Presidential candidates’ Oregon visits iffy
Monday, September 15, 2008 10:37 AM PDT
PORTLAND (AP) — With the election about seven weeks away, presidential candidates aren’t yet pounding on the doors of the Beaver State.
Despite a boisterous May primary, no presidential or vice presidential candidate has booked an Oregon appearance so far.
The money, the vital electoral votes and the swing states are elsewhere, and, by some reckoning, Barack Obama already has Oregon in the bag.
California has 55 electoral votes. Oregon has only 7, about 1.3 percent of the total although they could make a difference in a close contest. Some presidents, including President Bush in 2000, have lost the popular vote and gotten in via the Electoral College.
Portland pollster Mike Riley says Oregon is not seen as a swing state because of a big jump in the registration of Democrats.
‘‘Unless there’s some kind of issue that comes up that chases the new voters away, I think it will be a pretty predictable race for Democrats,’’ Riley says. ‘‘If the Obama and McCain campaigns think the same thing, it’s unlikely either will spend much time or money here.’’
Oregon voters are not used to being snubbed in presidential elections.
In 2000 a close race between President Bush and then-Vice President Al Gore brought the candidates and their entourages here on a nearly weekly basis. Four years later President Bush and challenger John Kerry spent time here. Both Democrats carried Oregon.
Without such personal visits the race seems remote and stale, said Melissa Buis Michaux, who chairs the politics department at Willamette University in Salem.
‘‘It enables people to be exposed to the political process without having to seek it out,’’ Michaux says. ‘‘We have so many diversions today.’’
She said a visit could influence the tight U.S. Senate race between Republican Sen. Gordon Smith and his Democratic challenger, Oregon House Speaker Jeff Merkley. Both campaigns say they would like to see their candidates alongside a presidential contender.
The relative indifference could calm the airways.
In Pennsylvania, with 21 electoral votes, McCain and Obama between them have spent well over $10 million on TV ads, blasting prime-time viewers spots attacking or mocking each other.
Virtually no presidential campaign money has come to Oregon since the May primary.
