Former President Clinton will give a speech at the UO EMU Ballroom tomorrow night at 8:30. Be sure to thank him for helping torpedo his wife’s campaign and his party’s chances in the general election! Good work, big fella. Just remember to stay away from those girls at the soft serve in Carson.

And if you have $1,000 to $33,100 to spend on a man who voted for campaign finance reform, why not attend the John McCain “Portland Finance Reception” tomorrow night at the beautiful airport Sheraton? Because nothing defines a straight talkin’ man of the people better than holding a closed door $33,100/head dinner at a crappy airport hotel.

Update: More on McCain’s speech here.

You can send Hillary Clinton an e-card wishing her a happy Mother’s Day. But what to say? There’s so many possibilities. I was thinking maybe: “Congratulations on fulfilling one of the seven phenomena of life. Only six more to go to prove you’re not a satan-robot!”

Hat tip to the always classy gals at Wonkette.

Apparently, Obama is returning to campus to speak tomorrow in the Memorial Quad outside Knight Library. Doors (?) open at 5:45 p.m. The only source I have for this is a Facebook Event, but it appears to be hosted by Students for Obama. I’ll keep you updated. If it’s true, you’ll be able to watch the whole thing (sans sound) through the old Obelisk Cam.

UPDATE: Yep, it’s confirmed on Obama’s website.

According to the Huffington Post’s nifty little campaign donation tracker, people who identified themselves as employees of the University of Oregon have so far donated $24,962 to political campaigns in the ‘08 election cycle. It doesn’t look like the first quarter reports have been added yet, so the real number is most likely much higher by now. How does it break down?

Of that $24,962, only two contributions went to Republicans, totalling $956. Actually, I should say Republican because both of those went to … Ron Paul. The majority of the Dem donations went to Obama with only one donation to Hillary Clinton. No contributions were listed from Frohnmayer, although his pals Melinda Grier and John Moseley both donated to Obama.

Tony Marino, a Tigard Republican running for the Oregon House, issued a letter to several newspapers that extensively describes his myriad failures in life, including bankruptcy, divorces, IRS trouble and a fake degree. Marino is spinning it as a “honesty is the best policy” move, but you can bet the Democrats were going to dig all this up anyways.

According to the Oregonian, Marino earned a doctorate in Marketing in under three months from Ashwood University, which gives its students credit for their “life experiences.” Later he discovered the shocking truth that the “university” wasn’t accredited in the state of Oregon.

Marino did leave out a few other tidbits, though. From the Oregonian:

A background check unearthed other financial run-ins, including a $12,300 civil judgment from 2001 that he contests and that he says he didn’t know about until Thursday. He’s also making monthly installments on a $4,900 judgment from 2002, filed by Ford Motor Co.

Whoops! It will be interesting to see if Marino’s “only human” strategy works. I for one would like to see more detailed confessions from politicians. Imagine the letters coming out of DC: “This one time Arlen Specter got drunk and passed out on my couch, so I drew penises all over his face with a Sharpie. He woke up the next morning and rushed straight to the Senate Judiciary Committee meeting. Everyone laughed at him, and I felt really guilty.”

Yesterday OC Ed-in-Chief Ossie and I drove up to Kell’s Irish Pub in Portland to hear Gene Healy of the Cato Institute talk about his new book, The Cult of the Presidency: America’s Dangerous Devotion to Executive Power. The good folks at the America’s Future Foundation hosted the event.

Healy is a smart, funny guy, and we enjoyed throwing back some Guinness with him. I haven’t read the book yet, but everything he said last night was spot-on. In short, voters and politicians on both sides of the aisle need to get rid of the idea that the President is the daddy or mommy who will fix all their problems. I did have to disagree with Healy when he started bagging on Teddy Roosevelt, though. Ugly views on manifest destiny aside, Roosevelt was pretty awesome; he gave a 90-minute speech after being shot in the chest. C’mon, Hillary Clinton isn’t even that hardcore in her fantasies.

I was just reading the Emerald’s story about the Oregon Action Team’s victory, and I noticed this interesting little tidbit:

 ”It’s easy to buy an election,” Sen. Nate Gulley, a Rock the Yellow supporter said after hearing the results.

The Commentator wonders if Senator Gulley can provide any evidence whatsoever to back up his statement, or whether he’s just speaking from personal experience.

For his part, Diego Hernandez was quoted as saying that he hadn’t “even processed it yet,” which probably stems from the fact that he’s spent a significant portion of his processing power lately fulminating against white people in the comments section of the Daily Emerald, producing such gleaming pearls as:

Diversity, in the mind of the average white, heteronormative male is obviously or should be non-European…White people suddenly want to be included in the term diversity. This is why Affirmative Action is becoming weaker and scholarships that are meant for people of color are going to white people because diverse means something different.

and leading off with:

Wake is an idiot, he needs to wake up and stop being a racist, uneducated baboso. 

I am guessing your not educated about “race,” especially because Wake’s comment is obviously ignorant and racist, and because you used the term “Hispanic.” I don’t get my definitions from the encyclopedia, especially socially related terms. Race and Racism is so complex that you can major on it and get a Doctorate from the topic. Suddenly, I have to stay silent when I speak about race, because if I talk about it then it might loose it’s meaning.  [emphasis added]

After someone in the comments section (whom Hernandez claimed was “Sean Jin himself or someone associated with him or the neoliberal, neoconservative, ignorant Oregon Commentator” [Gosh, it’s so nice that you’re always thinking of us!!]) pointed out that his sentiments were coming dangerously close to breaching the University’s definition of “discriminatory harassment,” Hernandez suddenly made an about-face, claiming:

But anyway if you read what Wake said, it is obviously not racist, but I thought I should just do it to see what kind of dialogue would come of it. Very interesting stuff…   [emphasis added]

Between churning out such confused vitriol and denouncing Sean Jin’s “hate speech” about the Multicultural Center, it’s no wonder that Mr. Hernandez has been suffering a dearth of CPU power needed for processing the Oregon Action Team’s victory, leaving it to Nate Gulley to instead insinuate election fraud and further drag what remains of the ASUO’s reputation through the mud.

Congrats to the Oregon Action Team for shaking these tossers up a bit.

Now that the ecstasy of Barack Obama’s visit to our humble city is beginning to wear off (though one keeps expecting his most ardent disciples to show up on the doorstep one weekend morning wearing “Hope” t-shirts and asking if one has “heard the good news”…), the Democratic primary is once again looking like a political campaign rather than a messianic ascension into the hallowed Oval Office.

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Rockne Roll, friend of the OC and Executive Editor of The Liberty over at OSU, is running for the Oregon House of Representatives District 16. He will be facing Democratic incumbent Sarah Gelser. Although I don’t know Gelser, I can almost guarantee that Roll has finer taste in clothes and cigars. Best of luck to Roll in his campaign.

P.S. Via NW Republican, Matt “The Law” Lindland, a former Olympic wrestler and ultimate fighter, is running for House District 52.

Barack Obama was the leading presidential candidate in a survey by American University. When asked who they would vote for if the presidential election was held today, 54 percent of respondents chose Obama, with McCain coming in second at 19 percent.

However, a similar poll by the Oregon Commentator found Ron Paul leading by 100 percent. Although Paul has been popular with the college crowd, this is a surprising surge and could cause trouble for current Republican front-runner McCain. The results also indicate that 100 percent of university students are registered Independents, functional alcoholics and named Ossie Bladine.

You would cry too, if this was happening to you. Via the Oregonian, the tale of the stunning implosion of the Oregon GOP:

“It’s a wake-up call,” says former state labor commissioner Jack Roberts. “We’ve been spending so much of our time arguing about who is more Republican, and the voters are electing people who aren’t Republican at all.”

A quick survey of the party’s status in Oregon tells the story: Democrats control both chambers of the Legislature. Democrats hold every statewide office. Democrats hold five of seven seats in Congress.

And the cherry on top? Last week it came to light that the Oregon GOP was a cool $300,000 in debt. I can only wonder what the atmosphere will be like at the Republican’s annual Dorchester Conference, which commences tonight. They must not be too worried, though, because I didn’t see any entry on the official agenda titled “OMFG, guys! What the hell are we going to do!”

As I reported on earlier, there was an informative meeting today on the upcoming student elections. The meeting was held in the Ben Linder Room of the EMU. In case you were wondering, Ben Linder was a happy, university peacenik who tried to bring his unicycling mirth to Nicaragua … and was subsequently killed by contras. Anywho, there’s a list of the info and insights gleaned from the meeting below the fold.

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Tonight at six p.m. in the Ben Linder Room of the EMU there will be an informative meeting about the upcoming student elections. Also, free pizza. I’m in it for the pizza, but if anything noteworthy or funny comes out, I’ll write a little something.

No word on free punch and pie.

Yesterday, the Oregon House held an atypical debate on natural rights, specifically a natural right to health care. The House Democrats successfully referred a bill to the November ballot that would make health care a constitutional right for every Oregon citizen.  From the Oregonian article:

House Joint Resolution 100 would amend the Oregon Constitution to make health care “a fundamental right” and order the Legislature to adopt a plan for giving every legal resident “access to effective and affordable health care on a regular basis.”

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The folks over at left-leaning Loaded Orygun have endorsed Democrat John Kroger for state Attorney General. (I previously wrote about Kroger’s ambitious, silly plan to end the “meth epidemic” here). However, reading through LO’s justifications for endorsing Kroger makes me wonder if they are actually running some sort of back-handed smear campaign against him. I mean, if someone wrote this about me, I might ask them to take the endorsment back (emphasis mine):

As pleasant and apparently very competent as Macpherson is, Kroger’s enthusiasm, sharply detailed vision and obvious desire for public service–in all senses of the phrase–make him the more compelling candidate. He better exemplifies the borderline-angry demand of the electorate for post-partisan change, post-fear. He’s ready to fight, but on principles for people, not for parties and politics.

What does “post-partisan change, post-fear” mean? Post-fear of what? Post-fear of witches? Post-Fear of a Black Planet? Read on to see the rest of the endorsement, with emphasis on the especially humorous parts. (more…)