Our State Treasurer recently stated that in 1990 (before Kitzhaber) Oregonians average annual wage was 15% above national the average; it is now 12% below! That’s an incredible 27% drop in our standard of living, taking money out of our pockets and causing cuts to our households, schools and other needed services.

So what has changed? Not our resources, not our people, it’s our politicians and their policies. Policies that has caused 1/5 of Oregonians to be on food stamps, chronic high unemployment, and left Oregon 47th in nation in childhood poverty and hunger.

My opponent’s response? To continue to support policies that have hurt our businesses and cost us jobs, cater to special interests and to vote for every tax and spend measure placed before her. She also falsely claims that she cut $2 Billion out of the budget, a budget that actually grew by over $10 billion. In the last 4 year it grew by $19 Billion, for a total of a 46% increase in just 4 years!!
The only cutting was from schools and from what government agencies wanted to spend.

Enough of these politicians twisting facts just to get elected. A 27% drop in your real wages is convincing proof that we need to change the politicians in Oregon.

This election marks a pivotal time in Oregon's history. Either we can continue down the same failed path, or we can elect a new Governor and new legislators who share our common vision for how to fix our State.


So why am I running? Because I love Oregon and what I know it can be again.


I grew up here, in NW Oregon. While fishing the coastal streams with my father, I traveled to and through the many small towns of our area. I remember a different Oregon, where small communities were vibrant. Loggers, farmers, fishermen and more all worked as a community. Now many of these same communities are hurting, barely getting by, if at all. What happened in these 30 years? Four words, government over-regulation and intervention. For example, a friend of mine in construction was working on a site and found what he described a wet land about the size of a car. After 7 months, 7 government agencies and $175,000 later they were able to proceed. We do need our healthy environment, though why can we not stream line the process?

Our communities and businesses are being regulated to death, killing our family wage jobs and making Oregon very susceptible to economic swings. And in 2009, the over-regulation continued, with the legislature passing over 1,200 new bills/laws alone. My question and your's should be: Why?

We are now living with the results, living in the future so to speak, that was created by the failed policies that are still supported by my oppenent.

The people of Oregon are the greatest resource we have, yet our leaders:

• Have worked to save the farmland but not the farmers;
• Have worked to save the forest but not the loggers;
• Have worked to save the salmon but not the fishermen;
• Work at congregating everyone into large cities and have abandoned our small communities.

Oregon's land-use laws encourage corporate farming and have forced many family farms out of business.

Oregon is 1 of only 11 states that had fewer farms in 2007 than in 2002, despite farm land use laws that are the most restrictive in the United States.

Oregon imports lumber from Canada despite abundant forest resources that can be managed in an environmentally responsible way.

Oregon manages fisheries in a way that does not fully take advantage of our abundant streams, leading to diminishing salmon returns and reduced access to fisheries.

Oregon can not have a healthy economy if our smaller communities are not healthy also. Without strong small communities, large communities have no support, thus Oregon suffers wild swings when it comes to the economy. The smaller communities in our state have suffered at the hands of politicians who do the bidding of Portland and the larger cities.

All of these points and more need to change if we are to have a healthy and vibrant Oregon.

Currently the 2011-2013 biennium budget looks like a black hole with a $3.3 billion dollar deficit, compared to the $700 million in the last biennium that brought us Measures 66 and 67. Tough decisions, true managing of budgets will be required. The current legislature has shown that they are not up to the job, nor that they have any will to change. We need a Senator who understands this and doesn’t make decisions based on partisan, political lines, or for their own personal gain. A Senator who understands that job growth is only made in a healthy business climate, not one of taxation and mismanaged spending.

That is the difference between the current leadership and myself. I can make tough choices. I am not afraid to be a true manager of your tax dollars and to say enough is enough. I promise you that I will take my fiscal conservative philosophy and make the tough choices that will be best for all Oregonians, not just the special interests.

I am taking on this difficult task because I have seen Oregon drifting for too long away from the inspiring place that I grew up in. This election will be about balancing budgets, managing over grown government bureaucracy, and attracting businesses that create jobs and opportunities for us and our children. I, like many of the current candidates running, are not politicians; but everyday folks who are simply fed up with the current state of affairs and want to see our state flourish instead of flounder.

So whether you're a Republican, Democrat, Independent, Libertarian, or any other party, I ask you to join us, and ask for the honor of your vote, so that our families may again live in the inspiring Oregon that I remember.