16 January 2008
Local and National Issues Vie for Oregon Voters’ Attention
Local journalists assess major issues in 2008 elections
Portland, Oregon -- A late speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, Tip O’Neill, once said, “All politics is local,” implying that Americans vote for congressional representatives based on local concerns rather than national issues. Politics in the United States is decentralized and political parties generally are unable to impose a uniform agenda on the country’s diverse voting districts.
There are exceptions, of course, such as the 2006 congressional elections, which turned on the Iraq war issue, but often voters are more concerned about the closing of a local factory, a proposed federal highway bypassing their town or local school finance problems.
Journalists from Oregon’s 1st Congressional District disagree about whether national or local issues will dominate the 2008 elections. They indicate that the war in Iraq remains a major concern for local voters but add that it shares the agenda with local issues such as transportation, the location of energy facilities and the government’s response to autumn 2007 storms that wreaked havoc in coastal communities. They also say voters in northwestern Oregon show increasing concern about a slowing economy.
David Sarasohn is a political columnist for The Oregonian, the state’s largest newspaper. He believes local voters remain concerned primarily about the war. While he acknowledges timber and fishing issues important to coastal communities and the importance of education to families near the district’s high-tech centers, he says that in the town hall meetings organized by Representative David Wu and Senator Ron Wyden, “the war is what people want to talk about.”
Jeb Bladine, editor and publisher of the News Register in Yamhill County’s largest town, McMinnville, agrees that the war and foreign policy are the primary concerns on voters’ minds. “It doesn’t generate a lot of commentary in our newspaper,” he says, referring to the Letters to the Editor section run by virtually all American newspapers. But an imminent call-up of local National Guard units, the largest since World War II, means that the war “is going to be a big issue.”
On the other hand, Patrick Webb, managing editor of the Daily Astorian, located in the coastal port of Astoria, says that in his area many believe a very local issue might prove the biggest question on voters’ minds this year. Plans for a liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal in the area have produced political sparks. Proponents of the terminal, which would receive LNG from tanker ships and load it into a proposed pipeline for shipment elsewhere, say that it would bring much-needed jobs to the area. Opponents cite environmental concerns, disruption to farmland that would be used for the pipeline and the possibility that the terminal might prove a target for terrorism. The federal government would be responsible for some aspects of the proposal, and residents expect their congressional representative to influence developments. Polls suggest that the issue divides residents nearly equally, which means it could prove a political minefield for any congressional candidate.
Voters assess the performance of their congressional representative on many such local issues. Bladine cites plans to build a highway to relieve traffic congestion. Most of the money for any bypass would come from state or private funding, but the federal government will contribute to the project. Bladine says local voters appreciate Representative Wu’s efforts to guide Washington’s contributions to the project and likely will remember his work at election time.
Bladine and Sarasohn point out, as well, that issues are complex and may have both national and local aspects. Bladine said local uneasiness about the economy has become tied to concerns about the nation’s health care system. While discussing federal recovery aid to the region after storms in 2007, Sarasohn said that, for many Oregonians, storm preparedness “fades into the whole global warming issue.”
As the issues -- and the relationships among them -- grow more complex, congressional candidates, both Republican and Democrat, will find their campaigns increasingly complex exercises in balance and vision.
