Harold Stassen Owned Dewey Item

I have few items in my collection that come with as interesting of a story as this small Thomas Dewey for President foldout brochure.

It is an Oregon Dewey item issued during the 1948 campaign. I have no idea how rare this item is, but even if it was a common item, the place it came from gives it all the significance. APIC member Paul Bengston from Minnesota had a chance to go a sale of former Governor Harold Stassen's storage unit after Stassen passed away.

100k Collection Stolen at Troy Show

Two fellow collectors were victims of theft this weekend at the Troy, Michigan Show. Over 100k in political items were stolen from Ken Hosner and Mark Evans, both long time dealers in the political collecting hobby. You can read the full story here and if you are looking on ebay, craigslist, estsy and other sites and come across deals too good to be real, double check with someone and if you are suspicous contact the Troy Police Department.

A reward is currently being collected by APIC members to help ensure the items are returned to their owners.

We can only hope that this story has a similar ending as the one of Wes Berger from a decade ago, when his collection was stolen and returned. You can read that story here.

Blaine Whipple Remembered

Whipple meeting JFK

Blaine Whipple probably isn't a household name to many today. If you lived in Washington County 40 years ago, you probably would have known it. He was a State Senator that represented the Beaverton area. Twice he ran for Congress in the 1960s. He was Chair of the Washington County Democrats, an Executive Director of the state Democratic party, and member of the DNC. He served in various other elected positions in Washington County during the 80s and 90s.

More McCall Items Turn Up

At the recent Oregon APIC Meeting we heard from Lincoln County Commissioner Bill Hall about his upcoming novel called McCallandia. The novel is about Tom McCall becoming President of the United States.

Our members and guests brought in their McCall related items and some even had items for trade and sale. I was able to trade a duplicate McCall poster for some items I did not have yet. One of the items was the above bumper sticker from McCall's 1978 comeback campaign.

I traded this 1970 McCall bumper sticker for another 1970 McCall bumper sticker.

Dave Frohnmayer Remembered

Over the last week I have read and heard many tributes from Oregonians of all walks of life about Dave Frohnmayer. I decided it was time to post some items from his many campaigns for political office. Frohnmayer was thrust into the statewide spotlight of running for governor in 1990 when an opportunity presented itself to run for that office. He was the frontrunner, and maybe if it had been 1986 he might very well have won. 1990, in Oregon and the rest of the country divisions were forming within the Republican Party. At the Dorchester Conference GOP electeds like Packwood and Frohnmayer met to figure out how to get rid of Oregon GOP Chairman T.J. Bailey, a representative of the 'New Right' of the party. Bailey was replaced by a business executive named Greg Berkman. This rift may have helped spur a third party candidacy from Al Mobley in the 1990 election. This split, would cost Frohnmayer the winning coalition he would need to beat Oregon Secretary of State Barbara Roberts in the fall.

Pins from the top 3 candidates in November of 1990

Recent Oregon Finds

Some great Oregon items have been popping up online over the last few weeks. We thought we would share some that our members have recently picked up.

The first is a great Nixon single day event from 1952 when he was running for Vice President with Ike Eisenhower.

A very desirable item for not only Nixon or Eisenhower collectors but us Oregon collectors as well. OR-APIC member John Silvertooth explains that event was part of a train tour during the Checkers incident and that there was a demonstration at the train station regarding Checkers. This event was just three days before Nixon would be forced to make his famous Checkers speech.

Photo is Morse of Course!

An old newsprint photo has been causing some discussion amongst collectors on the APIC facebook page. I was searching for photos used in newsprint of collectors and their collections when I stumbled upon this photo of Emanuel Ress from 1960. He is inspecting laminated prints for 1960 presidential hopefuls that he plans to sell to the public. As you can see there are pins for Nixon, Kennedy, Johnson, Humphrey and several for Senator Wayne Morse.

Morse of course, was the Oregon Democrat running for President in the 1960 primaries. While he was only officially on the ballot in three contests (Maryland, DC, and Oregon) he claimed to have organizers working for him in most states that held state conventions to select delegates. I am a huge Morse fan and wrote my last political science paper in college on his 1960 effort. I have so far been unable to find ay firm details on these various efforts outside of those three mentioned above, but, like so much political organizing today it may have gone largely unnoticed.

Ress inspecting the quality of his prints for buttons.