Christine Drazan Should Be the Next Governor of Oregon

CLAY: Want to give credit to a lot of you out in Oregon who have been reaching out to the show. We appreciate everybody listening in Portland. And you’ve been saying, Clay and Buck, you need to be paying attention to what’s going on in the Oregon governor’s race.

It’s not getting a lot of attention right now, but Christine Drazan is putting together an incredible, an incredible campaign. And people are telling us that you are going to end up winning this race. And we bring in now the woman who is trying to turn the state of Oregon red.

And, Christine, I just want you to run us through what you’re hearing from people all over the state of Oregon and how much the disaster that is Portland is feeding into so much of the momentum that you are picking up on to the point where a lot of people that I trust believe you’re gonna be the next governor of Oregon.

DRAZAN: So first, thank you so much for having me on today. I am super excited to be on the show. I’m a big fan; so, this is an exciting moment for me. Let’s just get that out there.

BUCK: Thank you. You’re gonna save the state of Oregon and you have great taste in radio.

DRAZAN: All of those things, and hand in hand is basically what we’re talking about right now. No, Oregonians across our state are feeling what — you know, whether or not you’re in Portland or Pendleton, you know, Eugene, or Eagle Point, folks across Oregon want change right now because we have had Democrats in charge for 40 years in the governor’s office.

But 10 years of both branches of government as far as the legislature and the governor’s office are concerned, which has led to a precipitous decade of decline where now we have homelessness, we have rampant drug use, we have crime that’s skyrocketed, we have our schools that are failing.

All of these basic foundational elements of what makes a strong state and, frankly, leads to strong families and strong communities has just fallen off a cliff here in Oregon.

And folks here want change. They’re not talking about partisan politics. They’re not talking about Republican versus Democrat. They’re talking about balance, accountability, and just a better quality of life.

I mean, Biden’s inflation is just obliterating everybody across the nation, but here in Oregon it’s especially shocking because Democrats in the legislature here have raised $3 billion of taxes in just a six-month period a few years back, and all of that gets pushed down to Oregonians and now we’ve got this inflation.

They’re feeling it in their pocketbooks. They’re feeling it in their businesses. They’re feeling it in their schools, everywhere you look Oregonians are saying, nope. This thing ain’t working no more. We need change.

BUCK: Christine, the decisions that have been made — I’m curious if you could just explain to us what has been done there that has brought the state of Oregon, more specifically Portland and the surrounding area, to its current state.

I’ve only been in Portland once, it was in 2010, and I remember thinking what a cool, beautiful city it was with great food, but every year since then I’ve just been reading more and more about the deterioration.

It became really kind of the capital of Antifa on the West Coast and the lawlessness and the anarchy and the homelessness and the drugs. They were essentially camping out outside of an ICE facility, if I remember, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and harassing federal immigration officials and nobody was doing anything about it.

What were the decisions that were made? I mean, why did the city of Portland and then more broadly the state of Oregon deteriorate so rapidly over the last 10 years?

DRAZAN: We had leadership in Portland that made the decision to defund police. We were ground zero for treating police like criminals and our criminals like victims. That’s Oregon. That’s really hard-left, progressive Democrats that have not taken Oregonians into consideration when they’ve been pushing a political agenda.

We all feel it. So, you know, 207% increase in homicides happens when you abandon the intervention teams that were in there in those communities making sure that gun violence wasn’t happening.

BUCK: I’m sorry. Did you say 200% — 207% increase in homicides?

DRAZAN: Hm-hm. In two years. In two years, in the city of Portland. And you saw the beautiful city that Portland has been for years and years and years and years. That is Oregon. Oregon is a gem. Oregon is brilliant and gorgeous and welcoming.

And we have a resilient, strong, innovative, community-oriented, you know, folks that live here. And then you’ve got Portland where Portlanders have just basically been abandoned by their own leadership. And the Democrats that I’m running against have doubled down on that same agenda.

You know, they have pushed to reduce defunding for cops. The budgets that they passed in Salem haven’t fully funded police. The efforts that they’ve taken in Salem have abandoned our ability to stand with and protect victims.

That’s what I’m running against right now, our folks that actually are continuing to pursue policies that have already proven to hurt communities and families across our state.

CLAY: We’re talking to Christine Drazan. She is running for governor of Oregon. Appreciate many of you listening on our Portland, Oregon, affiliate KEX AM who know exactly of which you are speaking. You’re also a mom of three. And last year certainly, we saw Glenn Youngkin flip the state of Virginia to a large extent based on moms who were angry.

I’m married to a mom of three here in my house. I hear from a lot of these moms who have been furious about what’s going on in the schools, about the fact that schools were closed. I know in Oregon a lot of people with public school kids have been furious over the way that the governor there handled covid and keeping schools open.

What are you hearing from moms and also dads out there about what they feel associated with schools and the way that their kids are being treated there?

DRAZAN: Yeah. Families, parents are absolutely livid in Oregon, and they should be. Their students, their kids were abandoned for a political agenda that put a higher value on, you know, sort of union negotiations than the needs of our students.

And instead of doubling down and funding interventions in the classroom to help all students get back up to standards, here in Oregon they just abandoned the standards. They reduced graduation requirements. They actually have shifted curriculum inside our schools to begin to have all these layers that are really, really politically driven.

Just to give you an example, if you’ve got a kindergartener here in Oregon, that student, some of the curriculum requirements are gonna have that student as early as kindergarten thinking about what is their identity and how do they perceive justice. And what they really need is to know how to wait in line and hold on to a pencil and have some fine motor skills.

CLAY: Amen. Amen.

BUCK: We’re speaking to Christine Drazan, everybody. She’s running for governor of Oregon, and it is a very close race, Christine, which we want to really highlight this because you are in it. This is not some, you know, down by 20 or 30 points and it’s just trying to make some kind of a statement.

You could be the next governor of Oregon. We’ve got a lot of people listening to this, as Clay mentioned, KEX AM, a fantastic station with a big audience, big reach, but many other stations throughout the state of Oregon too.

To the people listening, what can they do to help you, and how do they help bring this thing home so that there’s some sanity in your state of Oregon once again?

DRAZAN: We have to have Oregonians choose to win. They have to be the ones that choose a new direction for our state. I mean, we are a toss-up race because Oregonians have been standing up and pushing back and demanding change. I need every Oregonian out there that’s looking for change, that doesn’t want more of the same, that doesn’t want another decade of decline to vote.

And, you know, you can find more information on my race for ways to volunteer and donate and show up on our days that we’re knocking on doors and making calls, which is every day, at ChristineforOregon.com, but I need Oregonians to believe in change.

You know, it’s been — I know, you know, we know this — 40 years, almost, since Oregon’s had a Republican governor. You know the last time we had a Republican governor? Top Gun. It was in the theaters, the original. And I say all the time now it’s time for a sequel, right?

And that really is where we’re at in Oregon, is it’s time to lead our state in a new direction, and I need Oregonians to vote, I need them to show up, and I need them to stand with me and demand change.

CLAY: Christine, I mean, that’s a testament to how much of a case you’ve already made. I mean, that’s crazy to think it’s been 1986 since Oregon had a Republican governor. But the Cook political report has moved this race into the toss-up category.

You are legitimately a candidate. And we talk a lot on this show about sane versus insane. You are trying to appeal, regardless to how people have voted in the past, to the sane people of Oregon to acknowledge that it’s time for change.

DRAZAN: Yeah, they’re just asking for some common sense, and I’m committed to bringing it. And we haven’t seen that for far too long in our state. You know, for folks that weren’t living through it with us, we had some of the longest lockdowns across the nation.

We were… our schools were shut down longer than California. And, you know, when you talk about outraged parents and parents that are just demanding better, that’s because Oregon’s leaders have been far too political for far too long, and Oregonians are saying, we just want common sense.

BUCK: Didn’t the lunatic governor, Kate Brown, tell people to snitch on anybody who had more than four or six people in their home or something like that? Wasn’t there a period there where private homes in Oregon actually had some kind of a cap?

DRAZAN: Oh, Thanksgiving. That was the Thanksgiving debacle. She said, “Nope.” It isn’t even a joke, right? You feel like there should be a punch line coming at you right now. But she actually called on Oregonians to limit their Thanksgiving get-togethers among family members to five or less, I believe was the number —

BUCK: There you go, five or less.

DRAZAN: I know. And then to call, checking on people, just in case you saw more cars out front in front of your neighbors’ houses, that is absolutely —

BUCK: Clay, the governor of Oregon wanted people to snitch on families that got together with more than five people. The whole thing’s so stupid, arbitrary, and insane.

CLAY: Christine, anything we can do to help. Certainly, if you are listening to us in Oregon, this would be a monumental message to send, to have a Republican in the governor’s office in Oregon again. We know you would do an incredible job, Christine. And let us know how we can help coming down the next 49 days.

DRAZAN: Hey, thank you so much. It’s been great to talk to you today.

BUCK: ChristineforOregon.com, folks, is her website. Go check it out.