December Events

September Finds: Morse, Throop, & More

Turned up several neat items in antique and thrift shops around my area. The first is a Wayne Morse bumper sticker from his 1956 re-election campaign. Really neat item, and a first for me.

As most know, Morse had recently switched from the GOP to the Democrats after growing increasingly frustrated with party leadership and the direction the party was going on many policy fronts. He would win in 1956, by defeating former Oregon Governor and then Secretary of the Interior Douglas McKay.

Tweet about Denver

APIC members, be sure you tweet about the Denver Convention starting in 8 days.

Or you can just follow all the news coming out of the convention.

APIC NATIONAL CONVENTION DENVER 2014

The APIC National Convention is set to start in 8 days. Over the next few days we'll upload some info for Oregon members attending. July 29th-August 2nd

Special thanks go out to Cowan's Auctions, Hakes, Anderson Americana and Heritage Auctions for helping make this convention possible.

Vic Atiyeh Remembered

The news came late last night that former Oregon Governor Vic Atiyeh passed away due to kidney failure. We'll have more about his political legacy and items in the coming days. With his passing, there are now only three former living Oregon Governors.

Tom Berg Remembered

Tom Berg

This is just a quick notice for all Oregon APIC members that are not facebook. We learned this morning that Tom Berg had passed away suddenly Thursday evening. Tom was a well known member of the national organization and a co-organizer of the upcoming AIPC National Convention in his home state of Colorado at the end of this month.

We are all saddened and shocked by this news and there is bound to be some sort of memorial event of some kind taking place in Denver at the APIC national convention to honor Tom for all the work he put into making this convention happen.

To Tom's family we express our sincere condolences on your loss.

Kitzhaber's 1998 Opponents

Kitzhaber 1994

Bill Sizemore 1998 Campaign Pin

This is a follow up to our previous post on the political opponents of Oregon Governor John Kitzhaber. After winning his first term in 1994, it what was generally seen as a Republican year. The Gingrich Revolution never really seemed to hurt John Kitzhaber politically. He beat back Denny Smith and entered the 1998 race with strong prospects to being re-elected.

Had he been able to foresee the future, he might not have taken Sizemore as lightly as he did. After all, he would go on to beat Sizemore by over 300,000 votes in the general election. That was the widest margin a candidate for governor had earned in half a century. While Sizemore lost the 1998 election, his agenda seemed to prevail and derail Kitzhabers own agenda. A string of anti-tax ballot measures would soon follow Kitzhaber into the 21st century. He would continually have to sideline his own policy initiatives in order to fight off Sizemores anti-tax agenda.