Me to Register-Guard: A little less “outsourcing,” a little more “sourcing,” please
Out at Nacho Rancho, we canceled our Register-Guard ‘scrip many months ago, so the sting of being irritated by that rag every time I look at it is not as numbed as it once was. Even so, I think this story from Tuesday is a special case of “good enough for Eugene” journalism:
Aside from giving some local crank a chance to see his name in the paper, and allowing Oregon Republicans to make a little hay by smugly assuring us that, unlike those Democrats, they “don’t use out-of-state folks” (er, unless they “have to”), this article is an irredeemable bucket of out-of-context provincial slop.
The story, in a nut: Oregon Democrats hired an Illinois company to handle their fundraising calls. Some guy in Eugene received one of these fundraising calls from a call center monkey in Nebraska, who couldn’t even name said Eugene guy’s local representative! Incensed, Eugene guy called up the R-G and lo and behold it’s front-page news. How could Oregon Democrats “outsource” call center jobs, given Oregon’s dire economic state?
With some light research, this “scandal” could have quickly vanished into its reasonable context. Oregon Democrats hired the Illinois company because it specialized in fundraising for “grassroots PAC’s.” With me so far? Okay, hang on, it’s going to get crazy in here . . . ready?
There are call center companies in Oregon with specialties sought by political organizations in OTHER STATES! Not only that, those durned foreigners actually hire these Oregon companies for work on their dirty foreign campaigns.
Hence I, during the 2000 election, served as a call center monkey in an office in Portland, Oregon, conducting push polls for the Republicans in the exotic nation-states of Montana, Washington and Colorado. The company, Moore Information, specializes in such polls and caters largely to Republican and conservative organizations. So, like the Illinois company hired by Oregon Democrats, it offers a special product in demand from consumers in other states.
This, dear R-G, is what is known as “interstate commerce.” The USA, or hadn’t you heard, is a free trade zone, in which consumers make rational economic choices regardless of state borders for the benefit of every state. Oregon has a pretty vibrant call-center industry, and the “outsourcing” practiced by Oregon Democrats is balanced by “outsourcing” directed to Oregon call centers from political organizations in other states. Oregon’s economy may stink, but then again, I imagine Nebraska’s stinks too. Neanderthal protectionism is not the answer. If political organizations in other states, perhaps prodded by similarly provincial newspapers, were to do what this article suggests Oregon Democrats ought to do, Oregon businesses would suffer, would they not?
Please, dear R-G, in the future, refrain from immediately conjuring the “outsourcing” bogeyman when presented with a non-story about the orderly interstate trade we’ve been practicing since attaining statehood.
