the street and debate parliamentary procedure with a five-term Congressman. We think Oregonians would like Hobbs. And, given his chutzpah plus smarts, we think he might be more willing to push a little harder on his fellow Democrats in D.C.

Listen up, conspiracy theorists thinking Hobbs might be Intel’s Manchurian candidate: If Intel wants to plant an agent, they’d probably pick a free-trade Republican, not one like Hobbs who admires Wu’s “principled stand” for human rights and says “all our trade negotiations, worldwide, should include clauses for worker’s rights and environmental protection.”

“My impression of you is that you’re methodical, that you’re a very moral individual with mostly the right points of view,” Hobbs told Wu in our interview. But “I don’t see the spark, I don’t see [you] getting out front and saying, ‘There’s the hill, let’s take it.’” We agree.

Video of WW endorsement interview (thanks to Portland Community Media)