Yesterday I wrote that Medford voters said "no" to a suspected conservative takeover of the Medford school board.
Some people thanked me.
Ilex Brandenberger, an unseated incumbent, said I got things wrong.
Another candidate, Curt Ankerberg, called me a "stupid m------f-----"
Incumbent School Board member Ilex Brandenberger said I misunderstood his politics and I was mistaken about why he lost his election. I appreciate hearing from him.
He wrote, saying he was not part of any conservative takeover coalition:
Peter, this is Ilex Brandenberger commenting. I am not the extremely right wing person you seem to be trying to make me out to be in this article. You won't see a MAGA flag anywhere near me, but I'm not a progressive either. I'm not registered with either political party. I do go to church, but that doesn't mean I want to ban books or bully trans people. In fact, I would really just like it if we could actually focus on issues that really matter to our kids and schools like making sure they are all getting a quality education and that teachers are well compensated. How did we get to the place where real governance issues no longer matter in choosing our leaders and now we are focused solely on culture war issues? I think we have a rough road ahead of us until we can answer that question.
That sounds to me like exactly the kind of earnest public-spirited person I want to see in offices like school boards. He had the bad luck to have been running against another such person.
He had an explanation for why he lost. He said he didn't have the endorsement of the Medford Education Association, the teachers' union.
I think the main reason I didn't get elected is that I was sitting in a hotel room across from La Guardia Airport in NYC when the MEA endorsement interviews were going on and had to do the interview by phone. It was exceptionally bad luck that I ended up on an emergency business trip on the exact same day they were occurring. They would not reschedule or hold off a decision and confirmed that I only lost their endorsement because I wasn't physically there. I have been told that everyone who gets their endorsement gets elected. So, I'm pretty sure that's when I lost.
In very low turnout elections -- 22% -- where information about the candidates is hard to get, the support of a motivated group of voters may tip the balance in close races. Teachers and their families are such a group. Oregon sends a printed Voters Pamphlet to every household with a registered voter. Candidates provide their education and employment credentials and a statement of their goals in a half-page pre-set format. Even for people like myself, who actively seek out information about candidates, Voters Pamphlet entries are often the primary source of information. Sometimes a candidate writes things that are clearly disqualifying. (Scratch that one!) More often candidates offer committee-polished statements of good intention, so there is a uniform anodyne quality to them. Still, a voter can draw inferences of their policy orientation from people and groups listed as endorsing the candidate. The Medford Education Association endorsed each of the four winning candidates. Maybe voters weren’t making inferences about MAGA influence from lawn sign locations and ballot statements. Maybe people looked for the MEA endorsement and assumed that teachers knew what to look out for.
I got a flurry of letters from a losing candidate, Curt Ankerberg. He called me a "stupid m-----f-----."
I published his comments in the comment section yesterday's post at the blogspot site. I post them only for their value in showing readers the thinking of this perennial Republican candidate and Trump supporter. Warning: They are vicious and obscene. He won almost half the votes in a Republican primary election for state senate, and he got 2,866 votes in this school board race. I disagree and disapprove of his opinions and language. His words should not be read as credible information about his targets. They reflect on him and the Republican voters who find him to their liking.
Thanks Peter for publishing my comments!
The obvious conservative takeover was successful in Josephine County. I don't know if you pay much attention to Josephine, but it is wild with extremists here who ran on scaring trans kids, bringing religion into public schools and banning books. Our commissioners recently tore into our 4H leaders just trying to make their annual presentation to the board. Some kids complained they were being discriminated against (with their parents' urging) because 4H doesn't allow them to wear religious t-shirts at events. Who reams out the 4H for crying out loud? Grants Pass City Council just closed Riverside Park where the homeless population has basically taken over. They said it was to clean it up for a month and allow Boatnik to proceed, but it has been whispered around here that the local militia group was going to take matters into their own hands and chase the homeless off. It gets so absurd here it's comical sometimes. Now two-time sheriff candidate loser Jonathan Knapp is petitioner on a new charter proposal that would make all elected positions in the county partisan. Democrats are in the minority here but during primaries have had enough votes to keep the extremists out of office. If Knapp (who claims to be a Constitutional Sheriff who once worked for Joe Arpaio in Arizona) runs in a Republican primary against Sheriff Dave Daniels he would probably win, because Josephine County Republicans do love their extremists.