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Chapter 13: 110 Years
- Oregon State University Press
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119 chapter thirteen 110 Years In the summer of 1984, the Oregon press was definitely interested in a two-woman general election race for Secretary of State. It was the first time in Oregon history that the two major party candidates for a statewide race were both female. So often competitions between two women were focused on the choice of a Rose Festival Princess or homecoming queen. In fact, Donna Zajonc and I were running in the only statewide race in the nation with two women nominees facing off against each other. However, the election picture shifted in May when Independent Don Clark from Eugene qualified for the November ballot. Don was a television newscaster, well known by his viewers in the Lane County area. He was handsome, carefully groomed, and well spoken. To complicate the political landscape, there was another well-known Don Clark from the Portland area. That Don had been County Sheriff, the elected Multnomah County Commission Executive, and an unsuccessful candidate for governor in an eight-way Democratic primary race in the 1982 election, only two years earlier. The name confusion was clearly not a positive from my perspective. I needed every vote possible from Lane and Multnomah counties, both strong Democratic areas. The television viewers in Eugene would recognize and likely trust their local newscaster. In the Portland area voters might think their old political friend Don Clark was running again. The other potential role Clark filled was to hand a male option to voters who didn’t feel positive about a woman of either party holding major office. In a close contest, this factor could be decisive. Yet, in truth, there was little logic in worrying about those things that couldn’t be changed. My job was to deal with the things that could be changed in my favor—minds, hearts, opinions, and votes. Over one hundred fifty thousand Democrats had cast their primary election vote for one of the three other candidates. I needed to put those voters in my camp and try to persuade Republicans who had voted for Donna Zajonc in the primary to vote for me in the November election. While Patricia McCaig now managed the thousands of details and decisions required for a successful general election, Craig and I again 120 Up the Capitol Steps hit the now-familiar campaign trail. It is amazing what you can learn to do in the car when, most often, six days of every week require you to be on the road. For six months, from June to November, I wrote the checks for our personal household bills, stamped them, mailed them, plus balanced our personal checking account … in the car. In our ten years of marriage, I had always paid our first-of-the-month bills. I couldn’t see any reason to shirk that job now. The younger generation calls this “multitasking.” I had always done it. Now I had a label for it. Every morning as Craig put our luggage and campaign papers in the car I jumped into the front seat and began putting on my makeup. No sense wasting road time by waiting around to do that job in the motel. After all, there was a perfectly good mirror on the passenger side of the front seat. I always warned Craig before I applied lipstick or mascara. He avoided a sudden stop or jerk while I accomplished this more “dangerous” part of cosmetic application. I wrote speeches in the car. I prepared for debates in the car. I read issue papers, news clips, and the morning newspapers—all in the car. I navigated for Craig as we traversed the state, reminding him of turnoffs and coffee and gasoline stops in rural areas where gas stations and cafés were often miles and miles apart, as were restrooms! However, my skills on the road didn’t end there. I made and served sandwiches and drinks, avoiding the need to stop and eat on tightly scheduled trips. Plus I learned to change clothes, when necessary, between semi-trucks. This is a specialized skill I could not have perfected if Craig had simply been hired staff and not a family member! I could not arrive at a luncheon event with ink or mayonnaise on my blouse, and frequently there was no time to make a stop. Blouse off. Clean blouse on. No entertainment for the truck drivers on our route. A wonderful skill! My nephew Craig was only five months younger...