Palin-Palooza

[October 8th, 2008]

No need for any insta-poll on the veep debate at one recent meeting of prominent Oregon politicos.

“She’s just killing him,” said charter school activist Rob Kremer about half an hour into the debate last Thursday, Oct. 2. “It’s not even a contest.”

Kremer was one of about 100 conservative activists who gathered at the Airport Shilo Inn to watch Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin debate Delaware Sen. Joe Biden on a large screen.

Welcome to the outpost in left-leaning Portland for the “who’s who” among the state’s conservatives—the Executive Club. Many of those present turn up the first Wednesday of each month for the regular meeting of the club, a group organized by longtime anti-tax advocate Don McIntire “to celebrate the virtues of limited government.”

The atmosphere at the Shilo was positively giddy. McCain baseball cap-topped heads bobbed with approval whenever Palin appeared on screen.

“She [Palin] could be a Communist or a Nazi and it wouldn’t matter,” said Jim Karlock, a blogger and Libertarian Party candidate in Oregon House District 45.

McIntire, who wrote Measure 5—the landmark 1990 property-tax limitation initiative—is the Executive Club’s “president for life.” Before the debate, he implored the faithful to pick up McCain-Palin lawn signs that leaned against the rear wall.

But many felt most passionate about the GOP ticket’s junior member.

“Newt Gingrich would have been my first choice for president,” said Ruth Bendl, a voter-fraud activist. “But I think Sarah Palin will inspire middle America.”

From the moment debate moderator Gwen Ifill introduced herself (to jeering from those who presumably thought her forthcoming book, The Breakthrough: Politics and Race in the Age of Obama, undermined her objectivity) until Palin’s family swarmed the stage, the Executive Club cheered as if Palin were Greg Oden dunking on the Lakers.

Among the faithful were Jason Williams, executive director of Taxpayer Association of Oregon; Steve Buckstein, founder of the libertarian Cascade Policy Institute, Craig Myers of the anti-gay group Concerned Oregonians; Constitution Party attorney general candidate Jim Leuenenberger (perhaps the only candidate whose business card shows a man shooting a gun) and dozens of other conservative leaders.

Not everybody at the gathering was in lockstep, however.

About 15 minutes into the debate, the state’s most prolific initiative writer, Bill Sizemore —who has five measures on this November’s ballot—slipped into the room. That was a risky move because although both men made their names fighting taxes, McIntire despises Sizemore.

“He’s completely discredited the initiative process,” McIntire said later.

But hardly anybody noticed Sizemore’s entrance because all eyes were glued to the big screen.

Even Karlock, who is well-known for videotaping public meetings, relaxed long enough to watch the debate.

“She’s a fine-looking woman,” he said.

Nobody seemed bothered that Palin cannot pronounce “nuclear,” or answer a question coherently.

After the debate, the audience watched Fox News for 10 minutes (clear victory for Palin, Fox commentators opined) before Wall Street Journal columnist John Fund spoke.

“She was woman. Hear her roar!” Fund told the cheering crowd. “When she closed [the debate] with a quote from Ronald Reagan, did that not fill your heart?”

Judging by the wild applause that answered Fund’s question, it did. “This race is on again,” Fund said.

With that, the thirsty and nicotine-deprived heart of Oregon’s conservative movement repaired to the Shilo’s cigar bar and hoisted many a glass to America’s real sweetheart (move over, Katie Couric)—Sarah Palin.

^Trail Mix

Presidential big-shots John McCain and Barack Obama are snubbing blue-state Oregon with no planned stops during the general-election campaign. But have no fear—third-party candidate Ralph Nader is here. The Spoiler will make a campaign stop at the Bagdad Theater in Portland on Oct. 20, says Nader’s state organizer, Greg Kafoury. It appears Nader, who made the Oregon ballot in August as the newly minted Oregon Peace Party’s presidential candidate, hasn’t forgotten the city that boosted his 2000 run with a huge Memorial Coliseum crowd. 

Citizens for a Sound Economy, a conservative PAC led by former House Majority Leader Dick Armey (R-Texas), has landed in the Oregon House race between Democrat Suzanne VanOrman and Republican Matt “The Law” Lindland. In a recent mailer to voters in House District 52, the Washington, D.C.-based group attacked VanOrman as a serial tax-raiser but gave only one actual example of a tax increase VanOrman has favored: an increase in the cigarette tax to pay for children’s health care, which even U.S. Sen. Gordon Smith (R-Ore.) liked. In the meantime, the PAC lifted two photos for its mailer, one from WW and the other from VanOrman’s campaign literature. PAC officials didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Beer + the one election event you can’t afford to miss = Candidates Gone Wild on Monday, Oct. 13, at the Roseland Theater. For just $5 (tickets available at WW, 2220 NW Quimby St., and at the Roseland the night of the event), you’ll see candidates for City Council, Multnomah County and statewide office show off their talents in what always makes for the must-see moment of any election season.

^Face Off

It’s October. Surprise!

Someday Lounge booking agent Josh Blanchard wants the money he raises for Barack Obama to really have an impact—and that isn’t necessarily in Oregon.  Blanchard plans to send the $1,000 he’s aiming to raise in the so-called “Battleground Booster” on Friday, Oct 17 at Someday Lounge to the Democratic Party in Ohio. There, Blanchard says, the cash can be spent in an actual battleground state. Tickets are available for $7 at the event featuring locals like the Portland Cello Project and the Winebirds. Obama can also expect a boost from another benefit concert (general admission tickets are $25, $15 for artists) to be held Oct. 20 at the Wonder Ballroom. Money from that event, which will feature 18 music and dance acts and 14 actors and speakers, will stay in Oregon.With John McCain now trailing Barack Obama in most polls, Democrats’ pre-election nightmares now turn to the prospect of an “October surprise” that would derail their candidate and usher in an inept military theocracy, or whatever.

An October surprise is the so-called game changer that conspiracy theorists see coming every four years. To paranoiacs in the party out of power, the evildoers inside the White House are forever plotting some last-minute vote-shifting shocker.

Since history shows this isn’t as crazy or off-limits as one might think, we offer our own possibilities and the likelihood of something big happening in the weeks before Election Day.