Governor's race draws heavy hitters

SALEM — Some big guns for the national Republican and Democratic parties will be visiting the state soon to raise money for Gov. Ted Kulongoski and GOP hopeful Ron Saxton in the hotly contested Oregon governor's race — but President Bush won't be among them.

Saxton's campaign says it doesn't need the White House's help. Others say Bush would be more of a hindrance than a help to Saxton if he came.

"The reality is, Bush is not very popular in Oregon," says Portland pollster Tim Hibbitts. "He wouldn't help Ron Saxton get any votes by coming out here."

But Saxton will be receiving a boost from some other big-name Republicans, namely former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee.

Former Vice President Al Gore is planning to travel to Oregon in a few weeks to attend a fundraiser for Kulongoski.

The visits show that while Kulongoski has been leading in most polls, both national parties consider the Oregon governor's race competitive.

Phil Musser, executive director of the Republican Governors Association in Washington, D.C., says that despite the tough year facing Republicans nationally, "we like Ron Saxton's chances of winning in Oregon."

"He is a prodigious fundraiser, and he is running a good, crisp campaign," Musser said.

On the other side, Bernie Campbell of the Democratic Governors Association said Kulongoski "is exactly the kind of governor we support" and he indicated that the group will likely match or exceed the $325,000 it poured into Kulongoski's 2002 campaign.

"We've been heavily engaged in this race, and we're going to stay engaged until Gov. Kulongoski is re-elected," Campbell said in an interview from Washington.

Details of Gore's Oct. 24 trip to Oregon are still being worked out, but the former vice president is expected to raise a considerable amount of cash for Kulongoski when he attends a fundraiser with the Democratic governor in the Portland area.

In June, former presidential candidate and Democratic National Committee Chair Howard Dean traveled to the state to urge Oregon Democrats to rally around Kulongoski's re-election bid.

The largest single fundraising event in Oregon history came in August 2002, when Bush came to town and raised $1 million for Sen. Gordon Smith, R-Ore., and the state Republican Party.

Four years later, with his poll numbers slumping and the public growing increasingly weary of the war in Iraq, the president hasn't scheduled any political trips to Oregon, where he was defeated by Democrat John Kerry in the 2004 election.

Saxton's campaign manager, Felix Schein, shrugged off suggestions that a Bush visit might actually be a detriment to Saxton's gubernatorial campaign.

"We haven't asked him to come out here, and a visit hasn't been offered," Schein said. "We are raising as much money as we need."

Schein said the Oct. 9 campaign trip by Giuliani, the popular former New York mayor who's a possible presidential contender for 2008, and the visits by Romney and Huckabee "will help us fill any fundraising holes that might be out there."

Kulongoski campaign spokeswoman Anna Richter Taylor said that with the president becoming increasingly unpopular among Oregon voters, she's not surprised Saxton hasn't asked for Bush's help.

However, Richter Taylor said Saxton clearly has established himself as a "pro-Bush Republican."

"Saxton is aligned with Bush on virtually every policy, from privatizing Social Security to the war in Iraq, and from global warming to tax cuts for the wealthy," she said.

Schein disputes the notion that the problems Bush and the GOP are experiencing nationally will end up being a drag on Saxton's Oregon campaign.

"The governor and his staff are doing all they can to distract voters from the central question — namely, has Ted Kulongoski done anything to improve our state?" the Saxton spokesman said. "The answer is 'no.' "

A recent poll by the independent firm Rasmussen Reports showed Kulongoski leading Saxton. In the Sept. 18 poll of 500 likely Oregon voters, 47 percent said they planned to vote for Kulongoski, and 38 percent favored Saxton, with a margin of error of 3.5 percentage points.

Hibbitts, the Portland pollster, says the race could well tighten in the coming weeks.

"The governor is the favorite right now, but this is still a very competitive race," Hibbitts said.