Enter Elena

“Government is itself an art, one of the subtlest of arts,” she was quoted in a 1977 yearbook, unaware that her other note, “Brad is super cute!” will soon be used against her as well. Elena Kagan has been nominated by President Obama to succeed Justice Stevens on the Supreme Court, and the 50 year-old “acclaimed Constitutional scholar” nicknamed “Shorty” by legendary Justice Thurgood Marshall won’t see much subtlety as Republicans sharpen their spears to attack the same person they confirmed as Solicitor General 61-31 last year (for more toxic environments, see below).

For fans of Oregon political theater, the cast of this year’s race for governor is familiar. There’s a former governor, a former secretary of state, a former candidate for state treasurer, a former candidate for governor and a convicted racketeer. (The last two are the same person – Bill Sizemore.)

The former governor, of course, is Democrat John Kitzhaber, who served two terms from 1995 to 2003 and wants to give it another shot. According to the polls, he’s way out in front of his only major opponent, Bill Bradbury—who, ironically enough, was appointed secretary of state by Kitzhaber in 1999 and served 10 years in that job.

Securitized derivatives and interest-only loans notwithstanding, there’s plenty of evidence that the collapse of the national and local housing market can be traced back to the foundation upon which all other assumptions relied—the actual value of the homes that were being bought and sold at a breakneck pace around Bend and other real estate hotbeds throughout the boom years of the last decade.

A quick glance at the most recent Multiple Listing Service (MLS) statistics confirms just how grossly inflated local real estate prices became before the fall. The median sale price for a Bend home was $347,750 in 2006, according to the Central Oregon Association of Realtors. By the first quarter of this year, the price had fallen to $190,000, a roughly 44-percent decrease—good enough to put Bend among the fastest-falling housing markets in the entire country. Florida condos and Central Valley spec homes got nothing on us.

DeBone for Deschutes County Seat #1

At a recent candidate forum Tony DeBone didn’t sound like much of a politician, fumbling to explain why as a citizen he was going to vote in favor of raising taxes for a new jail while running on a campaign of (read my lips) “no new taxes,” but we’re not going to hold that against him. And we think that voters shouldn’t either. We like DeBone’s fresh and sometimes unpolished approach that can come off sounding—dare we say it—like honesty. And while his delivery could use some work, DeBone represents a chance to bring a new perspective to the county commission.