Pete Sorenson

SALEM – It wasn’t long ago that Gov. Ted Kulongoski and his two opponents in the May 16 primary shared something in common.

They didn’t expect to see a Democratic governor face a challenge from within his party.

But that was then.

Kulongoski says his first term was defined by tough economic times that required tough decisions, and he acknowledges that not all of them were universally popular, such as a pay freeze for public workers and cutbacks in their pensions.

The state is stronger today, the governor believes.

Yet, as Kulongoski stands by his record, former state Treasurer Jim Hill and Lane County Commissioner Pete Sorenson are stomping on it.

Frustrated by what they call a lack of leadership, Hill and Sorenson are challenging the governor for the Democratic Party nomination.

Another Democrat, former Gov. John Kitzhaber, also considered running, but ultimately decided to focus on health care reforms.

”Oregon has the same problems now that we had four years ago and some of them have gotten worse,” said Hill, who was defeated by Kulongoski in the 2002 primary.

”We haven’t seen direction from Ted, we’ve seen rhetoric in an election year,” he added.

Hill jumped into the campaign this year; Sorenson has been running since January 2005.

”I want great things for Oregon, not four more years of the same,” said Sorenson, a passionate former state senator and congressional staffer who calls himself the ”true Democrat” in the race.

He said the governor’s lack of leadership has hurt the working Oregonians that Democrats are supposed to support, pointing out that the majority of corporations pay just $10 in taxes each year.

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Both Hill and Sorenson say Kulongoski should have done more for school children and the needy. They point to class sizes that rank among the nation’s largest and cutbacks that eliminated subsidized health care for more than 70,000 people.

And both say the governor should have raised taxes on corporations – which account for just 5 percent of the taxes in Oregon today compared to 18 percent in the 1970s – to help finance more education and health care spending.

”Here in the last year of his term, in an election year, now he is talking about the things we should be doing,” said Hill. ”What we need is real leadership.”

Kulongoski suggested in a televised debate Monday that the state tax system would be more stable with a consumption tax, and Sorenson and Hill were quick to say a sales tax is not the answer.

The governor, meanwhile, said his critics have the luxury of not being in charge during the state’s deep fiscal crisis of the early 2000s, and not facing the same tough decisions.

The state budget plunged by more than $2 billion.

”The easiest thing to do is sit on the sidelines and complain and believe that rhetoric takes the place of hard choices,” he said. ”I have governed this state in some of the most difficult times in the past 30 to 40 years.”

Kulongoski, despite being among the least popular governors in the nation, according to national pollster Survey USA, is expected to earn the party’s nomination by a sizable margin, said Portland political analyst Jim Moore, who teaches at Pacific University.

Still united

Still, the contested primary is giving traditional Democratic core groups a chance to scold the chief executive, almost like a smack across the knuckles with a ruler, before they line up and support him in the general election, Moore said.

Several labor unions that supported Kulongoski in 2002 have endorsed Hill in this year’s primary – but they aren’t putting much money into Hill’s campaign.

”This is just an opportunity for Democrats to vent the frustrations they have with Kulongoski,” Moore said. ”They’re not moving the resources to truly challenge him; they’re sending a message.”

State Sen. Rick Metsger, D-Welches, said Kulongoski’s critics on the Democratic side of the aisle will dissipate after the votes are counted on May 16.

”He will be the nominee and there is no candidate more viable than Ted Kulongoski,” he said. ”And at the end of the day, it would be pointless (for the unions) to oppose him and end up with an anti-union Republican getting elected governor.”

The Oregon Education Association, which voted to stay neutral during the primary, has scheduled a meeting two days after the primary – and is widely expected to endorse Kulongoski and start cutting him checks.

About the candidates

Kulongoski, 65, grew up in an orphanage in the Midwest, served in the Marines and worked at a steel mill before earning his law degree and moving to Oregon.

He served in the Legislature in the 1970s and ran for governor in 1982, losing to Republican Vic Atiyeh.

He reemerged in state politics in 1987, when then Gov. Neil Goldschmidt appointed him as state insurance commissioner. In that post, he earned a reputation as a problem solver when he brokered the talks that led to an overhaul of the workers’ compensation system.

He then served as attorney general – leading the effort to create the Oregon Youth Authority – and as a Supreme Court Justice before being elected governor in 2002.

He is married and has three grown children.

Hill, 58, grew up in the segregated South and went to college in Michigan and earned his law degree in Indiana before moving in the 1970s to Oregon – a place he calls ”the promised land.”

He won election to the Legislature representing south Salem in 1982 and was elected treasurer in 2003, making him the first African-American to be elected to an Oregon statewide office. He served two terms as treasurer before his failed bid for governor in 2001.

After that campaign, he believed his political career was finished, so went to work in the private sector in a financial management firm. But his mounting frustration with Kulongoski brought him back into politics, he said.

”He has had no plans to deal with the issues until literally the last year. Are we going to wait to have the largest class sizes? How many more people are going to have to drop off the Oregon Health Plan before he acknowledged a problem? He could have done that in his first session or even his second session, he just didn’t.”

Hill is single and has one daughter.

Sorenson, 54, grew up in rural Coos County and attended high school and college in Oregon, earning his law degree from the University of Oregon.

He worked as an aide for former U.S. Rep. Jim Weaver and in the Carter administration, and served as a state senator before being elected to the Lane County Commission a decade ago.

He is married and has two college-age children.

He has been on the campaign trail for more than a year – but says he would rather have seen Kulongoski stand up and take leadership.

”If the governor had tried and failed, I would not be running against him,” he said.

”But the governor did not try. He made excuses instead of trying to solve the problems facing the state.”