Letters to the Editor for May 23, 2012

The major issue of the primary campaign was campaign finance reform. It will remain so for the November election.

As of May 16, Mark Johnson has raised $37,500 and spent $26,000 for the primary campaign in which he had no opponent. Peter Nordbye has spent $9,500, all of this from $50 (or less) local contributions, in a campaign against a primary opponent who raised similar amounts but from very few contributions.

The Nordbye and Johnson campaigns have been very different and will continue to be so. Keep asking each candidate where his campaign funds are coming from, who is supplying them, why they might be doing so, and on what these dollars are being spent. Peter Nordbye and Mark Johnson will have very different answers.

Rep. Johnson had declined to limit his funding, and can be expected to mount another campaign costing hundreds of thousands of dollars. Be wary of any tactic that attempts to shift discussion from this funding issue.

There will be other issues to be discussed, but this emphasis on campaign financing will not change.

We will be conducting a competitive campaign that will offer voters of the district a clear alternative choice to politics as usual. (About 50 volunteers and nearly 200 contributors so far.) Hood River residents deserve no less.

Dick McQueen

Brightwood

Wise words

Our former President Franklin Delano Roosevelt was an intelligent man, a great Democrat, and he is quoted as saying the following words of wisdom and observation:

“Rhetoric is a poor substitute for action, and we have trusted only to rhetoric. If we are really to be a great nation, we must not merely talk; we must act big.”

“To educate a man in mind and not in morals is to educate a menace to society.”

“Character, in the long run, is the decisive factor in the life of an individual and of nations alike.”

“In politics, nothing happens by accident. If it happens, you can bet it was planned that way.”

Dorothy Haanstad

Hood River

Falling behind

Today is the 21st of May and neither the letters to the editor nor the opinion page online page has not been updated for one month. This is unconscionable for a paper that is the main source of news for our county.

I realize that the object is to sell papers and that your paper has chosen to not pay for the online edition by selling advertising. What I do not understand is how to expect everyone in the community to participate in important discussions when they are unable to afford the print copy, which is off the newsstands by the next week anyway.

I believe it’s time for the Hood River News to come up to the standards of the 21st century and at the very least update the online edition on a regular basis so that it is only one to two weeks behind.

Katelin Stuart

Cascade Locks

Editor’s note: Hood River News’ web presence is in a state of transition, with the revamped News’ website scheduled for roll-out by early June. Look for updated posts soon, and thank you for your patience.

What happened?

My friend is voting for Mitt Romney in November. We have been friends for 59 years. She is a little older; I always considered her my mentor and much smarter than I. What happened to turn her into a Neo-Republican?

I always assumed she was a moderate; though we usually just talk about family, not politics. I’m afraid to ask. Maybe she has Alzheimer’s and doesn’t remember the damage that these Republicans have wrought these past decades.

No, I think she is just too busy with a large extended family and the farm to pay attention. I should remind her that these Neo-Republicans are not your Eisenhower Republicans. They have gone so far “right” as to make the old Republicans seem liberal. And some say, President Obama has gone so far right as to become much like the old Republicans.

But, my dearest friend, does that mean because you got burned in the frying pan, you will now jump into the fire?

Please take the time to really study the issues. I think you will see that Mitt Romney and his sponsors are clearly for the super rich and will do away with all the benefits for normal people in the guise of balancing the budget. They have all signed a pledge not to raise taxes, and they want to spend more for “defense”, so the only way to get rid of the deficit is to shred things like social security, Medicare, Medicaid, education, food stamps, unemployment insurance, and labor unions.

Anne Vance

Hood River