Farewell. The Flying Pig Has Left The Building.

Steve Hynd, August 16, 2012

After four years on the Typepad site, eight years total blogging, Newshoggers is closing it's doors today. We've been coasting the last year or so, with many of us moving on to bigger projects (Hey, Eric!) or simply running out of blogging enthusiasm, and it's time to give the old flying pig a rest.

We've done okay over those eight years, although never being quite PC enough to gain wider acceptance from the partisan "party right or wrong" crowds. We like to think we moved political conversations a little, on the ever-present wish to rush to war with Iran, on the need for a real Left that isn't licking corporatist Dem boots every cycle, on America's foreign misadventures in Afghanistan and Iraq. We like to think we made a small difference while writing under that flying pig banner. We did pretty good for a bunch with no ties to big-party apparatuses or think tanks.

Those eight years of blogging will still exist. Because we're ending this typepad account, we've been archiving the typepad blog here. And the original blogger archive is still here. There will still be new content from the old 'hoggers crew too. Ron writes for The Moderate Voice, I post at The Agonist and Eric Martin's lucid foreign policy thoughts can be read at Democracy Arsenal.

I'd like to thank all our regular commenters, readers and the other bloggers who regularly linked to our posts over the years to agree or disagree. You all made writing for 'hoggers an amazingly fun and stimulating experience.

Thank you very much.

Note: This is an archive copy of Newshoggers. Most of the pictures are gone but the words are all here. There may be some occasional new content, John may do some posts and Ron will cross post some of his contributions to The Moderate Voice so check back.


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Tuesday, May 18, 2010

Primary Election In Oregon

Commentary By Ron Beasley




It's primary day in Oregon although that's a bit misleading.  Oregon is a 100% vote by mail state and we received our ballots about three weeks ago.  If there is one word for the election here it's "boring".  Oregon is not a stronghold for the Tea Party movement and there are no controversial measures on the ballot.  Incumbents, both Democrats and Republicans are expected to win.  The Republican race for Governor is too close to call but since whoever it is that wins has virtually no possibility of winning in November it hasn't generated much interest.  Turnout is expected to be a historic low - probably less than 35%.



3 comments:

  1. Ron, you take it for granted because you live there but Oregon's 100% mail-in voting system might be related to the weakness of the Tea Party. I never though about it before, but American politics might be less crazy if more places voted by mail over a period of days instead of putting all the eggs into a single basket which can be tilted at the last minute by everything from inclement weather to some stupid headline that might later be shown to be less important than a shallow media report indicated... or turned out to be false altogether.
    I would favor a move to make every election as "boring" as that in Oregon. (btw, are polls open anyway for those who failed to mail earlier, or is mail-in the method up to and including today?)

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  2. The last day to actually mail in your ballot was last Friday but their a numerous drop boxes throughout the State. Most people actually drop them off at these boxes rather than use the mail.

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  3. Contrary to the rest of Oregon the Tea Party is pretty strong in Central and Eastern Oregon. The Deschutes County Republican Party has been a Tea Party Affiliate for at least 10 to 20 years. In other words tea party bat $h!t crazy before there was a tea party movement.
    2nd Congressional Rep Greg Walden was up in the balcony cheering the Tea Baggers on during the Health Care Debate.

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