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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
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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