Delegates gathered in Eugene for the Oregon Republican Party State Convention on Saturday evening.
After praying and reciting the Pledge of Allegiance the Republican gubernatorial candidate, Ron Saxton addressed delegates over dinner at the Eugene Hilton.
“The future,” he said, “is now.”
From the party brass down to the foot soldiers, 300 members of the Oregon GOP converged on the hotel this past weekend to hammer out the party’s platform for the next two years.
During his speech, which the crowd interrupted frequently with applause, he spoke of the need for change; lambasting current Governor, Ted Kulongoski, a Democrat who Saxton said breaks promises and does not care about Oregonians. Saxton’s speech served as the culminating event for the 3-day conference.
The conference attracted approximately 25 protesters from CODEPINK, a women-oriented peace group, Saturday. With fake blood painted on their hands members ringed the Hilton and just before the dinner eight of them entered the hall with signs that read “We all have blood on our hands.”
As Hilton security guards ushered them out, delegates of the State Republican Party shouted back “you’ve got abortion blood on your hands,” and “get a job.”
Delegates began arriving Thursday evening and on Friday split into 10 groups, called caucuses, to overhaul sections of the platform. After they finished the caucuses, all 300 delegates met Saturday afternoon to read over the entire platform and discuss grammar and points of clarity.
Executive Director Amy Langdon said the delegation did not make significant changes to the platform except in the agriculture section. National Committeewoman June S. Hartley who ran the agriculture caucus said it changed the platform to call for reexamination of trade treaties on countries that subsidize farm goods, allowing the USDA Forest Service to clear brush in all areas including federally designated wilderness, and modified the classification of natural and hatchery-farmed salmon to be the same.
Having attended the state convention since 1982, Hartley said “I have never seen a more unified convention.”
In foreign policy, caucus chair and Washington County party official Jeff Grossman said the caucus clarified support for preemptive
strikes and expanded the section to include denunciation of China as “the prime nation-state threat to us for the 21st century”.
“You can’t wait until Chicago becomes a mushroom cloud,” Grossman said.
Lane County chair Bob Avery said Former President Bill Clinton caused the rise of terrorism through inaction. He said terrorism must be addressed as a criminal issue and that the state must punish terrorists “like a kid that’s being bad.”
In terms of the illegal immigration issue, which proved to be a particular focus of the convention, Grossman said the state should bar illegal immigrants from receiving welfare and other state resources.
“It’s not a matter of making them second class citizens, they’re not citizens” he said. “If we don’t encourage them to stay they’ll go home.”
Delegate Barbara Prete, a native of southern California, said “They’ve absolutely taken over Southern California, we’ll never get it back. They took it.”
Prete said pregnant Mexican women cross the border during labor and give birth on U.S. soil in order to receive welfare benefits.
Bruce Broussard, who is running for Congress against incumbent Democrat Earl Blumenauer, said schools should get rid of English as a Second Language programs, and raise pay for workers in Mexico
“We control Mexico’s economy. We put (Mexican President Vicente) Fox in,” Broussard said.
“We should have made a mandatory Mexican minimum wage.”
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