The Tuesday, May 18, Republican primary for Oregon’s congressional seat will feature two outstanding constitutionalist candidates seeking to replace ultra-leftist incumbent Democratic Representative Peter DeFazio. The Douglas County News-Review explains of the race between Art Robinson and Jaynee Germond: “Both speak passionately about their desire to reduce the size and the role of government.”
And while most Republicans — even liberal Republicans who mouth the stale Republican National Committee talking points — say they are for smaller government and a repeal of ObamaCare, Jaynee Germond and Art Robinson include the kind of detailed denunciation of big government that makes their claims credible.
Germond emerged as a volunteer from the Ron Paul for President campaign two years ago and has been endorsed by the Republican Liberty Caucus. She ran as an underfunded Constitution Party candidate against DeFazio two years ago, and today carries around what local papers describe as a “dog-eared” copy of the U.S. Constitution on the stump. "Nobody should be able to tap your phone without a warrant,” Germond says of the federal government’s current warrantless wiretapping in the name of national security.
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Meanwhile Art Robinson, the other constitutional-oriented candidate attempting to unseat ultra-leftist Representative Peter DeFazio from Oregon’s 4th district seat, says he would fight to eliminate many government programs and “require that every Congressional action conform to the U.S. Constitution in every respect.”
Scientist Art Robinson describes himself as “an expert on energy and widely known for his petition signed by more than 31,000 American scientists exposing human-caused global warming as a fraud.” A scientist who has edited the Access to Energy newsletter for many years, Robinson has long been an antidote to big-government solutions pushed by environmental extremists. Robinson is also a non-interventionist on foreign policy: “I oppose the current situation wherein American soldiers are quartered in more than 100 countries and frequently interfere in the affairs of those countries.”
Between the two Republican candidates, Robinson appears to be the favorite. He has a substantial fundraising abilities, raising more than $230,000 in the primary season — more than 10 times his Republican primary opponent Germond.
Except for the fact that DeFazio is an entrenched 12-term incumbent, DeFazio really doesn’t fit ideologically into this otherwise politically competitive district. Obama won the district by a mere two percent above the national average in 2008, but DeFazio has campaigned against Obama’s stimulus from a leftist perspective, claiming that it contains too many tax cuts and not enough spending. This may be the year DeFazio can be picked off.
DeFazio wisely didn’t vote for Obama’s “stimulus” bill last month, but the reason why he opposed the spending bill may overcome the impact of the vote itself. He’s a member of the House Progressive Caucus, and his frequent criticism of the Obama administration from the Left led him to nearly vote against the healthcare bill because it wasn’t leftist enough.
The Republican primary in Oregon’s 4th congressional district is how elections should be, with multiple choices of quality candidates. In a better world with an educated electorate, voters would always have the choice of many good candidates at the polls instead of a choice between two evils (or a write-in protest vote in order to avoid wasting a vote on the lesser of two evils). Oregon’s 4th district voters will have a rare opportunity Tuesday.
Photo: Art Robinson
