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CD-1 a lost cause for Republicans

by In the news Wednesday, February 1. 2012

Bill Post logo thb CD 1 a lost cause for Republicans

by Bill Post

I have had all night to think about this and although I was a pretty ticked off little boy last night, I’m a lot more cooled off this morning in the aftermath of last night’s debacle in Oregon’s first congressional district (CD-1).

I truly believe that Rob Cornilles would make a GREAT congressman from Oregon and I am proud of his very clean, very positive campaign. He is a genuinely good man, an honorable man and having gotten to know him over the last couple years, I am proud to call him a friend.

BUT, I would strongly advise him NOT to run again. We, of course, get to go through all of this again in May with the primary for the normal 2-year term for this congressional seat. Then, of course, the November General Election.

Though I put great hope and faith in Rob, I said it many, many times after the November 2010 election: “no Republican will ever win in CD-1″. I am now firmly convinced of that. Some would say if he had run more on the right than he did, then he would have stood a better chance. I am afraid that is incorrect thinking and I base that on the numbers alone. The Democrats of NW Oregon outnumber the Republicans by a huge margin and with vote-by-mail they get out the vote in a much higher percentage.

Just look at the results of the last 4 elections. Independents are meaningless at this point for a Republican, as they do not vote GOP. Rob ran as good a campaign as any Republican has in many years and I am very proud of having had a chance to be a part of it. I greatly admire Rob. I hope now, that he will go back to focusing on his family and what he does best, create jobs! As for any other Republicans running in CD-1, I think you should greatly re-think that. Running more right or more left of Suzanne Bonamici will not work in CD-1, no matter how much you hope, wish and pray for it. You are fighting an opponent that cannot be beat. Bonamici proved that last night. A HORRIBLE candidate wiped the floor with the Republican candidate and it was NOT the Republican candidates fault. Numbers people, numbers. Do your research.

So what are we left with? CD-3 is Blumenauer country and will never change. CD-1 is now officially the same. With a candidate as BAD as Suzanne Bonamici, the Democrats still voted for her in droves. CD-1 is a LOST district, let’s just concede that and know that Republicans own CD-2 with Greg Walden and most likely ANY Republican that were to run after he leaves. That means there are two districts that I believe we really have a great chance at winning: CD-4 with a weakened Peter DeFazio and CD-5 with an inept, in-over-his-head, Kurt Schrader.

As Republicans there is hope and there is a chance to have 3 out of 5 Representatives in Congress but it will take a lot of work and great candidates. Sometimes you have to lose the battles to win the war. CD-1 and CD-3 are lost, let’s move on!

 

tt twitter big4 CD 1 a lost cause for Republicans tt digg big4 CD 1 a lost cause for Republicans tt facebook big4 CD 1 a lost cause for Republicans tt reddit big4 CD 1 a lost cause for Republicans

Posted by at 11:38 | Posted in Congressional Races | 23 Comments |Email This Post Email This Post |Print This Post Print This Post
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  • PureGrace

    I agree no true conservative is going to win that district.  But a 
    moderate
    that would put up a FIGHT when the time was right may have 
    won
    it.

    the article’s points about timing and passivity, i agree with.  the 

    premise about running more conservative candidate is patently false 

    based on data, numbers, and culture up here as you note.

    Just put an
    aggressive moderate against an incompetent dem defending a 
    disgraced sex
    offending kook and fight bare knuckles with her and CD1 
    would be
    ours.

    but no.  we have to fall back to hoping for 3 out of 5 when 4 out
    of 5 
    could have been our goal.  imagine 80% GOP in the house from 

    Oregon . . . . we lost our best chance.

    • guest

      Feb 2 Front page fishwrapper, ta da – $2.2 millon spent by das PAC’d with DNC d’oh and Bona-fidaGucci grasp rooters (for boo coo negative ads) – compared with $579k token from Cornilles cash registers.  

      Wow, that’s a lot of blue Kool-Aid poured out for WuTown supplicants -   sadly, Wu-hood rather bloat than vote for a GOP nominee.  Pity!     

  • votejodyscott

    On to the primaries then. Every electable position is important. Check out votejodyscott on FB, twitter, youtube and .com
    House of Representatives District 12. Springfield (Oregon)
    Any support is welcomed, even as simple as friending me.
    If you can’t offer any money to support your candidate, then offer some of your time.

  • Anonymous

    The bigger question is can a republican win higher office in Portland? I ready to express my opinion by moving out of state.
    I also am concerned how Washington County has flipped solidly Democratic. I feel in part to Washington County Republican poor Get out the vote drives based on phone banking  and  campaign walks in single occupancy neighborhoods while neglecting the growth in condominium and apartment complexes.  
    I wonder if a Republican can win by running a  Individual Liberty, pro capitalist platform.
    I would run this on Individual Liberty, social decentralization instead of social conservatism, and capitalism that every individual has the right to trade with another person and government will have no say unless force and fraud is employed.

    • David Appell

      Oh, please. Republicans don’t want free markets. They like to pretend they do, and they’ve trained people like you to repeat the myth, but when big corporations get in trouble, like in 2008, they all come running to the government to bail them out, or, they swear, the world is going to end and civilization will crumble. Then they get *boatloads* of money from Uncle Sam — trillions in loan guarantees — upright their ship, and go sailing on as if nothing ever happened, again paying huge bonuses, again resisting regulation, again bribing politicians, and playing the same game all over again. Until the next time they get in trouble, when the government — lead by the corporate people who were once on Wall Street, and will go back when they are done — will bail them out again.

      The last thing these liars, frauds, and cheats want is a free market. They want money, and lots of it. And that it all. 

      Wake up.

      • Rupert in Springfield

        Given the actions of BO and the his notorious ability to raise Wall Street money your comment is especially silly.

        • valley person

           Why? What does his comment have to do with Obama? He is talking about the hypocrisy of your party. Who Obama gets his money from has nothing to do with what republicans preach and then practice.

        • David Appell

          Wall Street pays that money so it will have friends to run to for help when the so-called free market decides they should go out of business. After getting bailed out, John Default goes back to being John Galt — at least, until the next time he has to ask Daddy’s help. 

  • Burton

    Although it is unlikely that a Republican will win CD1, NEVER say “never.” The Democrats may have a numerical superiority but we wear the white hats. I do not consider my campaigning efforts to be a waste of time. I learned tons of stuff and made new friends. And, I think I managed to hang onto the old friends despite some differences in our ideas about effective campaign strategies.

  • Chana Cox

    Rob ran a good campaign against a very weak candidate.  But I think that the Republican party itself has a great deal to learn about how to run these campaigns in this state. It is particularly worrisome that we could not even get out the Republican vote in some precincts.  No Republican can possibly win without getting out the base. 

  • valley person

    “Independents are meaningless at this point for a Republican, as they do not vote GOP.”

    Bill….you learned the wrong lesson here. Because the Dems have a big majority in that district, Independents are essential for a Republican to win. And to win a large majority of independents, a candidate would have to figure out what their politics are and run the campaign for them. But doing so would clearly alienate the far right.

    Corniles never established himself as someone Independents could trust. He had the anchor of the far right around his neck, and all Bonamici had to do was make sure that anchor stayed in place and visible. Piece of cake.

    If Republicans want to win in Oregon other than Walden’s district they have to rediscover their inner Hatfield/Mcall/Packwood. But today’s conservatives, who run the Republican Party, would never stand for that, so you are stuck with what you have. Not much as it turns out.   

    • HBguy

      Good points. Maybe the Republican party should try to simply beat the democrat next time rather than win the seat. Democrats won’t vote for a republican. And left leaning independents won’t either. It may be the brand. 
      And even if independents and conservative democrats would consider voting republican, a republican nominee has to take certain positions to get the nomination that have a real potential for alienating them.So, maybe if a centrist independent were to run. And the republicans either didn’t run anyone, or even cross nominated (Though I don’t think that would be allowed by republican rules). And then the republican super pacs and pacs went negative on Bonimicci, they could take the democrat out.

      Is a business friendly main street independent more acceptable than Bonimicci? 

    • HBguy

      Good points. Maybe the Republican party should try to simply beat the democrat next time rather than win the seat. Democrats won’t vote for a republican. And left leaning independents won’t either. It may be the brand. 
      And even if independents and conservative democrats would consider voting republican, a republican nominee has to take certain positions to get the nomination that have a real potential for alienating them.So, maybe if a centrist independent were to run. And the republicans either didn’t run anyone, or even cross nominated (Though I don’t think that would be allowed by republican rules). And then the republican super pacs and pacs went negative on Bonimicci, they could take the democrat out.

      Is a business friendly main street independent more acceptable than Bonimicci? 

    • David Appell

      Exactly. Independents are meaningless for Republicans because Republicans have made them so. 

      • valley person

         What is interesting is that people expect to be elected who clearly don’t represent a majority of voters, and then they get all upset with the voters. Its illogical. 

  • Devin

    Yet again we run a “moderate” candidate who did everything he could to pretend that he isn’t even a republican.  He and his allies attacked and alienated the tea party preventing them from helping (to the point of actually blocking long time conservative republicans from being PCPs).  And this is the result of all his effort: 39.6% turnout from republicans compared to 53.8% for the democrats.  I don’t care what the registration advantage is, if you got that kind of turn out you lose.  Rob alienated his own party, and that from someone that voted for him and tried to help.

    • HBguy

      I think you may be confusing vote for turnout. I haven’t seen the final numbers, but I think the democrats and republicans had very similar turnout. At least they did 24 hours before the close of voting.

      Second, if republicans really believe that the problem with Cornilles was that he wasn’t conservative enough, I think this will be a safe democratic seat for a long long time. 

      Look, Bill Post is right. CD-1 is a democratic district. Most voters in CD-1 will not vote for the current incarnation of the republican party. The republican platform will never get the registered democrats, and can’t get the independents that live in CD-1. 

  • PureGrace

    WEll now that kumanich is a radio host hopefllly he doesn’t run, he’s a nut.

    • Pacific Patriot

      Wow…that attitude scored you a big one, didn’t it??

  • Sol668

    I have got to admire your optimism Bill, considering Oregon has had a majority of democratic congress people for a very very long time…even in 2010, defazio won 54% of the vote…which is remarkably similar to the 54% of the vote that Bonomici just won.

    Fact is Oregon is now, and has been for a nearly a century a progressive place…maybe its the natural beauty, maybe its the remarkably low rate of adherence to fundamentalist religous beliefs such as yours, maybe people here just aren’t as mean spirited viscious and self interested enough to buy into the modern republican ethos

    You can’t win a state wide race, you cannot defeat measures like 66 and 67 the worship of the lord “job creators” so prevalent on the right just doesn’t ring so loudly here and I don’t see that changing any time soon.

  • Kyle Bussey
  • Rupert in Springfield

    Look, it would be very hard to get a Republican in CD1 and if you do it will be a moderate.

    However it is possible. NYC was just as much a Democrat bastion as Portland in terms of Republicans getting anywhere and has now on its second Republican mayor.

    The question is would it make a difference? In other words, the kind of Republican you could get elected to CD1 would be so moderate it’s really hard to see why there would be much enthusiasm for him. Therefore why would the be much backing from the party or donors in terms of money?

    I think that’s the problem Cornilles had. Once you moderate yourself enough to win, its real hard to see why a bunch of money should be spent to get you elected.

    Bonjovi had a totally different set up. Democrats are scared to death of losing more ground in congress. They saw this as an important election as a loss would have been quite dispiriting. Therefore they poured in the money.

    Could Cornilles have won if money had poured in for him? Maybe. But in the end, it might be better to spend money on Republicans in other elections that would actually make a difference. I think that was the decision that was made here. 

  • http://klatus-blog.blogspot.com/ Klatu

    Get CD 1 Out of Multnomah County. Re-draw CD 1 leaving Multnomah county out of it

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