Holy Money Bags, Batman! The Democratic primary for Attorney General (which is effectively the general election since Republicans failed to field a candidate in this race) is becoming Exhibit A in how union money dominates Oregon elections.
The freshest examples as the May 20 deadline approaches to vote in the primary?
SEIU, which represents public employees and previously gave Attorney General candidate John Kroger $150,000, gave Kroger another $162,500 last week.
The Oregon Education Association, which earlier gave Kroger $25,000, also chipped in another $25,000 last week. Collectively SEIU and OEA have given Kroger $362,500. That’s nearly half the $762,000 the Lewis & Clark law professor and former federal prosecutor has raised.
In the money sweepstakes, Kroger is about $100,000 ahead of his opponent, state Rep. Greg Macpherson (D-Lake Oswego). Macpherson, who angered public employees for his leadership on 2003 legislation that cut public employee benefits, has generated an impressive number of contributions from law firms and corporate interests (he is a pension benefits lawyer at the state’s largest law firm, Stoel Rives). But he has received no contribution larger than $10,000. 
It is easy to see why Kroger is getting so much union support — he is the pro-worker, pro-consumer candidate running against a fat-cat corporate lawyer whose firm defended Enron!
Wow Edward, good use of talking points there. Do you have any original thoughts of your own, or does the Kroger campaign tell everything to say in your daily life? As for the Enron charge, apparently you haven’t seen this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FUVhVYCIq4c
Hey Edward — Kroger gets $362,500 from TWO sources but Mac’s the fat cat? Great logic. And Macpehrson’s got a 100 rating from AFSCME. This is revenge for a single act of departure from orthodoxy and SEIU is engaging in political assassination. Apparently the "ethical prosecutor" is capable of being bought, hook, line and memoir
Art Towers is the insane person running the show at SEIU. He is considered the most difficult person in all of Oregon labor and is the one largely to blame for leading his sheep to punish Macpherson. I truly hope Macpherson wins so Towers’ credibility is seen for what it really is.
The "unions" may support Kroger, but this Union Member will voter for MacPherson.
The Union Leaders are Wrong this time!
As a conservative Democrat, the union money would usually turn me off. However, Kroger’s vision as opposed to Macpherson’s lack of vision (other than adovacting for the overturn of Measure 11 which over 2/3rds of Oregonians voted for), is the clincher for me.