THE BULLETIN • SUNDAY, MARCH 7, 2021 A7
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inadequate and unaffordable housing,
a lack of mental health and drug ad-
diction services, and other factors.
But Mannix also was critical of
Democratic Gov. Kate Brown for not
calling up the National Guard to quell
violent protests last year in Portland.
Brown did put the Oregon State Po-
lice in charge of response to threat-
ened violence in the city.
Mannix leads a group, Common
Sense for Oregon, which joined a law-
suit seeking to overturn all of Brown’s
pandemic orders. The Supreme Court
ultimately upheld her authority to is-
sue them.
Although restrictions are easing
in many counties as infection rates
and new cases decline, Mannix said,
“Lockdowns have been more severe
than necessary.”
OREGON GOP — KEY PLAYERS
BOB PACKWOOD
Aside from Mark Hatfield, who
won eight times, Bob Packwood, 88,
is the leader among modern-day Re-
publicans with five statewide victories.
As a 32-year-old state representa-
tive, Packwood led a successful effort
to win a Republican majority in the
Oregon House in 1964, even as presi-
dential nominee Barry Goldwater lost
Oregon and all but six states. The next
year, he founded the Dorchester Con-
ference as a gathering for Republicans,
excluding “far right-wingers.”
“All the politicians of any conse-
quence were invited to come, and they
came,” Packwood said. “The resolu-
tions they passed basically became the
resolutions of the Republican Party.
Our advantage was having all the offi-
cials there be committed to what was
done.”
The network helped Packwood un-
seat Democratic Sen. Wayne Morse
in 1968.
Years before he resigned under
pressure in 1995 amid accusations of
sexual misconduct, Packwood was
challenged from the right when Joe
Lutz, an anti-abortion minister, won
42% against him in the 1986 GOP
primary. At the time, Packwood said
narrow social issues and a failure to
support women’s rights would doom
the Republican Party someday.
“They are going to have to come
back to the middle. They cannot be the
party of the right,” he said. “A small mi-
nority can often capture a primary, but
Vic Atiyeh
Bev Clarno
84, Redmond
• Secretary of state
by appointment,
2019-21
• Deschutes County
commissioner by appointment, 2005-
07
• Oregon Senate, 2001-03,
• Republican leader, 2003
• Oregon House, 1989-97,
• House Majority leader, 1993-94
• House speaker, 1995-97
• Nominee for state treasurer, 1996
Jeff Gudman
Died in 2014 at age 91, Beaverton
• Governor, 1979-87
• Nominee for governor in 1974
• Oregon Senate, 1965-79
• Senate Republican leader, 1973-79
• Oregon House, 1959-65
Knute Buehler
56, Bend
• Candidate for 2nd
District congressional
seat, 2020
• Nominee for gover-
nor, 2018
• Oregon House, 2015-19
• Nominee for secretary of state, 2012
that is not a test of electability.”
Packwood also said George W.
Bush was right — and Donald Trump
wrong — in their stances on minori-
ties and immigrants, particularly His-
panics and Asians.
“By and large, they are hard-work-
ing and have conservative values, but
not radically conservative,” Packwood
said. “They fit the profile of what the
party ought to be.”
66, Lake Oswego
• Nominee for state
treasurer, 2016 and
2020
• Lake Oswego City
Council, 2011-19
Kevin Mannix
71, Salem
• Candidate for 5th
District congressional
seat, 2008
• Candidate for gov-
ernor, 2006
• Oregon Republican Party chair, 2003-05
• Nominee for governor, 2002
• Nominee for attorney general, 2000
• Oregon House, 1999-2001, elected as
a Republican
• Oregon Senate by appointment, 1998
• Democratic candidate for attorney
general, 1996
• Oregon House, 1989-97, elected as a
Democrat; he switched parties in 1997
JACK ROBERTS
“If I knew any secrets about how
Republicans could win, I would have
tried to share them lately,” Roberts
said with a laugh. “It hasn’t been
working that way.”
Roberts, 68, was a nonpartisan
Lane County commissioner and the
Republican nominee who unseated
four-term Democrat Mary Wendy
Roberts (no relation) as state la-
Bob Packwood
88, Portland
• U.S. Senate, 1969-95
• Oregon House,
1963-69
Jack Roberts
68, Eugene
• Director, Oregon Lot-
tery, 2013-16
• Candidate for Ore-
gon Supreme Court
(nonpartisan), 2006
• Candidate for governor, 2002; com-
missioner,
• Oregon Bureau of Labor and Indus-
tries, 1995-2003 (first elected in 1994 as
a Republican, second time in 1998 in a
nonpartisan race)
• Lane County commissioner, initially by
appointment, 1989-95
Kim Thatcher
56, Keizer
• Nominee for secre-
tary of state, 2020
• Oregon Senate, since
2015
• Oregon House, 2005-15
bor commissioner in 1994. He won
re-election four years later, after law-
makers made his office nonpartisan.
Roberts was one of the few Repub-
licans who publicly supported the
candidacy of Bill Sizemore, who won
just 30% of the vote in a landslide loss
to Democratic Gov. John Kitzhaber in
1998. Roberts himself ran for gover-
nor in 2002 and came in second in the
GOP primary to Kevin Mannix, who
later lost to Democrat Ted Kulon-
goski. Roberts split the moderate vote
with Ron Saxton, who finished third;
each got more than 90,000 votes.
(Mannix got 117,000.)
Roberts traces the split in the Or-
egon Republican Party back to 1990,
when a third-party anti-abortion
candidate drew a record 13% and
Democrat Barbara Roberts prevailed
over Attorney General Dave Frohn-
mayer. Four years later, Democrat
John Kitzhaber beat former U.S. Rep.
Denny Smith, a staunch conservative,
and in 1998, Kitzhaber beat Sizemore.
“We lost the far-right conservative
part of the party, which we used to be
able to draw from,” he said. “We had
more moderate people in office. That
is where we are missing out in Oregon.
I do not know how we reverse that.”
KIM THATCHER
Thatcher, 56, was elected to the
Oregon House in 2004, when she un-
seated a Republican incumbent who
voted for a budget-balancing tax in-
crease. Ten years later, she was elected
to an open seat in the Oregon Senate,
and has maintained a conservative re-
cord on economic and social issues.
She said the Republican Party must
offer clear alternatives to the policies
and programs advocated by Demo-
crats.
“Republicans have an opportunity
to offer reforms to the system to make
it truly work for our kids and fami-
lies,” she said. “With the way things
are going, maybe these reforms will
get a second look from the traditional
Democrats and independents.”
Thatcher was in midterm last year
when she won the Republican nomi-
nation for secretary of state. She lost to
Democrat Shemia Fagan of Portland,
another state senator whose primary
victory against two rivals was largely
bankrolled by public employee unions.
Public employee unions contrib-
uted more than $350,000 to Fagan’s
general-election campaign, and
Thatcher said they hold too much
sway over Democratic officeholders.
“For example, the inability of our
schools to reopen is largely because
of the teacher’s unions’ refusal to do
so,” she said. “It is not because they
needed to be put at the front of the
line ahead of the elderly for COVID
vaccinations.”
e e
pwong@pamplinmedia.com