The escalating war with KGW

Honestly, when it comes to the point where Producers are accusing you of assuming the identity of every person or troll on Twitter that has taken an interest in this story in order to get out of having to take any responsibility, what is the point of trying to deal with them? A few folks on Twitter have been our heroes in taking on KGW (since we are blocked), one of them being a certain Mayor of Camas. Apparently, that was a bridge too far for the producer of Live @ 7, The Square Aaron Weiss and he saw fit to blame us for a tweet he got.

Belo Corp., do you have any adults in your organization that we can talk to???

Click here for the e-mail exchange between my husband and Aaron Weiss. I'm sorry that it's come to this. I really am.

A lesson for KGW on Social Media

Since my last post, my husband has posted an update on the KGW matter on his Posterous page.

I don't think KGW understands the power of social media. One time I tweeted something about my Comcast bill that I didn't like. Before the day was over, "ComcastBonnie" tweeted me and asked how she could make it better. Another time, I was complaining about how I really wished there was a personal finance software that worked on the Mac that integrated with my cell phone or PDA. I even tweeted to Quicken as an existing customer, explaining my needs and inquiring if there would be any products coming out soon that would help me. The very next day, someone from a company called iggsoftware tweeted me and said "Have you tried iBank? Works with the iPhone". I downloaded the trial, used it for a few days and fell in love. I NEVER heard from Quicken after several attempts, and they lost a customer. When Bank of America sent us a letter saying they were raising our credit card interest rate by 75%, you better believe we went on a screaming terror about it on Twitter, as did MANY people. To B of A's credit, they hired a cadre of agents to scan tweets and deal with the outcry on Twitter. In the end, no one had the authority to make any decisions to change the interest rates on anyone's account, so we walked and took our personal and our company's banking business to our friendly neighborhood community bank where we remain happy customers. The point is, any business in today's world understands the advantages and opportunities inherent in reaching out to people seeking solutions and even to unhappy or angry people. The reason is, a problem resolved, or at least an honest attempt at it often leaves the complainant with the feeling that their patronage matters to someone. Who are you in the community to serve, KGW if not the public? There are A LOT of people who are unhappy about the slant of the KGW minimum wage story. For every person on Twitter who has read our tweets about it, or read this blog, or my husband's blog, there are literally thousands who are angry and aren't doing anything about it. But they do remember and there are other choices for news in the Portland Metro area.

In this day and age when people have choices as consumers of news, why on earth would you a) allow your reporters to engage unprofessionally with viewers on Twitter and b) not have an ombudsman or community liaison to engage with people who have a complaint? What was initially a legitimate complaint about the story (which I won't go into again here) has now turned into a story about KGW. Smart? Not at all.

Originally, I had posted a comment on KGW's comment section of the story page expressing our concerns with the piece. Those comments were removed. We asked @TheSquare who we should contact to discuss our concerns. They tweeted an email address. We wrote the email address and heard nothing. We waited 3 days and never heard back. When we again tweeted to @TheSquare to let them know that no one has responded to our complaint using the avenue THEY PROVIDED, we discovered we were blocked. This prompted my husband to post on his Posterous page. Yeah, we're angry.

So, KGW will run out the clock until the election and it will all go away in a week. But I want it to be known that if you have a complaint about KGW's reporting on something in the future you might be treated like we are being treated. It's unfortunate. Before this we felt KGW was the best news source in the area. Trusting a media outlet is something you take for granted until you find yourself betrayed. And that's EXACTLY how it feels. Like a betrayal of trust. We aren't just "customers", your public are your partners. We WANT KGW to succeed. Your customers can tell you a lot if you will listen. That is the beauty of social media.

Chris Dudley should stick to not voting

When he does vote, it reveals his confusion.

OPB's "Think Out Loud" has been able to follow-up on Chris Dudley's claim that he voted for Obama. Here is his capriciously fickle response, paraphrased by Emily Harris:

"Dudley says he liked Obama's message about working across the aisle, but now says he is disappointed in how that's turned out. He cited the health insurance reform bill as an example. He also says he thinks the president has lost some of the well-tuned connection he had to public sentiment during the presidential campaign."

I will not add much to Harris' analysis (click the link above and read). It's spot on. But someone needs to remind Chris Dudley (or perhaps inform him for the first time) that President Obama actually ran on a slightly more "extreme" (from a Conservative's perspective) version of the Health Care Reform bill. Much to my and other Progressive's dismay, the President conceded much even before getting to the bargaining table with Senate Republicans. The Republicans sought and got over 300 amendments to the Health Care Reform bill which did not net the Democrats a single Republican vote when all was said and done. I am only left with one belief, and that is Chris Dudley is a complex mix of naivete, misinformation and lack of understanding of the political process. Dudley is an interesting political figure by now, but every week he seems to prove that he is not ready for the task of being Governor of this state with its complex problems. Think about it. He's never held office, so he doesnt have working knowledge of how to reach across the aisle and persuade people to vote for his ideas. In his eagerness to sound like he has a grasp of the issues, he's stepped in a mess with his minimum wage comments and has been trying for weeks to walk them back. As for his strange voting philosophy, you don't vote for someone because you "liked his message" about reaching across the aisle, while completely disregarding what Obama campaigned on, and then blame him when he did EXACTLY what he promised. If Chris Dudley had ANY real, meaningful experience in setting policy and seeking consensus, I'd feel a lot better about Chris Dudley as Governor of Oregon. As it is, at this point, I'm terrified.

Another scolding for the Oregonian - by me

Okay. So it's been 3 days since Dudley, with Harry's help, let the little nugget drop that he voted for Obama.

I gotta say, when I tell Dudley's supporters about it, they say "well he made a mistake". See, the thing is, no where in this article does it say he feels his vote is a mistake. We don't really know what it was about Obama's platform he agreed with. In fact, the story before this was that Dudley never voted. So you can understand why I believe this is a ploy to get moderate Dem cross-over votes, given the recent polls.

But the biggest jerky thing in this story is that Dudley is leaving it to his supporters to defend, explain, or give a rationale because no one is following up in the media and asking the obvious questions about it. The way it was leaked, in paragraph 48 of a fluffy bio piece, as a quote by his father (which warranted follow up on that basis alone), in the middle of October on the eve of the election is sketchy at best, and looks coordinated at worst.

Here's why it matters. Allen Alley, who was far and away, a more qualified candidate didn't pass the GOP Purity test because he was perceived as too conciliatory to Democrats. But this tid bit, coming out now as it has, is to be consumed and digested by voters, with no explanation? If this is a race between two Democrats, one being a RINO, the voters should view it as such.

And Dudley, to borrow the phrase of the day, "MAN UP" and tell your supporters what you agree with about Obama's platform. Was it health care reform? How about the stimulus? Cap and trade? A candidate for governor should have a better reason than I didn't like Sarah Palin. The views you are running on now are more in line with John McCain's views. Are you a liar? Or a flip-flopper? Or just unprincipled and undisciplined? Please stay away from Salem. Our problems are too serious for someone who doesn't know where he stands on any given issue on any given day.

Oh My, but the Duds does pander

I don't know if you caught it in this weekend's Oregonian profiles of the Gubernatorial candidates, but in Chris Dudley's profile by Harry Esteve, Dudley's father happened to casually mention that his son voted for Obama in 2008.

Of course, I made a big deal about it in the comments of the article because the next question ought to have been "why are we hearing about this now?" but I hardly expect that from Esteve who has never had a kind or charitable word for Kitzhaber. But I wasn't shocked. I am a little doubtful of the truth of Dudley's admission, which I will entail reasons for in a minute. But shocked? Not at all. Being a Lake Oswego resident I had heard some months back from a Chamber of Commerce member that Mrs. Dudley was an Obama supporter and I privately wondered when that was going to come out. I sort of felt when she was named in Dudley's "18 Point Plan - Education for our Economic Future" that he had an ethical obligation to introduce his wife to the public. Certainly, we only need to look no further than Hilary Clinton to see how unelected wives can be perceived. He's been asked (if memory serves me, I believe it was in the Register Guard interview) who he would appoint to help him on various committees and came up expectantly short on names. But his wife has been named to a position, should he be elected, and she has been traveling the state attending Women for Dudley functions and speaking to Republican Women's Groups. I wonder if she mentioned she is an Obama supporter. Somehow, I doubt it. and the media hasn't seen fit to ask about her. I guess I am the only one with expectations on that front.















Chris Love Dudley speaking to the Linn GOP women’s group on July 12th

No, of course, I have no proof that I can provide to you that she is or isn't a Republican. But I DO feel, at the point when she was named in Dudley's plan, it's a fair question to ask.

So now what to make of Dudley supposedly voting for Obama. We aren't talking about a lot of time since Obama's election and when Dudley decided to run. Let's see, when Dudley filed his papers, Obama was still operating under Bush's budget. Dudley was attending teaparty rallies a mere 9 months after Obama took office. Health care reform, the stimulus, NONE of this was a surprise to Obama voters. The problem that Obama voters had with Healthcare Reform is that it didn't have a Public Option. Is this Chris Dudley's view? Hardly.

Folks, this is pandering in its lowest form. We don't KNOW who Chris Dudley voted for. What we DO know is that he is behind in the polls. What we DO know is that Oregon tends to vote Democratic. What we DO know is that he must get Democrats to vote for him in order to win. At the same time, Chris Dudley cannot alienate his extremist base. I mean for Pete's Sake, Allen Alley didn't pass the GOP Purity Test because he DARED accept an appointment to then Gov. Kitzhaber's Counsel for Knowledge & Economic Development. How will this bit of news sit with the same people who want Art Robinson for Congress?

I rule this one as a LIE. Two weeks ago, also in the Register-Guard interview Dudley made some rambling remarks about how half his family are Democrats and half are Republicans. I think this was not only a way of sticking a toe in the water to test this lie out, but it addresses the topic of how his wife voted, should anyone ask. So will the media press with the follow-up questions? I won't hold my breath. And if he DID actually vote for Obama, why the big secret? Secrets in politics are usually BAD and elude to... dare I say it? An Honesty Problem.

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Errata: In my two references to the Register Guard, I meant Statesman Journal. My apologies to the RG! The entire interview with the clips I refer to above is posted here.

Dudley's Going Wobbly

Seriously, he's off his game.

First of all, the Right-Skewing Rasmussen came out with this poll on Monday showing Kitzhaber with a small but significant lead. I attribute this to Dudley's meager and barely adequate performance during the one and only televised debate on KGW. But Nate Silver who, this week, flipped the predicted outcome of the race from Dudley to Kitzhaber as the likely winner showed Dudley already beginning to make his descent down and Kitzhaber shifting up even before the debate on September 27th. In order to overcome the Blue Tide of Oregon Democrats' GOTV efforts, Dudley needs to be up in the polls by a good 5 points or it's a lock for Kitzhaber. That's the reality that the Dudley campaign is grappling with.

So, here Dudley is at the Freethrow Line again and what does his campaign do? Dredge up that wicked little "investigative journalism" piece on KGW's "The Square" explaining away what we all heard him say about Oregon's minimum wage, dismissing it as just an editing job. In fact, he uses the KGW reporter's own words in his brand new ad "Don't". Let's be clear. This is why letting an inaccurate piece of journalism float out there, largely unaddressed and uncorrected, is such a bad thing. Leaving aside for the moment, the appearance that KGW is just a media flack for a candidate, the "Don't" ad claims that "Kitzhaber highly edited Dudley's words" and cites the Oregonian on Oct. 11th.












Really?

The Oregonian piece quoted in the "Don't" ad pictured ACTUALLY reads thus:

"The fact is, the Kitzhaber ad does take some highly edited snippets from a rambling answer that Dudley gave to a questioner about the minimum wage back on Sept. 9 - and that Democrats have used against him ever since." Watching Dudley's ad, you'd get the feeling that Kitzhaber sat in a dark, smoke-filled room somewhere and edited the piece himself. Laughably, Dudley's campaign cherry-picked what they wanted from the article and left behind the nuggets that buttress THE FACTS. Mapes goes on to repeat what anyone with a brain and basic comprehension skills already knew:

"But the Kitzhaber campaign could point to parts of Dudley's answer that buttress their ad. The commercial quotes Dudley as saying that "having the highest minimum wage in the country negatively impacts the state." You can see from the transcript (or the Youtube video of his statement) that it is reasonable to think Dudley was agreeing with a questioner who expressed unhappiness about the minimum wage."

...it is reasonable to think because Dudley's mouth moved and his words said he was agreeing with a questioner who expressed unhappiness about the minimum wage.

Enough with this foolishness. First of all, whoever is responsible for the original KGW piece needs to, at long last, make a correction on this story! Stop painting the sentient, intelligent voters as unable to understand what we heard. The reporter in the story, or WHOEVER is responsible at KGW, edited the original video in a fashion to "prove" that the Kitzhaber people edited the video, and then gave a platform for Dudley to respond to it. It's disgusting, appalling journalism. And NOW, Dudley himself is using a snippet in his ad to attack his opponent. KGW should be concerned that it looks like someone there is in the tank for Dudley and I just don't think that's a good policy for a TV station broadcasting over the public airways.

But of course, the desperate Dudley camp is pulling out it's "big guns" now that HE is down in the polls. And KGW gave them a nice sound byte to do so.

KGW - FIX THIS NOW!

Next on the blog, yeah that claim that Kitzhaber wants to tax the homeless is a load of garbage too.