OREGON VOTER REMORSE HISTORY

Incoming. Duck and cover. image via Toptenthailand.com

Regrets? Oregon voter has had a few.

American elections seem to have the same choices: Bad and Worse.

Pick one and you wish you’d picked the other.

Like early pioneers’ choice of floating the Columbia River rapids, or traversing the Barlow Road, once you take one you wish you were on the other.

The 2016 Presidential race sounds about the same.

One candidate brings a breath of fresh air, if you believe you’d ever find fresh air in Manhattan, while the other promises to lift us up.

At least that’s the feel so far. Oregon voter has faced these choices before.

Senator Bob Packwood challenged Oregon voter.

In 1969, Julie Williamson, a 29-year-old legal secretary in Packwood’s Portland office, was on the phone when the Senator suddenly kissed her on the back of the neck. Williamson, who was married, recalls saying “Don’t you ever do that again.”

But later, when Williamson walked into a back office, Packwood followed her. According to Williamson, the Senator approached her and, without uttering a word, stood on her feet, pulled back her ponytail with one hand and tried to yank down her girdle with the other. Williamson escaped his grasp and fled the room. Stalking past her, he said, “If not today, some other day.”

Sound familiar? As in you get to do these things when you’re famous?

One job I did included meeting Packwood after his fall from power.

He took a crew of us out for coffee after we’d unloaded his historical papers.

Maybe five of us sat in a crowded Starbucks coffee shop, all eyes on our table.

If anyone had a shirt saying, “I’m not with stupid,” it would have fit.

Even a casual association in public with a shamed figure has fallout.

Governor Neil Goldschmidt challenged Oregon voter.

This was the man who set the bar high for Oregon politics.

He was bright, ambitious, knew how to make friends with important people.

His friends knew how to keep quiet.

It should be the sad story of a young girl whose life was destroyed by a powerful sexual predator, where the sexual predator was caught, arrested and put in jail. But that’s not what happened. Far from it.

Elizabeth’s life was in stark contrast to Oregon’s wunderkind Neil Goldschmidt, and to those who supported him. Goldschmidt went on to become the U.S. transportation secretary and then Oregon governor. After leaving office, he worked as an executive at Nike and remained a powerful force in Oregon politics as a lobbyist, dealmaker and kingmaker.

Goldschmidt was never arrested or charged — aided in part by a massive enabling network of some of Oregon’s most powerful people as well as by a three-year statute of limitations.

With behavior that falls outside the accepted norms, Goldschmidt needed the insulation of his friends to keep the heat away.

Was he evil? Only if you listen to his detractors. Was he dangerous? Only if you crossed him.

Oregon voter didn’t get a chance to send Packwood and Goldschmidt their just deserts. Instead, these men carried on a lifestyle that left human debris in their wake.

They may have served Oregon voter to the best of their ability, and they had ability, but their personal lives left many wondering wtf is wrong with this picture?

These are men to consider when you vote for the occupant heading for the big job, President of the United States of America.

Has a nice ring, doesn’t it?

Cast a vote you won’t regret, like Oregon voter has done.