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by Bill Post
The news finally came Wednesday afternoon: Congressman David Wu was resigning effective midnight! Not long after, Rob Cornilles sent out a press release stating that he would be “officially” announcing his candidacy the next day, followed by a press release from State Representative Shawn Lindsay stating he would not run and would be solidly supporting Rob. Then State Senator Bruce Starr announced virtually the same message and Doug Keller posted on his website that he would not be running.
So, now what? For the first time in as long as I can remember (which for me, is sometimes not more than yesterday’s oatmeal for breakfast) the First Congressional District is winnable for the Grand Old Party. Why? The Democrats of the district are not stupid as many on the right think they are. They are smart, and they do care about their district. They may be misled and they may be wrong, but they aren’t stupid, and they do care.
They are also quite embarrassed by David Wu. They are aware that their own party leaders evidently knew about David Wu’s behavior and the hiding of that behavior. When Wu’s former manager, Maria Smithson, was quoted [2] last week as saying: “There are far too many of us on this long journey with David over the last 12 years that kept our mouth shut when we should not have”, that hit First District Democrats hard. That is the mantra that the GOP candidate must repeat ad nauseum.
This district is very winnable for the first time in many election cycles. Let’s get behind the strongest candidate, though maybe not the candidate we will all agree on, and win this district! Every single Republican, Independent and at least 12-15% of the Democrats of the First District must come together to get this win. All of Oregon can help. Get the word out, take a drive to the district and knock on doors, post info on social media. Do something, anything, and let’s take this district back for the Republican Party!
Imagine TWO Republicans from Oregon representing us in Washington D.C.? Wow!
You can hear my Thursday interview with Rob Cornilles online on the podcast replay at www.bpshow.com [3].