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About East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current | View Entire Issue (May 21, 2016)
Page 4A OPINION East Oregonian Saturday, May 21, 2016 Founded October 16, 1875 KATHRYN B. BROWN DANIEL WATTENBURGER Publisher Managing Editor JENNINE PERKINSON TIM TRAINOR Advertising Director Opinion Page Editor EO MEDIA GROUP East Oregonian • The Daily Astorian • Capital Press • Hermiston Herald Blue Mountain Eagle • Wallowa County Chieftain • Chinook Observer • Coast River Business Journal Oregon Coast Today • Coast Weekend • Seaside Signal • Cannon Beach Gazette Eastern Oregon Real Estate Guide • Eastern Oregon Marketplace • Coast Marketplace OnlyAg.com • FarmSeller.com • Seaside-Sun.com • NorthwestOpinions.com • DiscoverOurCoast.com MIKE FORRESTER STEVE FORRESTER KATHRYN B. BROWN Pendleton Chairman of the Board Astoria President Pendleton Secretary/Treasurer CORY BOLLINGER JEFF ROGERS Aberdeen, S.D. Director Indianapolis, Ind. Director OUR VIEW OTHER VIEWS The fragmented society T Superdelegates further complicate a complicated process Oregon’s primary election is in the books, and some deciding votes were cast on issues both large and small. But in the national presidential race, it may have been a complete waste of time. Donald Trump is the only candidate left on the Republican side, and he won a majority of the GOP vote here. On the Democratic side, Bernie Sanders easily handled Hillary Clinton, winning all but one county — Gilliam — and outpacing her by about 13 percentage points. But Sanders’ win only gained him a few delegates, and those may well be canceled out by Oregon superdelegates pledging their support to Clinton. It has Sanders supporters — and Clinton detractors — claiming foul and accusing the process of being undemocratic. In two words: It is. And who would ever assume such a process would be? Remember, this is not an election for Americans to choose their next president. This is an election for two political parties to choose their representatives. How state governments all over the country get roped into spending taxpayer dollars to achieve that is beyond us. There is nothing democratic about different states holding elections on different dates with different rules — some primaries and some caucuses, some closed and some open, some with day-of registration and some that required registering weeks in advance. Remember, too, that unlike the presidential election in November, you “win” delegates, not states. Though cable news likes to trumpet who won Wisconsin or Alabama, it doesn’t matter. Delegates are the only thing that matters — not states, nor votes necessarily. And since the Democratic party is the only major party with their nomination still up for grabs, let’s look at how those delegates are chosen. For the Dems, 2,383 delegates are needed to wrap up the nomination, and Clinton is right at the precipice of doing so. She has 2,293 pledged delegates while Bernie Sanders has 1,533. Clinton also has about 3 million more individual votes cast for her in primary elections than Sanders, and that is partly why she is ahead on delegates. But it’s not the only reason: There are 715 superdelegates in the Democratic primary, which carry plenty of weight and can help choose the eventual nominees. Parties created superdelegates because they want to avoid the populist, idealist candidates that can stimulate their base and then get clobbered in national elections. In modern history, it has happened to both parties: the extreme conservative Barry Goldwater for the Republicans in 1964 and liberal, anti-war darling George McGovern for the Democrats in 1972. After both candidates loundered in election day routs, the parties rearranged their nominating system to give their insiders more sway. Those rascally voters may pick the candidate they like most, but they might not pick the candidate who can win the White House. And to political parties, winning the position of power is more important than any democratic principles. Oregon’s 11 Democratic superdelegates include names you’ve heard of, and some you have not. They are: Suzanne Bonamici, Kate Brown, Laura Calvo, Peter DeFazio, Frank Dixon, Lupita Maurer, Jeff Merkley, Karen Packer, Ellen Rosenblum, Kurt Schrader and Larry Taylor. Six of them have pledged their support to Clinton, despite the fact that Sanders won signiicantly more votes here. Three others remain undecided, so Clinton’s unearned gains could still grow. It is understandable then, that outsider candidates like Sanders and Trump have excelled in this primary season. Voters are disappointed with each party’s inability to pull together for the good of the country. Neither Sanders nor Trump has long been a member of the political party whose nomination they are running for, and many of their views are outside the party platform. Trump has succeeded at destroying each and every mainstream candidate the GOP could throw at him. Clinton looks like her mainstream power will be enough — barely — to hold off Sanders. If Clinton crushes Trump in November, look for the GOP to change their primary rules to make it even more dificult for an outsider to win the party’s nomination. They want to win the presidency much more than they want to win votes. Unsigned editorials are the opinion of the East Oregonian editorial board of Publisher Kathryn Brown, Managing Editor Daniel Wattenburger, and Opinion Page Editor Tim Trainor. Other columns, letters and cartoons on this page express the opinions of the authors and not necessarily that of the East Oregonian. here are just a few essential reads time and involves restrictions. Merely if you want to understand the having an identity doesn’t. In our cultural emphasis and life, we’ve gone American social and political from a community focus to an identity landscape today. Robert Putnam’s focus. “Our Kids,” Charles Murray’s Our politicians try to ind someone “Coming Apart” and a few other books to blame for these problems: banks, deserve to be on that list. Today, I’d immigrants or, for Donald Trump, add Yuval Levin’s fantastic new book, morons generally. But that older “The Fractured Republic.” David Levin starts with the observation Brooks consolidated life could not have survived modernity and is never that our politics and much of our Comment coming back. It couldn’t have survived thinking is drenched in nostalgia for globalization, feminism and the sexual the 1950s and early 1960s. The left is nostalgic for the relative economic equality of revolution, the rising tide of immigration and the greater freedom consumers now enjoy. that era. The right is nostalgic for the cultural Our fundamental problems are the cohesion. The postwar era has become our unconscious ideal of what successful America downsides of transitions we have made for good reasons: to enjoy looks like. It was, Levin more lexibility, creativity notes, an age of cohesion and individual choice. For and consolidation. example, we like buying But we have now moved cheap products from around to an age of decentralization the world. But the choices and fragmentation. At one we make as consumers point in the book he presents make life less stable for us a series of U-shaped graphs as employees. showing this pattern. Levin says the answer is Party polarization in not to dwell in confusing, Congress declined steadily frustrating nostalgia. It’s from 1910 to 1940, but it through a big push toward has risen steadily since. subsidiarity, devolving We are a less politically choice and power down cohesive nation. to the local face-to-face The share of national community level, and thus income that went to the top avoiding the excesses both 1 percent declined steadily of rigid centralization and from 1925 to about 1975, alienating individualism. A but has risen steadily since. society of empowered local We are a less economically neighborhood organizations cohesive nation. is a learning society. The share of Americans Experiments happen and who were born abroad information about how to dropped steadily from 1910 to 1970. But the share of immigrants has risen solve problems lows from the bottom up. I’m acknowledged in the book, but I steadily ever since, from 4.7 percent of the population to nearly 14 percent. We are a more learned something new on every page. Nonetheless, I’d say Levin’s emphasis on diverse and less demographically cohesive subsidiarity and local community is important nation. but insuficient. We live within a golden chain, In case after case we’ve replaced connecting self, family, village, nation and attachments to large established institutions with commitments to looser and more lexible world. The bonds of that chain have to be repaired at every point, not just the local one. networks. Levin argues that the Internet did It’s not 1830. We Americans have a not cause this shift but embodies today’s national consciousness. People who start individualistic, diffuse society. local groups are often motivated by a dream This shift has created some unpleasant of scaling up and changing the nation and realities. Levin makes a nice distinction the world. Our distemper is not only caused between centralization and consolidation. by local fragmentation but by national In economic, cultural and social terms, dysfunction. Even Levin writes and thinks in America is less centralized. But people have nation-state terms (his prescription is Wendell simultaneously concentrated off on the edges Berry, but his intellectual and moral sources — separated into areas of, say, concentrated are closer to a nationalist like Abraham wealth and concentrated poverty. The middle Lincoln). has hollowed out in sphere after sphere. That means there will have to be a bigger Socially, politically and economically we’re role for Washington than he or current living within “bifurcated concentration.” Republican orthodoxy allows, with more For example, religious life has bifurcated. radical ideas, like national service, or a Church attendance has declined twice as fast national effort to seed locally run early among people without high school diplomas education and infrastructure projects. as among people with college degrees. As in ancient Greece and Rome, local With each additional year of education, the communities won’t survive if the national likelihood of attending religious services rises project disintegrates. Our structural problems 15 percent. are national and global and require big as well We’re also less embedded in tight, soul- as little reforms. forming institutions. Levin makes another ■ distinction between community — being part David Brooks became a New York Times of a congregation — and identity — being, Op-Ed columnist in September 2003. say, Jewish. Being part of community takes Religious life has bifurcated. Church attendance has declined twice as fast among people without high school diplomas as among people with college degrees. YOUR VIEWS EOTEC a long time coming, past investment will pay off In 1965 the Hermiston Development Corporation was formed. Its president Joe Burns and I got together at that time to ind a place to build a trade center facility, which was needed to attract manufacturing facilities and other businesses to Hermiston. They found several suitable locations, and one of those locations is the Eastern Oregon Trade & Event Center location. During this time the city council recognized the need for a new city hall, library, police department, ire department, public works department and other future needs, and the intent to locate them into a city center complex. That is why the police and ire department buildings and the post ofice building are located where they are today. To accommodate this the city had to raise the money necessary to move the fair. A county-wide election was held to move the fair. Unfortunately, it did not pass county- wide. Before the election the city did purchase the acreage south of the airport for a new location of the fair. The city then would give this property to the county for fair use. This gift, of course, did not happen at that time. The county government is located in the city of Pendleton, and Pendleton has its own Pendleton Round-Up Grounds, but the county did not have a county fairgrounds located in Pendleton. The city of Hermiston elected to give their “local” fairgrounds to the county for a county fair location. The county accepted this gift. A little history of the Hermiston area: Would you believe at one time there was a nine-hole golf course inside Hermiston? Mayor Walt Pearson, in 1961, stated that his father played on this golf course years ago. Also, at that same time the city had its own local agricultural trade fair each year on property owned by the city. It also had a horse racing track. So much for the past. As we now know, in 2012 the city of Hermiston and the county together formed the EOTEC. After a long struggle to accomplish this task, we see the fruits of our labor from the past. Tom Harper, retired city manager Hermiston