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About East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current | View Entire Issue (Feb. 3, 2022)
REGION Thursday, February 3, 2022 East Oregonian A9 Baker City mayor’s confi dence grows as campaign wears on By JAYSON JACOBY Baker City Herald BAKER CITY — Kerry McQuisten has met many thousands of Oregonians during her campaign to be the state’s next governor, a blur of faces and handshakes and forums and events in each of the 36 counties in the 10th-biggest state. But one face remains espe- cially vivid in her memory. And she suspects that it always will be. McQuisten, a seventh-generation Baker County resident who is seek- ing the Republican nomina- tion in the May 22 primary, was in Tygh Valley, near The Dalles, for the Wasco County Fair in late August. An older gentleman approached. He was wearing a cap identifying him as a military veteran. The man pulled out his wallet, reached in and extracted the only bill tucked in the folds. It was a $5. He handed the bill to McQuisten, insisting that she take it. “Something has to change in Oregon,” the man told her. “I will never forget it,” McQuisten said in an inter- view on Wednesday, Jan. 26. That moment in the wheat country of Wasco County, one of so many in seven months of campaigning, continues to inspire McQuis- ten. It’s not the amount of the donation, of course. But that brief conversa- tion, and the man’s insistence that she accept his modest contribution, convinced her then, and reminds her still, that some of her fellow Oregonians believe she can help to fi x some of the prob- lems that she — and they — believe are plaguing the state. “My campaign is steadily gaining traction,” said McQuisten, who is Baker City’s mayor, elected to that position by her fellow Baker City Council members in January 2021. “I’m reaching out across the whole state.” A unique opportunity for a Republican After so many miles and so many meetings, McQuis- ten said she is even more confi dent now than she was when she started that 2022 presents an opportunity that Republicans haven’t had in Oregon for more than four decades. No member of her party has been elected governor since November 1982, when Victor Atiyeh won the second of his four-year terms. But McQuisten said she believes voters are more dissatisfi ed with their state’s condition under the leader- ship of Democratic Gov. Kate Brown than at any time since Atiyeh’s tenure. Brown’s executive orders during the pandemic, with their effects on businesses and schools in particular, have seriously weakened the Democrats’ once-indomi- table electoral foundation, McQuisten said. “The more Kate Brown mandates, the worse it gets for the Democrats,” McQuis- ten said. And although Brown can’t run for reelection due to term limits, McQuisten contends that the Democratic nomi- nee, whoever that is, will be linked to Brown’s legacy, to the benefi t of the Republican on the November general election ballot. (McQuisten said she thinks Tina Kotek, the former Speaker of the House in the Oregon Legislature, is the Democratic frontrunner.) McQuisten said she has talked with, and received emails from, many Demo- crats and nonaffi liated voters who are troubled by what’s happening in Oregon. She was surprised to receive a $25 donation from an Ontario Democrat who voted for, and formerly supported, Brown. “That’s when you know Kerry McQuisten/Contributed Photo Kerry McQuisten stands outside Mahonia Hall, the Oregon governor’s mansion in Salem. McQuisten, a Baker County na- tive, is seeking the Republican nomination for governor in the May 22, 2022, primary. something is really shifting,” McQuisten said. She said a few issues have come up at virtually all of her campaign events, concerns that seem universal in the state. Public safety is one of these. McQuisten said she’s talked with many people, including in Democrat-dom- inated Portland, who are incensed by violence, includ- ing the widespread rioting in Portland during the summer of 2020, and a record number of murders — 90 — in the state’s largest city in 2021. “People don’t feel safe,” she said. Oregonians are angry not only about the level of violence, McQuisten said, but also by what some consider a milquetoast response by prosecutors. And although crimi- nal prosecution typically is handled at the county level, by district attorneys, McQuisten contends that Brown has failed to show leadership in the midst of the violence. McQuisten points out that state law allows the state, through its Department of Justice, to prosecute cases that district attorneys decline to take on. The problem of home- less residents camping on public property is no longer confined to larger cities, McQuisten said, citing another issue she said Brown has not addressed forcefully enough. “I talked to people about homeless camps in the forests around La Pine,” McQuisten said, talking about the town in Deschutes County about 30 miles south of Bend. “People don’t feel safe going for a walk in the woods.” Oregon’s political divide As a native of East- ern Oregon, McQuisten is familiar with the complaint that this side of the state is isolated from, and ignored by, the political power struc- ture in the Willamette Valley, where most of the state’s resi- dents live. But during her campaign she said she’s come to under- stand that the divide is not “east-west,” but rather “urban-rural.” McQuisten said she hears “exactly the same thing” — that the Legislature and the governor are dismissive of the concerns of rural residents — in every part of Oregon, including in the rural areas of Western Oregon counties where most of the residents live in one or two cities. This general dissatisfac- tion is galvanized by certain specific topics, she said, including the aforementioned management of public lands and public education, as well as the protection of Second Amendment rights. Pondering the primary and general elections McQuisten, of course, won’t have a chance to try to break the Democratic Party’s 40-year run of victories in the general election unless she wins the Republican nomi- nation in the May 22 primary. She’s optimistic about her position. In a recent straw poll from Oregon Catalyst — one McQuisten herself on her Facebook page notes has a “huge” margin of error — she polled second with 27.9%. The frontrunner was Stan Pulliam, the mayor of Sandy, east of Portland, with 41.3%. Pulliam has a signifi cant advantage in fundraising, as well. According to campaign finance reports as of Jan. 12, Pulliam’s campaign had a cash balance of $264,258, compared with McQuisten’s $60,493. Two Republicans topped Pulliam’s balance — Chris- tine Drazan, House Minority Leader who resigned from the Oregon Legislature Jan. 31, with $702,138, and Brid- get Barton, a political consul- tant from West Linn, with $345,208. But McQuisten said she’s confi dent that her grassroots campaign, relying on trav- eling across the state and meeting as many people, and voters, as possible, can overcome both her fi nancial disadvantage and her lack of name recognition, at least compared with Drazan, a longtime legislative leader. McQuisten said 2022, with the unprecedented eff ects of the pandemic, is diff erent, and that a Repub- lican running her kind of campaign can beat what she calls “establishment” Repub- licans such as Drazan. McQuisten noted that the field of Republican candi- dates, which once numbered 16, has dwindled to 12. And one of those who have dropped out — Jim Huggins — has endorsed McQuisten. “I consider that an honor,” she said. As for the general elec- tion, the usual Democrat vs. Republican race — a contest the Democrats have dominated since the Reagan administration — is shap- ing up to be quite a diff erent matter this summer and fall. That’s because Betsy Johnson, a longtime Demo- cratic state legislator, intends to run as a nonaffiliated candidate in the general elec- tion. Johnson has almost $3 million for her campaign. McQuisten said that although Johnson, who is a moderate Democrat, will siphon some Repub- lican votes, she said John- son will take more from the Democratic candidate in the general election. The Johnson eff ect could carve a path for a landmark Republican win in Novem- ber, so long as the GOP voter turnout is high, McQuisten said. “The numbers are there,” she said. OFFER ENDS February 4, 2022 Don't Wait! Call and make your appointment now! Hermiston: 955 SE 4th St. Ste. B Hermiston, OR 97838 (541) 716-5092 Pendleton: 29 SW Dorian Ave. Pendleton, OR 97801 (541) 224-8661