Suzanne Bonamici won the Congressional seat for Oregon’s North Coast in a special election Tuesday, Oregon Congressional District 1. She had 54% of the vote, in an area that often votes Democrat and supported Barack Obama in 2008.
She will replace Rep. David Wu, a Democrat who resigned after he was accused of making sexual advances towards a daughter of a campaign donor. Bonamici must stand for election in November, too.
Check out the results from The Daily Astorian, one of the finer small daily papers left in America, a paper that still does real news reporting.
Watch one of her last campaign ads:
Is this a bellwether? Democrats had a scandal-plagued representative, but won anyway. The area traditionally votes Democratic. Portents of November results appear rather dim.
More:
- Bonamici eager to start work on economy, she tells Daily Astorian
- Teachers will probably find some comfort in Bonamici’s experience in education, and in her education positions for full funding of education, and reform of “high-stakes testing and punitive labeling”
Millard Fillmore's Bathtub 
We got to be cautious inferring something nationally from this limited and regional evidence. Oregon is a pretty unique state demographically and and pretty heterogeneous (something I can attest to, having lived in the Willamette Valley, and just over the border in southeastern Washington, on and off for 10 years). I’m not sure I would characterize anywhere in Oregon south of Eugene or more than 50 miles from the coast as anything resembling “blue” politically.
Good work here. More of these slice of life stories are needed.
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Hi Ed!
I wish this were a harbinger, but it is not. It is a solid blue district in a nearly all blue state. Also, Representative Wu’s behavior — though not to be excused — may be a result of some serious mental health issues that have evinced themselves over the course of several years. This, too, may have factored in as voters considered that his naughtiness was hardly a result of his party affiliation. (I know you don’t think so but simple minds will go there.)
Oregon is a state that produces a lot of good in both parties. Yes, there was Bob Packwood and now David Wu. But we can also remember that Peter DeFazio, Mark Hatfield, Jeff Merkley, Ron Wyden and Gordon Smith, Maurine and Richard Neuberger, Jeff Merkley, Wayne Morse, Earl Blumenauer and Wendell Wyatt all serve or served Oregon with distinction.
Oregon is a state, like Minnesota, that mostly produces excellent legislators. I wish I could say the same for some other places.
You probably knew some of these people. You should share more of your stories.
Jim
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Reblogged this on Under The LobsterScope.
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