Knute Buehler’s Misinformation Campaign
Priority Oregon’s Dark Money Key to Advertising Onslaught
The “Real Clear Politics” web-site tells a disturbing story, of a blue state set to lose its governor’s chair. In January, Kate was ahead by 17 points, by mid-July the race was a toss-up, and by late July Knute was ahead by one. The following discussion of our opposition’s advertising strategy is on the long side, as it’s a big topic! Nonetheless, it seems a crucial topic for us Dems, considering how this messaging has made inroads on Kate’s numbers.
Priority Oregon, is the dark money group behind the full-scale ad attack on Gov. Brown. The group refuses to release information about its donors or board of directors. Jim Moore, political commentator from Pacific University, compared the first 2018 ad of Priority Oregon to the 2016 ad strategy used to elect Republican Dennis Richardson as secretary of state: “It is the same message — that Democratic leadership has gone on for too long and led to a government that is not functioning as it ought to, at its best, and at its worst, is corrupt.”
Jeff Mapes of OPB wrote an informative January analysis of the group, showing that likely supporters are the Oregon Farm Bureau, Associated Oregon Loggers and the Automobile Dealers Association of Portland, as these are parties to two ballot measures (one opposing grocery taxes and another requiring a legislative super-majority for any tax/fee increase). Sources also told Mapes that Entek, a Lebanon manufacturer, is a key Priority Oregon contributor. Entek’s leadership has given more than a million dollars directly to the Richardson and Buehler campaigns, according to Molly Woon, Deputy Director of the Democratic Party of Oregon (DPO), in a February on-line post. To its discredit, Entek in 2017 won a temporary injunction blocking the state from informing the local community of the health risks of the solvent trichloroethylene (TCE) used in their manufacturing. Entek won the injunction even though there were elevated levels of carcinogenic TCE outside the plant, and employee health problems had been documented for years (Oregonian, April 29, 2017). No surprise that a key Priority Oregon group goal is to reduce regulations! DPO leader Woon also wrote that the group “received early funding from the fast-food restaurant lobby group that opposes minimum wages and the homebuilder lobby that looks to roll back environmental protections”.
The Priority Oregon ads work on the assumption that the voter may not know much about the work of either Kate or Knute in Salem, and so can be tricked into voting against their values and self-interest. The ads by both Priority Oregon and Buehler’s campaign have made him out to be a “moderate” (or even progressive); the Oregon Business magazine gives him the m-word label too, without backing it up. These ads leave out entirely that this candidate has not supported funding measures to address the Oregon deficiencies highlighted. I know individuals who have been swayed by the ads so far, so I wonder if Oregonians are too quick to believe in the “moderate Republican” idea. Then too, Oregon Dems may not have been ready enough to fight back against a media strategy this dirty.
The Priority Oregon propaganda reiterates the themes that Kate is incompetent, is not managing Oregon’s money well, and that our social safety net problems are her fault. The Priority ad out last January foreshadowed later themes: the headlines were: (1) “Oregon gave Medicaid to 55,000 ineligible people”, (2) “Gov. Brown’s Administration pays $7 million after preschoolers starved by foster parents” and (3) “Gov. Brown Rewards Agency Staff for Crafting Smear Campaign”. (See the Oregon Accountability Project web-site for the newspaper pieces which show a more complex story behind the inflammatory headlines.) Others ads blame the problems with our foster care program and our mental health care system on the governor as well. The particularly sensationalistic “Scary” ad released in August alleges that, because of Brown, homelessness has exploded, foster children are going hungry, seniors are being abused, and day care managers are allowed to sell drugs. The Brown campaign legal team challenged stations to not run “Scary” because of the falsehood related to day care; this challenge appears unsuccessful. Another ad on veteran suicide blames that on the governor, though one would think that this more an issue facing the VA or Vet Centers (or to be blamed on our foreign policy itself).
None of the advertising on social service deficiencies talk about the revenue struggles that the state has faced for years. Nor do they mention that Buehler (and his business supporters) were opposed to the revenue-raising Measure 97, and that the candidate was opposed to Measure 101, the health services tax proposal to cover costs for the expanded Oregon Health Plan. On Measure 101, Buehler argued that the health care monies weren’t well-managed; yet Oregon Health Plan’s “CCO” structure (coordinated care organizations) has been seen as successful in reining in costs. The Dem Party of Oregon’s executive director, Brad Martin, in an August Oregonian post, listed various other Buehler revenue-related votes:
“…Buehler has twice voted against efforts to increase funding for foster care, human services and Oregon classrooms, choosing to put politics ahead of seeking bipartisan solutions to help Oregonians.”
The ads about the social safety net distort the cause-and-effect reality of our state problems, implying that Gov. Brown has total control and adequate revenue. As a retired social worker, I find it revolting that the Republicans only care now about social service deficiencies, when the problems — and funding shortfalls — have been decades in the making. Related to foster care, the Priority Oregon ad may have taken its inspiration from a 2018 Secretary of State audit that showed distressing staff/funding shortfalls as well as foster home recruitment and retention problems; perhaps because this audit came out under Richardson’s oversight, the management issues are highlighted as much or more than the funding ones. Though Buehler supported a slight increase in the Department of Human Services’ budget shortly after the 2018 audit, he had not supported such increases previously, as described in a letter from child welfare workers on June 1 in the Salem Statesman (“Child-welfare workers claim Buehler is opportunist”).
Another attack ad refers to the Oregon psychiatric state hospital facility closing in Junction City, yet does not mention that this closure occurred at a time when the federal funding of expanded Medicaid dropped by $1 billion (Lund Report, Dec. 2, 2016). I didn’t support the state closing the Junction City site (and wrote to Salem), but wouldn’t have supported Oregon Health Plan cuts either. This ad erroneously announces that the state runs dead last in mental health care, yet this statistic has not been true for two years. (Though it isn’t that great that Mental Health America shows us now at 44th!)
On another front, Buehler is not a leader on alternative energy, though one of his ads makes it sound this way. The Oregon League of Conservation voters gave him a failing score of 43%, including a 2015 vote against the Clean Fuels Program. The League referred to Brown as “the only environmental champion running for governor”. Notably, Brown pushed through legislation to end the use of coal. Also, Brown, with other West Coast governors, has been part of the pushback to national policies, by supporting renewable energy and conservation (“Democracy Now”, 11/14/17). The governor hopes to pass a cap-and-invest policy next session; Priority Oregon opposes such a policy (per advertising this year); Buehler says such energy legislation shouldn’t happen until the foster care program is better funded. Though environmentalists are frustrated that the governor has not come out against the Jordan Cove pipeline, Buehler openly supports it.
And the campaign controversies continue on other fronts. Planned Parenthood has come out for Kate, as Knute voted against safeguarding abortion rights on the Reproductive Health Equity Act and earned the 2014 recommendation of Oregon Right-to-Life. More recently, he has said he is pro-choice and is against measure 106, which would bar most state funding of abortion. Related to PERS, the Right’s eternal budget scapegoat, Buehler is linking a reduction of PERS’ obligations and government employee health care costs to improving education (knutebuehler.com/ignoring-pers-problem-shortchanges-education/). Yet the logic on reducing benefits doesn’t totally hold up. The foster care audit above, for example, laments the inability of the state to retain experienced case managers. While canvassing Sept. 1, a young worker in the foster home field told me that the benefits package is a key reason that some senior state caseworkers stick around.
And other votes/issues on which he doesn’t seem “moderate” enough include being against minimum wage increases, paid sick leave, and “sanctuary state” status. He has split his votes on gun control in the Legislature, recently voting ‘yay’ on a control measure after the Parkland shooting. On housing, although he voted for prohibition for rent increases for first-year tenants, he voted against no-cause evictions, rent control, and inclusionary zoning. While Brown favors both of this fall’s state and Metro ballot measures directed at low-income housing, Buehler opposes Metro’s. He released a housing proposal for more shelter beds this August, but his $10 million proposed budget is seen as inadequate by Brown’s campaign (KGW, 8/13/18). He also seeks to criminalize sidewalk camping.
In summary, the Buehler candidacy and its corporate sponsors have unleashed an early and very dirty campaign — like the anti-Measure 97 campaign on steroids! It certainly may be that metro voters are under-informed, considering how little local media covers Salem. How much of the brainwashing will have been persuasive to voters by the time of typical canvassing in October? How well will campaign volunteers be able to address voter misconceptions? Sen. Jeff Merkley emphasized the danger of this dark money phenomenon in his remarks at the 3rd floor Lloyd Center volunteer office of the Brown campaign (room 2025), at an opening canvass on August 25th. Let us hope that activists and campaign leadership can meet this threat!
