Kulongoldschmidt Administration Don't believe his liberal noises. BY JIM WEAVER In such a sorry state is our Democratic Party of Oregon that it is led by Republicrat Gov. Ted Kulongoski. Kulongoski has appointed more Republicans to state positions than he has Democrats. But worse, he is a puppet to former Gov. Neil Goldschmidt, who dangles Ted on his corporate strings. Democratic Sen. Vicki Walker, who exposed Goldschmidt's million dollar fees from the state agency SAIF, was bushwhacked by Goldschmidt/Kulongoski henchmen who gave a $48,000 fund-raiser for her Senate district opponent, arch Republican Jim Torrey. Walker called this "a betrayal." An outrage, yes. A betrayal if Kulongoski and Goldschmidt are really Democrats. The Green Party wanted me to run for governor on their ticket in 2002, but I feared my candidacy would elect Kevin Mannix. So I went to see Ted in Portland. He mentioned I would be right for a big job on the Northwest Planning Council (I had written the provision for the council in the Northwest Power Bill). I promptly scotched that repugnant suggestion. What I need to know, I told him, is will you support Dan Meek's public utility district on the Multnomah County ballot? Meek wanted to keep rapacious private interests from buying Portland General Electric. Oh, yes, Kulongoski said. So I did not run. But guess who was chairman of the committee that spent $2 million to defeat the public utility district? You are right. It was Neil Goldschmidt. And guess who led Texas privateers in a combine to buy PGE? Right again. Goldschmidt. And Kulongoski was with him all the way. I should have warned Vicki Walker what these people were really like. When Goldschmidt ran for governor in 1986 claiming to be an environmental liberal, the money poured in from the timber industry, who knew what he really was. He put a timber flake named Jim Brown on the State Board of Forestry. When Kulongoski was elected in 2002 he named Brown his chief environmental aide! We owe Brown, Goldschmidt and Kulongoski thanks for reversing the restrictive rule on cutting trees on steep slopes, and for their measure to double the cut on state forests. One of Kulongoski's most atrocious acts as governor was to name Goldschmidt to the most prestigious post in state government, chairman of the State Board of Higher Education. What a job! Phil Knight — who once kicked Goldschmidt out of Nike — would have had to come to Neil to get another university building named after him. But a funny thing happened to Neil on the way to that cloistered office. It seems Goldschmidt had had sexual relations with a 14-year-old girl — his kids baby sitter! Kulongoski denies he knew of this dastardly deed when he appointed Neil to the higher education board. Do you believe that? Or is Kulongoski a liar? Even though Ted now makes liberal noises for his re-election purposes, well, don't believe them. Don't let Democrats be swindled again — unless you believe that Goldschmidt is no longer clutching the strings of state government. Or you believe that Ted no longer rides around Oregon in his lush RV with company logos provided by Goldschmidt's corporate friends; or still tries to break the land use laws of Oregon and bust the urban growth boundaries of cities so as to make plenty of cheap land ready for plunder by industries favored by Goldschmidt, or gives carte blanche to pollute our air and water. If you are taken in by Pseudo Ted, perhaps you should read the report of a Kulongoski-sponsored group of state agencies that says the Willamette Valley could easily absorb more pollution. Who will stand up to Kulongoski and Goldschmidt? Who will remake the Democratic Party these people have strangled? Not those mushy Portland liberals who have prostituted themselves so badly they would be arrested if they paraded their wares on boardwalks instead of boardrooms. Vicki Walker ran into the vicious Kulongoldschmidt machine and wisely chose to run for her Senate re-election; and Pete Sorenson came up against the same machine and their publications, The Oregonian and The Register-Guard, who keep him out of their pages. They don't want real Democrats in office, so real Democrats should not vote for their patsies. Sometimes I wish I had run for governor on the Green Party ticket. But I am way too much an old-fashioned Democrat to have done that. Yet sometimes I ask, what would be the difference between the Kulongoldschmidt administration and a Republican administration? Jim Weaver of Eugene was congressman from the 4th District from 1975 to 1987. His is author of Two Kinds: The Genetic Origins of Conservatives and Liberals, and is a regular on KOPT radio Wednesday mornings.
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