A6 THE BULLETIN • SUNDAY, MARCH 7, 2021
Oregon GOP: Buehler, once nominee for governor, says party can win, but not with ‘wacky’ politics
Hispanics.
“A lot of them have seen problems
with big government. They are not
naturally inclined to go in that direc-
tion,” he said. “But when Republicans
do not give them a viable option, they
are left to vote Democratic.”
Continued from A1
Despite all that, the executive com-
mittee of the Oregon Republican
Party took a stance saying Trump
actually won, and adopted a resolu-
tion branding the violent breach of
the Capitol as a “false-flag operation”
by parties other than the ones who
bragged live on Facebook and Twitter
as it was happening.
That’s when Knute Buehler, the
2018 Republican nominee for Oregon
governor, left the party altogether.
Buehler, a physician and former
state representative from Bend, says
there is a route for Republicans to win
again — but not by embracing “wacky
conspiracy theories.”
“Our political system works best
when there is a balance of power, and
not when one party dominates, espe-
cially for such a long duration,” Bue-
hler said. “Things get unbalanced and
you do not get good policy. Instead
you get a lot of people who are disen-
chanted, who feel shut out of the pro-
cess and disregarded.
“But,” Buehler added, “it is a pretty
hard route for a Republican right now,
especially with the events in January.”
Decline and fall
Bob Packwood’s rise to the U.S.
Senate in 1968 coincided with contin-
ued Republican dominance in Ore-
gon over a couple of decades, despite
a Democratic voter registration edge
dating back to 1956. “But we have
no bench” of potential candidates for
statewide office, Packwood said, ei-
ther in the Legislature or elsewhere.
Thousands more have left the party
without fanfare.
According to the Oregon secretary
of state, whose office compiles figures
at the end of each month, registered
Republicans statewide dropped by
almost 8,500 from November to Jan-
uary. Republicans now constitute just
25.5% of all registered voters, com-
pared with 36% 20 years ago.
Oregon’s share of registered Dem-
ocrats also declined during those de-
cades, even as their totals surged past
the 1 million mark, from 39.4% in
2001 to 35.5% in 2021. The share of
voters not affiliated with any party
grew from 21.7% to 31.8%.
In those two decades, voters have
elected Republicans statewide only
twice.
One was Gordon Smith, who won a
second term in the U.S. Senate in 2002
but lost six years later. He became
Oregon Capital Insider photo
“It is a pretty hard route for a Republican right now,
especially with the events in January.”
— Former state Rep. Knute Buehler of Bend
president of the National Association
of Broadcasters. He maintains a home
in Pendleton, but has said he will not
seek public office again.
The other was Dennis Richardson,
a former state representative who lost
to Democratic Gov. John Kitzhaber in
2014, but was elected secretary of state
two years later. Richardson died of
cancer in 2019.
One of Richardson’s early endorsers
for governor in 2013 was Atiyeh, who
knew about second chances. He was
elected governor on his second try in
1978 (he lost four years earlier) and
was re-elected in 1982.
He endorsed most of the subse-
quent GOP nominees, with the likely
exception in 1998 of Bill Sizemore,
who won just 30% in a landslide loss
to Kitzhaber.
But Atiyeh never endorsed his par-
ty’s rightward drift and focus on social
issues.
“I never left my party,” he said in
2012. “My party left me.”
The party lions
Here is what Republicans, all cur-
rent or former officeholders and state-
wide candidates, had to say:
KNUTE BUEHLER
Buehler, 56, made two losing state-
wide runs — one for secretary of
state in 2012, the other for governor
in 2018, both against Democratic in-
cumbent Kate Brown — and a third
loss for the 2nd District congressional
seat last year.
“I think there may be an opportu-
nity for an independent with prior
name recognition and the ability to
fund a campaign independently,” he
said. But Buehler says he will not be
that independent candidate in 2022,
when Brown cannot run again be-
cause of term limits.
He says it may take someone like
Jesse Ventura, the former pro wrestler
who, as a third-party candidate, beat
better-known Democrats and Re-
publicans for governor of Minnesota
in 1998. Or Arnold Schwarzenegger,
the bodybuilder and actor who won a
multiple-candidate race for governor
of California in 2003. (Schwarzeneg-
ger is a Republican, but prevailed in a
winner-take-all recall election.)
Buehler said, if there is one thing he
would have done differently in 2018,
it would have been to pursue the In-
dependent Party nomination, which
went to Patrick Starnes. Buehler said
a winning coalition could be built
around small-business supporters —
98% of Oregon businesses have fewer
than 100 employees — private-sector
workers including union members,
and legal immigrants not limited to
BEV CLARNO
Clarno, 84, was secretary of state
for almost two years by appointment
after the death of Dennis Richardson.
She had been a county commissioner,
a federal agency representative and
just one of two people — and the only
woman — to lead Republicans in both
chambers of the Oregon Legislature.
She had made her own statewide
run in 1996, passing up one more try
for the Oregon House in a term-limits
era, but lost to Democratic state Trea-
surer Jim Hill.
Some people urged her to seek
a full term as secretary of state —
Clarno said Gov. Kate Brown, who
sought an interim appointee, never
asked her directly whether she would
run — but she said she did not want
to go through another statewide cam-
paign.
Clarno was a prominent defender
of rural interests as a legislator, but
also was a pragmatist.
When she returned to the Legisla-
ture as a senator in 2001, Clarno said
she heard Atiyeh speak at the annual
Dorchester Conference and endorsed
his approach.
“He said we will not win statewide
until we stop making the social is-
sues a litmus test,” she recalled. “I was
impressed by his speech, and he so
wanted Republicans to understand
the importance of winning and hav-
ing the opportunity to govern. He
realized they were not going to do so
if they were to continue the way they
were.”
JEFF GUDMAN
Gudman, 66, was the GOP’s two-
time nominee for state treasurer, los-
ing a three-way race to Democrat To-
bias Read in 2016 when Chris Telfer, a
former Republican state senator from
Bend, was the Independent Party
nominee. Gudman lost again to Read
last year.
Gudman said he aligned himself
with the one-time middle of the Re-
publican Party and its Oregon office-
holders of the past.
Gudman said one way for the party
to return to relevancy, as he tried to
do in his campaign last year, is to fo-
cus on accountability for the failures
of state programs under Democratic
governors and legislatures. Among
them were major projects such as the
Employment Department’s computer
modernization — a contract with
a vendor is being negotiated more
than a decade after Oregon received
$89 million for it — and the botched
Cover Oregon rollout that promised a
one-stop website for health insurance
coverage back in 2013.
“There is not a single elected offi-
cial who has paid the penalty for con-
tinued mismanagement,” he said. “It
is about governance and delivering
services to the people who need it. It’s
about staying focused on local issues.
But apparently we have not reached
the tipping point.”
Gudman says Republicans should
seize a chance to campaign on bal-
ancing economic opportunity with a
government safety net that works for
people.
“It’s a future we can win on,” he
said. “The way to that is to focus on
competence and the old phrase: Had
enough?”
KEVIN MANNIX
Mannix, 71, has been a four-time
candidate for attorney general and
governor — the Republican nominee
for each office once — and also was
the state party chairman.
Mannix, a former Democrat, says
there is an opening for Republicans to
capitalize on what he sees are Demo-
crats’ failings on their handling of the
pandemic, the economic downturn,
violent protests and persistent home-
lessness, whose effects reach beyond
Portland.
“I think Republican candidates
who approach these issues — not
in a nasty, but in a straightforward
way — would have an opportunity
to reach out to nonaffiliated voters,
who are fed up,” he said. “But they are
not going to want to hear doctrinaire
answers. They want to hear how you
identify the problem and address it.”
Mannix said a different approach
by Republicans could hold down their
losses, or even gain support, in the
three Portland area counties that de-
termine statewide elections.
Homelessness, he said, cannot be
dealt with only by sending police to
clear out camps. He said a long-lasting
solution must take into account
Continued on next page
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