Democrats sweep state offices
By EDWARD WALSH
The Portland Oregonian
Sunday, November 9, 2008 12:30 AM PST
PORTLAND — Democrats swept to victory in races for three statewide offices Tuesday, assuring the party's continued dominance of Oregon state government for at least two more years.
State Sen. Kate Brown, D-Portland, defeated Republican Rick Dancer and Seth Woolley of the Pacific Green Party in the race for secretary of state.
Another Democratic lawmaker, Sen. Ben Westlund of Bend, turned back challenges by Republican Allen Alley and Michael Marsh of the Constitution Party to become the next state treasurer.
Both Brown and Westlund were winning slightly more than 50 percent of the vote in the two most competitive contests for state offices.
Democrat John Kroger won about three-fourths of the vote in his race for attorney general against three minor party opponents.
In a fourth statewide race for the nonpartisan office of labor commissioner, Brad Avakian , a former Democratic state senator who was appointed to that post in April, easily defeated Pavel Goberman, a Beaverton fitness entrepreneur, and Mark Welyczko of Aloha.
Coupled with the gains they made in the Legislature, the Democrats’ sweep of the statewide contests will allow them to maintain their iron grip on the machinery of state government.
They were virtually assured of retaining the attorney general's office because the Republicans did not field a candidate in the race.
That left Kroger, a Lewis & Clark Law School professor and former federal prosecutor, with only token opposition from J. Ashlee Albies of the Working Families Party, Walter F. Brown of the Pacific Green Party and James E. Leuenberger of the Constitution Party.
In the two other partisan statewide races, the better-known Democratic candidates faced stiffer challenges from a pair of Republican newcomers who raised enough money to finance modest television advertising campaigns. Alley, making his first run for public office after serving 14 months as deputy chief of staff to Democratic Gov. Ted Kulongoski, waged a spirited campaign against Westlund. The contest for a relatively obscure state office took a surprisingly negative turn in its closing days with the two candidates trading personal accusations in paid television commercials.
Alley, a venture capitalist and co-founder of the high tech company Pixelworks, hoped to benefit from the turmoil in financial markets by arguing that his business experience and familiarity with Wall Street made him the ideal steward of state finances in such turbulent times.
Westlund, a former Republican turned Democrat, campaigned on his more than 10 years in the Legislature, saying that an ability to work with lawmakers was crucial to the success of the treasurer.Oregon Republican Party Chairman Vance Day said Westlund owed his victory to the Democratic wave that washed over the state. “He bodysurfed in Barack Obama's wake,” he said. A veteran of the Legislature and a former Senate majority leader, Brown survived a tough Democratic primary to emerge as the favorite in the general election. She was the better known candidate statewide, but Dancer was well-known in the Eugene area, where he was a longtime TV news anchorman. The secretary of state contest has implications beyond this election. In 2011, following the 2010 census, the states will be required to draw new congressional and legislative district lines. In Oregon, if the Legislature can’t agree on a plan, the task of drawing those lines will fall to the secretary of state.
