Today is primary day and 3.5 million Flori

Thursday, August 17, 2006

Oregon: Westlund, Open Primaries, and Centrism fail...

Ben Westlund
The newly ex-gubernatorial candidate's own words on why his boomlet fizzled.
BY HENRY STERN & MARK ZUSMAN
Willamette Week, Aug 16
...Westlund says his campaign did in fact gather more than 48,000 signatures to make the ballot (more than twice the 18,368 he needed). But he believes that state rules limiting the voters who could sign his ballot petitions to those who didn't participate in the May 16 primary fatally hamstrung his campaign. That's because he couldn't begin gathering signatures until after the primary, draining time and energy while Saxton and Kulongoski picked up key endorsements that Westlund at least thought he could have competed for. ... [more]

It’s getting lonely in the middle in state politics
The Lake Oswego Review, Aug 16
The withdrawal of independent candidate Ben Westlund from the governor’s race and the failure of the open-primary initiative to make the fall ballot illustrate that the middle is no longer the place to be in Oregon politics.... [more]

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