By Sean Cruz
(Portland, Oregon)--You read it here first! Chris Dudley has decided to bank his campaign run on a reference to the ubiquitous Nike slogan, recalling for voters the only fields he has any inkling of—sports and Big and Tall clothing—as the new title of his playbook, which was formerly titled “Dribbling towards the Finish Line.”
The fledgling Oregon politician (and first-time voter) feels that his new slogan will both reflect his spur-of-the-moment approach to problem-solving and suggest to voters that his qualifications for the job extend beyond the basketball court—even if they don’t—while at the same time emphasizing that he is reading a lot of books these days and calling attention to the fact that he has become aware that Oregon’s official slogan is “She flies with her own wings.” That is a great deal of ground to cover in just one sentence.
It is a truly crafty move…signaling that Dudley will rely less on sports metaphors and more on those that have a basis in actual governance and politics and real-world problems.
Reaching deep into his playbook, Dudley posted on his campaign website his strategy to:
“Strengthen Executive Leadership and Budget Accountability:
“As Governor, Chris Dudley will appoint a State Budget Director inside his office – not a state agency; will establish a Budget Review Team of experts in public and private finance to review budget assumptions and conduct regular audits; and will aggressively use his veto-pen to control legislative spending that is non-essential, wasteful, or fails to adequately save for a rainy day.”
With this statement, Dudley (1) demonstrates his skill at crafting long sentences; (2) announces that he will (a) create a new bureaucracy, (b) populate the new bureaucracy with his political appointees, (c) order the new bureaucracy to duplicate the budget review and regular auditing work that is already being done by non-political state agencies; and, (3) hopes that the reader will not notice the conflict with his other promises to shrink the size of government.
Dudley's new Governor's Budget Director and staff, plus the new Budget Review Team and their staff are going to need some officing space...salaries and PERS benefits....
"(from campaign internal memo): what are we going to do with the reports and audits coming in from the State Revenue and Fiscal offices?...gonna need some more filing cabinets...geez, this seemed like such a good idea at the time it went up on the website...ok...we better Just Wing It! from here...people like the sound of that...we're still going to need a bunch of filing cabinets...."
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