News Republican gubernatorial nominee Chris Dudley and his Democratic rival John Kitzhaber come to the November general election in Oregon with very different professional backgrounds: Dudley, a political novice whose 16-year NBA career included two stints for the Portland Trail Blazers, dipped his toe in the financial services industry for four years before declaring his candidacy. Kitzhaber worked ...   More

News In the absence of other information, the Rasmussen poll released this morning is about all Oregonians have to go on in the governor's race. Like the earlier Rasmussen poll released two weeks ago, today's numbers show Republican Chris Dudley with a lead over Democrat John Kitzhaber, although the difference this time is 49 percent to 44 percent. That's slight enough that Rasmussen calls the race ...   More

News The Oregonian's editorial board last week endorsed John Kitzhaber for governor and filmed its discussion about this important decision. We heard the video could be found on the daily's website. Unfortunately, OregonLive is so impossible to navigate that we could not find it. Thankfully, someone did send us a "bootleg copy," although, for some reason, it was dubbed in German. We did find someone ...   More

News Democratic gubernatorial nominee John Kitzhaber is a pretty low-tech guy, still employing one of those "old-man" cell phones that just makes calls. But his campaign staffers seem to have figured out Facebook well enough to earn the notice of the Los Angeles Times for the way they are leveraging President Obama's visit to Portland on Wednesday, Oct. 20. (Obama will appear at the Oregon Convention ...   More

News Here are a couple of things readers should know about President Obama coming to Portland this Wednesday Oct. 20 to campaign for Democratic gubernatorial candidate John Kitzhaber at the Oregon Convention Center. 1) Anti-war protesters plan to rally from 3:3o pm to 6:45 pm near the convention center urging the president to end both wars and close the Guantanamo Bay detention center. 2) TriMet ...   More

News The Democratic Governors' Association gave gubernatorial nominee John Kitzhaber another $500,000 yesterday, bringing the DGA's total contribution to Kitzhaber to $1 million. That's a lot of dough for the Democratic candidate but still less than half the $2.25 million the Republican Governors' Association has given to GOP nominee Chris Dudley. As of today, Dudley (who picked up a $100,000 check ...   More

News When Republican gubernatorial nominee Chris Dudley addressed the Oregon Association of Minority Entrepreneurs' monthly "Coffee & Issues" breakfast on Sept. 24, he reprised a comment he'd made at an earlier interview with the Urban League of Portland. "I heard him say he 'understood what it was like to be a minority because he had played in the NBA," recalls state Rep. Lew Frederick (D-Portland), ...   More

News During our endorsement interview last week with Oregon's gubernatorial candidates, we asked this question: Is there a governor who you think is a example of the leader you would like to be? Republican Chris Dudley drew straight from his party's playbook, naming a fellow Republican who is widely expected to run for president—Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels. Democrat John Kitzhaber was far more ...   More

News The slow-moving tale of a 1999 loan then-Gov. John Kitzhaber obtained from the Portland stock brokerage Bidwell & Company inched closer to resolution today. At a WW endorsement interview this morning with Republican opponent Chris Dudley, Kitzhaber produced an IRS form 1098 for 2001. That document showed the amount of interest Kitzhaber paid on the $306,000 interest-only loan in 2001: a ...   More

News One question we asked in our endorsement interview of Oregon's gubernatorial candidates this week was whether it's finally time for a change given that the Democrats have held the governor's job for the past 24 years—and Oregon is, by many measures, worse off now compared to other states than it was 24 years ago. Democratic candidate John Kitzhaber, who served two terms as governor from ...   More