http://www.mailtribune.com/archive/2006/1015/edit/edit.htm
October 15, 2006
Saxton for governor
GOP candidate's pragmatism will create needed changes
It's clear to anyone paying attention that Oregon state government needs to make systemic changes or face an endless string of funding crises. It's not clear that Gov. Ted Kulongoski is ready to do that.
And that's the main reason we're supporting Ron Saxton, who does seem prepared to challenge the status quo and ask questions that need to be asked.
We admit that our support of Saxton involves a bit of a leap of faith. We hope that when we land, we'll discover that Saxton is the man we knew before the political winds pushed him to the right. We think Saxton is a Mark Hatfield-Tom McCall kind of Republican, a man who will put partisan politics aside to work for what's best for the state.
When you talk with Saxton, you get a very different impression than that painted by his opponents. He is a fiscal conservative, yes, but not a social conservative — you're not likely to see him wading into issues like abortion or gay rights.
Saxton endorses initiatives put forward by the non-partisan Chalkboard Project for improving K-12 education and says higher education "needs more money, plain and simple." He recognizes the value of land-use planning, but says Measure 37 was a needed correction to a system that had gone too far in limiting personal property rights.
In short, he's not a raging conservative. But he is a realist and he realizes that the state needs to begin making structural changes if it ever hopes to escape the boom-and-bust cycles of the past two decades. Oregon's government, he says, was designed for the 1950s, not for the 21st century.
He notes, accurately, that we will never get in front of the education funding issue if costs for the most expensive part of education, personnel, are not brought under control. But he does not advocate gutting teacher or state employee salaries and benefits. Instead, he calls for establishing some caps that would still leave the public sector employees with overall packages that would be the envy of most private sector workers.
We differ with Saxton in several areas, notably on the environment, where he has dismissed global warming as a non-issue for a state governor. We believe that global warming is all too real and that a governor should take a leadership role on issues that affect the livability of the state and, long term, of the planet. It is not a challenge to shrug off lightly.
We also disagree with Saxton's characterizations — or at least his campaign's characterizations — of Kulongoski. The governor is not a crazed, we-must-raise-taxes politician. Nor has he thrown open the doors for illegal immigrants or placed himself at the beck and call of public employee unions (if you doubt that, ask the unions what they thought of his support for PERS reform).
But the governor, alas, is also not much of a leader. He was often notably absent from the debate during legislative sessions and, in the last session, astonished nearly everyone by showing up with a major education-funding package just as the Legislature was trying to find a way to get out of town.
Ted Kulongoski's heart is in the right place when it comes to wanting the best for Oregon. But we see no evidence that he would try to shake the state out of its business-as-usual doldrums. And some shaking is needed.
Ron Saxton will not and cannot change state government culture overnight. But we believe he will bring a pragmatic determination to the work of slowly putting the ship of state back on the right course. We also hope that he will understand, as Hatfield and McCall did, that the people who need his leadership the most are not those who have the most, but those who have the least.
If he does that, we'll be proud to say we recommended Ron Saxton for governor of the state of Oregon.
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