and even spoke out against him on the floor of the Oregon
House. Helt tells EW that she criticized Trump about his
environmental policies “because climate change is real.”
Helt says that she grew up as a young Republican
(despite having a short spell as a Democrat) and because
she owns two restaurants in Bend, she says she has the
party’s fiscal values. “I want to make sure our businesses
can operate,” she says.
In 2016, Deschutes County was Trump country; he won
46 percent of the vote (three more points than Clinton).
But Helt spoke out about the party’s leader on Facebook
in an election year anyway.
“I’m speaking out with my voice,” she says. “I’m pro-
viding the leadership I want to see in my community and
for my community.”
She says when the U.S. enters a crisis, it almost always
unites its people — but the White House hasn’t been
encouraging and is instead using politics to divide during
a pandemic.“We’ve got to make sure that we leave this
crisis better than we went into it,” she says. “And we need
a president who can do that.”
Helt says the U.S. needs someone to lead with com-
passion and heart — and if a leader doesn’t exhibit those
qualities she can’t support them. But in the meantime,
she says she’ll work on the local and state level so her
community can get the leadership it needs.
Leaving Trump in 2016
Kerry Tymchuk has a long history with the Republi-
can Party. His resumé includes working for former Sen.
Gordon Smith and for former Sens. Bob and Elizabeth
Dole, as well as co-authoring a book with the Doles (plus
he notes that he knew the Dole’s dog, Leader, well).
Tymchuk says he left the Republican Party just days
after Trump visited Eugene in 2016. It was the day Trump
had enough delegates to get the party’s presidential
nomination in 2016. He left the party that he had a long
history with, he says, because it nominated a person who
lacked qualities like dignity, decency and civility.
Tymchuk says he felt it was his duty to leave the
Republican Party. “Any party that would nominate him
as president, I didn’t want to be a member of,” he adds.
He says people close to him weren’t surprised about
his leaving the party since he was vocally critical of
Trump during the primaries — and donated to
former Ohio Gov. John Kasich. And to this
day, Tymchuk says he hasn’t regretted his
decision to leave.
In 2016, he went on to support Hillary
Clinton and says she would’ve been a great
president. During his time in Washington,
D.C., he says he had seen Clinton at work and
was impressed with her ability to lead.
Four years later, Tymchuk says, he supported Biden
immediately when the former vice president ran for the
nomination. According to individual contribution data
from the Federal Election Commission, Tymchuk has
donated more than $6,600 to Biden since April 25, 2019,
the day Biden entered the race.
“Especially when I was with Sen. Bob Dole, I saw Biden
every day for six years. I saw his work ethic,” he says. “I
saw those qualities in him — the decency, the civility, the
dedication to public service and reaching across the aisle.”
Despite Tymchuk’s resumé with the Republican
Party, the time that he spent working with Bob
Dole and Elizabeth Dole (and even supporting
an exploratory presidential committee in 2000 for
Elizabeth) in Washington or alongside former Sen.
Gordon Smith, he doesn’t think he’ll ever return.
“I can’t imagine going back in the near future
given the enablement that has gone on,” he says.
“They turned themselves over. The Republican Party
became the Trump Party.”
Tymchuk says in his years of working in politics
and public service, the most important qualities
he’s observed in leaders were decency, civility, an
ability to reach across the aisle and not see the other
party as enemies.
E U G E N E W E E K LY . C O M
“You can question their stances but not their beliefs
and motives. And the ability to understand that we’re one
country,” he says. “In my view, that’s how we succeed.”
Getting the Orange
out of the Red
Assuming that Trump was going to lose the 2016
election, Kasich had planned to have an event after the
2016 election that would have essentially rebooted the
Republican Party. Of course, that’s not what happened,
but Kasich went on to be a critic of Trump and is on the
speaker list for the Democratic Party’s virtual National
Convention.
But the Republican Party had been broken before
Trump came along because the problem is the two-party
system, says Rich Vial, who left the party to run as a
nonpartisan for secretary of state in 2020.
“I think Trump got elected because the two-party
system was busted, and he made the case that he wasn’t
an insider,” he says. “Once he got in, he used the party
to his advantage.”
Vial says a political party reinventing itself won’t make
a difference. The Republican Party has reinvented itself
countless times — from Barry Goldwater to Reagan.
He says the problem is with the two-party system and
George Washington’s concerns have come true: parties
mobilize generals, not policymakers.
Illustratio
n by Chelse
“I believe George Washington had it correct that if
we allowed parties to be a formal part of the system, it’ll
destroy our abilities to lead the democratic republic,”
Vial says.
The result of growing partisan party politics, he adds,
is the emergence of fringe candidates on general election
ballots — like Jo Rae Perkins, Art Robinson and Trump
himself — because only a fraction of voters participate
in primary elections.
Vial says the solution is to have open primary elections,
ranked choice voting and get rid of caucusing (at least at
the state level).
Vial isn’t alone in his views on the two-party system.
According to July 2020 voter registration data, Oregon
has 932,826 unaffiliated voters, a number that exceeds
registered Republicans and is almost as many registered
Democrats.
However, Tymchuk says the two-party system is better
than the multi-party system often found in parliamentary
systems, but the issue for him is that there are times when
the country is more important than the party — and voters
and leaders failed to realize that in 2016.
The U.S.’s political system works best when there are
two “healthy” parties that lean left and right, he says,
because progress happens in the middle, Tymchuk adds.
And it’s that middle spot that Lockwood says is a prom-
ising place for Oregon to innovate politically. He says
he’s not satisfied with either party — and when he talked
with EW he didn’t say whether he’d support Biden. Good
governance needs a healthy two-party system because it
creates a competition of ideas, he adds.
Lockwood says he wants to see a conservative
party return to the roots of fiscal conservatism,
an ideology based on spending money wisely
that benefits taxpayers.
He says Oregon is a place where another
party could emerge — something like a cen-
tric party — at the state leadership level.
After Nov. 3, Oregon and the rest of the
U.S. will move forward knowing where it
goes next with the Republican Party
and its next evolution — and whether
Trump will be a part of it — or if
another party is needed to make
conservatism great again. ■
a Lovejoy
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