Dear District 18 Resident:
Most of the people in District 18 don't care about this race, because they have been voting Republican for a long time, but spending keeps going up, and taxes keep going up. Our legislators come back, and tell us they fought the good fight, but they had to compromise, or make a bipartisan effort, or "work with the system".
My opponent, Tootie Smith, is a good Republican. The lobbyists say she has "bipartisan support". She has lots of money, because she is backed by the Republican leadership; they know her, and they know that she'll do what she's told. And if you think things are going in the right direction, and the Republican leadership is on track, you should vote for her.
But maybe you think there's a reason we have the highest unemployment rate in the Nation. Maybe you recognize that we shouldn't have to spend more and more of our time working to pay taxes and satisfy government requirements. Maybe you recognize that we don't need federal employees telling state employees what to do, and state employees telling local employees what to do, and all of them telling us what to do, all the time.
Our Schools
And maybe you recognize that the State is falling victim to Leftist policies on every front. The schools are the worst. They don't have enough money, but they can hire expensive bilingual specialists to teach "sheltered" subjects to kids that ought to just learn English. They spend huge fractions of the budget on special education or other federal or state mandates that make no sense.
And worst of all, they are filling minds of our kids with Leftist propaganda. My kids at 91 School have had to watch "environmental assemblies" now for two years in a row that teach the kids that raising cows kills poor people (by using grain) and causes global warming (from cow farts). My kids are taught that the Constitution has an "elastic clause" so that the Federal government can regulate anything it wants to, so that really, the Constitution isn't a Constitution at all. My kids are told that West African animist tales are Great Literature, but the name of Jesus cannot be sung in Christmas carols because it might offend somebody. Why is it that only the values that made this country great are offensive?
All this rot comes from Salem (and Washington, D.C.). We need to return total control to local school districts, including power over their finances. I met with the teacher's union down in Salem, and the group making recommendations for District 18 didn't include a single teacher from District 18. They were all "education professionals," the sort of people who sit in offices passing papers to each other about how real teachers should do their jobs. And I don't think any of them were Republicans. They endorsed my opponent, the good Republican.
Timber, Fish, and Agriculture
Most other groups, like Agri-PAC and the Farm Bureau, endorse incumbents without even meeting the challengers. I never got to meet them. But I never met them at the headgates in the Klamath Basin either, or when the Grants Pass Irrigation District was under attack by the Clinton Administration and Governor Kitzhaber, or when the Snake River Dams were under attack. I've been through all those battles, and I wrote about them on my website, www.buchal.com, and in the book The Great Salmon Hoax. I know more about the evils that the Environmental Movement has in store for the State of Oregon than nearly anyone.
I have seen an ignorant and self-righteous elite fan out across the face of the Pacific Northwest, using their junk science to put forth crippling environmental regulations. Pretty soon, doing anything anywhere will violate an environmental rule somewhere. I have seen this elite seize property at their whim, and pretend that the Constitution allows the government to steal private property. And when the people rose up and passed Measure 7, I saw this elite cook up a crooked lawsuit to kill it, which the news media ignored.
The news media do endorse Democrats, and good Republicans, like my opponent. The Molalla Pioneer even warned that I might “shake things up in the Legislature”, and we wouldn’t want that to happen, would we? Maybe you think our Republican leadership really needed to increase the natural resource regulation budget for enviro-nuts by 17% in the last two years. I sure don’t think so. The bottom line is that we had all the laws we needed to protect Oregon's environment back in the 1970s, and all we have to do is make those laws work. But instead we pass more and more laws, so that more and more of us are criminals.
We Can't Fix It Overnight
One honest legislator telling the truth is not going to turn this State around. But one honest legislator telling the truth can begin to wake up the sleeping majority in this State, and help get more people elected who really want to fix things. In the small farms and small towns of District 18 lies a reservoir of civic virtue that can show the entire State how Oregon was meant to be. We should be a free and prosperous people living in a Garden of Eden, a Garden we already know how to manage without the dead hand of the government on every decision.
I hope that you'll join in restoring that vision of Oregon by mailing in your ballot before May 21st, voting for me, James Buchal, as your choice for House District 18.
Sincerely,
James L. Buchal