Bill Meyer Show Podcast - Sponsored by Clouser Drilling www.ClouserDrilling.com - 11-12-25_WEDNESDAY_8AM

Episode Date: November 12, 2025

11-12-25_WEDNESDAY_8AM

The Bill Myers Show podcast is sponsored by Klauser Drilling. They've been leading the way in Southern Oregon well drilling for over 50 years. Find out more about them at Klausurdrilling.com. K294A.S. Ashland. Quarter after eight, and State Senator Christine Drazen running for governor. By the way, it's Christine, is it for, Christine for Oregon? Christine, I just want to make sure I want to make sure to get that right there where people can go sign up and find out more about you.

Pleasure having you on here. And by the way, thank you for being flexible. I'm actually getting her on late. Sorry, guys. But, you know, sometimes. No worries, Bill. No worries. All right. So here it is. Another gubernatorial race here. What do you think is going to make this race different this time? Because, you know, it was a heartbreaker, you know, four years ago. But what do you think in this time around, huh? I think that this is the most important question for people that want change in our state. What's different? And making the decision to run for governor, I asked that question because I want to change how this story ends.

I want to serve. I want to fight to fight, but I'm not in this on a suicide mission. And so I took a really close look at where we are right now in Oregon and what our opportunities are. Here's the biggest thing. And I can only imagine how much the folks in your listening community feel this. And that is that nothing has changed. In our state, Tina Kotech has accomplished nothing. She's gone backwards.

In every single metric and everything we talk about, whether or not it's affordability, taxes, I mean, her signature tax that she just signed after dragging her feet and game in the system for over a month, that's going to drive costs, Oregonians can't afford it. And at this point, she has to be held accountable for all of it. The biggest difference is before she could point to Kate Brown and she could say, I'm not Kate. and you don't have to vote red to pick up the trash. That was her big stick.

It's not true. You actually do have to vote red to see change in our state. You actually do need to elect a Republican governor if you want accountability and if you want to get away from the wasteful spending and the high cost. And my experience has been that Tina Kotech does not respect Oregonians. That's what makes her the most dangerous and worse governor in the nation. Well, I would dare, to your point there, you know, we had the governor that dragged her feet now for several days, well, practically a month, in order to keep the transportation package from voter signatures to try to keep people from getting this done, right? Yes, but it is the height of disrespect.

She does, you know, people, she talks all the time about defending democracy, and she's abusing democracy. This is a constitutional right for Oregonians to be able. to exercise their right to access to the referendum process. And she tried to deny that. And I believe it, and that Oregonians hate it, we've got great leadership with Ed Deal. We've got great leadership with Jason Williams and Senator Starr. I believe that this organization is going to work with grassroots across the state and get this on the ballot. So in other words, you think that there is blood, in other words, you know, what makes it different?

There's blood in the water politically as far as Governor Kotech. Okay. She's failed. She's failed. All right. How would you move Oregon in a more positive direction, then, since you say we have reversed under Governor Kotech, rather? There's so much good work to be done. I mean, right now we have wasteful spending across our agencies where they have lost their way. Even the Department of Transportation doesn't build stuff anymore. They convene and they talk about DEI and they're focused on climate. and as an agency, that is an important agency to us.

They spend a lot of money. They spend our gas taxes, but they don't build roads anymore. And they need to refocus back on maintenance, preservation, and adding lanes and building roads. How would you end up restructuring ODOT in order to accomplish this, you think? You know, their budgets are powerful documents that express priorities and direct work. And the governor has the ability to craft the governor's budget, which, let's be clear, the legislature might throw it in the toilet, right? They might burn it on fire, but it doesn't change the fact that the governor has the veto power.

And the governor appoints to boards and commissions, and the governor has the ability to choose agency heads. And if the board of commission is responsible to choose that agency head, the governor still has the ability to choose the folks that are on those boards and commissions. Those are powerful decisions. And that's what leadership is in political terms, is that you set the vision, you set the direction, you get the right people in the right roles, and you say no to the same. stuff it's a waste of time and a waste of money and you say yes to the stuff that's the priority and that hasn't happened for far too long in our state we have got to fire people not enough people have been fired when they have failed to serve the people of the state state senator christine drason running for governor are there let's say that uh you know you make it through here you get

the republican nomination and uh you know it's a high lift it's a high lift to be a republican and uh and run for governor you will as far as anyone you know this you know this well I know it. So it's going to be a big one. But it's important. And what I wanted to kind of drill into are the governor's executive orders. Much of what Oregon I think suffers under or labors under are executive orders from Governor Kotech and also Governor Brown. Now, one that comes to mind here, a climate-friendly, equitable community deal. And what do you think about this particular order and its effect in our communities, and how, if at all, would you change about this plan? Because it's a big planning deal that we're supposed to have our urban habit trails in downtown Medford and elsewhere.

You know, I'm going to reverse and repeal the governor's executive orders. They will not stand under my leadership. On day one, I will reverse her executive orders. You know, she is trying to tear down our state and a brick by brick and rebuild it in her own version of Utopia. And she's more than willing to leave communities behind. She's more than willing to shut her businesses. She's more than willing to leave families behind while she's pursuing her own political agenda. And a lot of it lately she's been doing through executive orders.

So I absolutely will repeal her executive orders on day one. So what they create, you can then undo then as governor. Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. Now, as governor, do you think that there are enough people, you know, in this state that you could actually, could you actually move the needle? You believe you can move the needle with getting rid of some of the lifers? Because we know that the professional class in Salem right now, they're all drinking from the same Kool-Aid. I think you would probably figure that out, right? Yeah, yeah.

And your agencies would be fighting you. You know them, right? I know. I get the fight. And here's the thing. What choice do we have? We have to start. We have, we have to unite. We have to win because it's going to take time. And if we don't start now, it's not going to get better under these Democrats. They have done all they know how to do. They know how to raise taxes and they know how to talk. And that costs us a lot of money. It gets us nowhere. We don't have any choice. We're at this point in our state where our population is declining. We are in a recession. For manufacturing specifically, we have lost more jobs today than we did in the Great Recession. What role does the corporate activity tax play in that, do you think? And what

might you do? You know, I think our tax environment absolutely plays a huge role in where businesses choose to grow and locate in the first place, but grow once they're operating. And our tax burden is among the highest in the nation for businesses now. We have absolutely gone the wrong direction. We are not supportive of job creators and businesses in our state. So I will work to, first of all, moratorium on new rulemaking and repeal of rules. So that means go through the process to unwind those rules. And it's a public process and you post and you basically do everything in reverse.

And I will go through that process and that will expedite some. You know, you shouldn't have to get a permit to get a permit as we have got to make it easier to operate here. But certainly the tax burden has got to go in the other direction. We've got to cut taxes. You know, Senator, you were talking about you shouldn't have to get a permit to get a permit or need a permit to get a permit, right? But that's essentially the Oregon firearms policy with Measure 114. If that goes in there. Is there anything you could do in the executive order world when it comes to?

the rules around that, too, you know, for enforcement if it goes through. I'm going to be exploring the ways in which we can use the governor's office to reaffirm constitutional rights. And that has got, that's got to happen. This is a state that's gone too far down the other direction. And here's the thing. We've had Democrat governors appointing Democrat judges for years and years and years and years. And the opportunity to appoint judges and get people in these positions that are, just going to uphold the Constitution itself is critically important for our constitutional rights to be

defended as well. And I think that has got to be something that we all recognize. The governor's office appoints all these judges. We have got to turn around the court. When it comes to the Trump administration's actions in the state of Oregon, probably nothing has drawn more lightning than the attack on our sanctuary state. Were we wise to do this back in 1987? And what, if anything, needs to be done about that as time goes on. Well, you know, I think that when that was put into place all the way back there, I think that folks were thinking that there was some version of this that they just would not affirmatively, you know, work on federal deportation. What's changed is they used to say someone was a criminal and they were being released from jail. They would

notify the feds and let them come pick them up and get them on home where they belong. I mean, if you've committed a crime, you need to go home. That has stopped. They have taken Oregon Sanctuary State law and they have made it irrational. Other places have sanctuary state rules where they just simply don't participate in deportation activities. They don't partner in that. But all this other stuff where people who are engaging in criminal activity where there's some coordination between law enforcement, that still goes on, but not in Oregon. And so I think that our, that their interpretation of our sanctuary state laws through Oregon's laws and through rules has gotten, has gotten

irrational. It doesn't make sense anymore. Oregon, as you know, draws down more federal money than almost any other state. And then when the federal government says, hey, can you just let us know when somebody's being, you know, released from, from prison, we'd like to coordinate just in that way. they need to go home. Yeah, they would look at that then as actually helping, though, right? We're not supposed to help even that, even that simpleness. Okay. But that makes that that makes Oregonians less safe.

That's not right. Senator, let me move on to education because you, in essence, would be the school superintendent at the very top of the chain, right? Isn't that what you would be as governor here? One of the biggest challenges, besides the fact that the kids are getting miserable education out of the public system, though, is that there's a lot of social issues, especially DEI. We have, you know, the transgender agendas that have been pushed really hard in the Oregon Department of Education here.

What is your general opinion of that? What could you change? How would you see it differently? Yeah, the Department of Education has just gone too far on every issue. So, you know, that's the Department of Education is the problem. We talk a lot about how businesses are over-regulated. Well, our local schools are overly controlled by rules from the Department of Education that are making our teachers less effective in the classroom because they are having to advance a political agenda.

So we've got to stop that. We have got to get the Department of Education off the backs of our local schools. We've got to get politics out of our classroom. Do you have the power or would you – Yeah, would you have the power as governor to do that? or is it something where you have to, you know, beg Democrats in the legislature to go along? Well, there's a mix there. There's certain things that they put into Oregon law that would have to be corrected.

But we will be identifying the things that are in rule that we can immediately reverse. And also, you know, schools across our state have a different culture in them. And so what I'm looking for is local control. So if you're living in a community where you want your school to be progressive and you want your kid to be in doctors, vaccinated, local control could potentially have those teachers in your kids' classrooms. But in areas across the state where that's not what you want for your student, that's not what you want for your kid. And frankly, that's not what your kids' needs or deserves.

Our local school boards should have the ability to reflect the values and culture of our local communities. And right now, it's top down from Portland. It's top down from Salem. And they're having to do a whole bunch of stuff that even though school board members do not want to do. and they need to be put back in charge again. Yeah, but the state legislation has actually disempowered the school boards, right?

Yeah, they sit and operate like they are a statewide school board, and that's been a problem for a really long time. You know, you mentioned the cat tax, which businesses, you know, can't afford, and is one of the reasons that we've seen so many businesses find other places to operate. But in that bill, even, half of that money goes straight to school. boards for them to decide how to spend. But the other half is a bunch of politically driven grants. That if the schools want that money, they have to do precisely what the state says. Could you line item veto, something like that? Absolutely. Absolutely. And that's the power of the

purse. And there's just so many ways that the governor can roll this stuff back. But I'm going to have to look for those ways. I'm going to have to be creative. I'm going to be fighting against the Democrat majority in the legislature. So I'm going to, I'm going to have to, um, you know, find the path and go hard after it. But it's going to take, it's going to take a lot of work. And we need to pick up seats in the legislature. I need more friends in the legislature to get some of those larger laws reversed. Senator Dresen, one final question here before we cut you loose and you can go back to talk to other people too, is what would the Governor Dreson Energy Program be?

The energy program right now, our policy in Oregon is forced scarcity, ultimately. and I don't know how that's going to work out long term. It's not going to work out long term. We have laws on the books right now which are cutting off her nose despite our face in the state of Oregon, where we barely acknowledge that hydro is carbon-free. We don't allow nuclear, even small-scale nuclear, which was actually developed at OSU.

And we're forcing our utilities to go to wind and solar and alternative energy sources, and all of that is still more expensive, and all of that affects utility ratepayers. And so my approach to energy is going to be to defend low-cost, reliable, affordable natural gas, to take an approach that is an all-in approach to control costs for Oregonians, and to do everything in my power to reverse this bizarre, bizarre decision to throw our state's energy future off the edge of a cliff. I mean, the future is going to require a lot more energy even than we have access today to, and a lack of access to power and rolling brown out. Yeah, there seems to be always,

there seems to be an assumption built into Oregon's energy policy that there will always be someone available out of state to sell power to us. At least it appears that way. It appears. And, yeah, everything's fine until it gets really cold or really, really, really hot, right? No, it's not good. It's not good. And we have always been a state. with low-cost access to power because of hydro. And recently we have a governor that's even talked about taking the, you know, Danz off the Snake River and opposing that. It is insanity and it harms our economy and it harms our ability.

Senator Christine Drazen, Christine for Oregon.com. Just the beginning conversation, Christine, we're welcome. We'll welcome you back anytime, okay? Thanks so much, Bill. Thank you. Christine for Oregon.com. It is 832. You're on KMED.

If you were a medal winner in the 2025 best of... Saturdays 10 to noon, Sunday morning encore at 9 on KMED, sponsored by Grange Co-op. This is News Talk 1063, KMED. And you're waking up with the Bill Myers Show. And we have open phones for the rest of this hour on Wheels Up Wednesday. Senator Christine Drazen on just a moment ago, and like I said, this was not like... You know, the one thing I wasn't going to go to, although, you know, the tampon's in the boys' room, Bill. I'm looking at that a number of years ago is a bad dream.

Maybe I'll talk with her about that another time, but I haven't spoken with her for years. And so I just kind of wanted to focus on most of what's right now. I don't think she's, I don't think, Senator Christine Drazen is going to be running a DEI-loving campaign. I know Republicans in the past a number of years ago just collapsed on some of these social issues in the school. At least that's kind of how I'm seeing it at this point.

And I wanted to hear what she's talking about. And, you know, I thought it was okay. Let me talk with Brad. Brad, I know you're a fan of Christine. Well, Bill, Bill, good morning. Thanks for having Christine on. Yeah. And I am a fan of Christine, but I have reasonable hope.

And I think people like me and like most of your friends. listeners also have reasonable open. Here's why. So last time, it was a three-way race, and the last numbers were we had Kotech at 917 and change, and Christine got about 850,000. So the gap, the gap between those two numbers, Bill, was not that much. It's only, there's a 66,000, maybe 66.5,000 was the gap in a state with 4.2 million people in it. And what people need to understand is especially people that are more ideologically

aligned to those of us kind of center, center right, and even center left, is this. When we vote the next time in this cycle, it's either going to be Christine Drazen or Tina Kotech for four more years. So. And I think we've had an interesting experience under Governor Kotech, all right? interesting as in the Chinese, the ancient Chinese curse. Maybe people will see through this? I don't know. It's hard to say. It's a little early to say she's going to be it.

Chris, you know, Dudley, you know, Dudley could come in. And I know that there's a lot of pressure to bring him in, Brad. A lot of pressure on him. Yeah, Bill, I'm a big fan of Chris Dudley. I voted for him back in 2010, but he doesn't, what Christine has that he doesn't have is She has an organization that's already funded, already populated with people. Yeah. She has everything already in place, and he would have to build it from the ground up.

Yeah, point well taken. All right. We will see. We'll see. And, you know, it's hard. I'm not going to declare it over, though, at this point. We can't. We can't do that.

Well, we've really had the same governor for the last, what, 12 years? Well, that's why I end up so often. It's like, okay, did Governor Brown do this? Or Governor Kotech do this? I mean, well, frankly, they're cut from exactly the same cloth, all right? A point well taken. Hey, Brad, appreciate the call. Let me go to John.

John, you're looking at your property taxes and you're steaming, huh? What's the story, huh? Oh, absolutely. I steam every year has gotten worse. A lot of people are on fixed incomes there, you know, and we only get so much money every month, and we have to give it, we have to start saving. Then when they come to get it, we end up broke and having to maybe save again.

It's a never-ending cycle. You never own your own home here because they're going to own it up to your dead. Have you checked your property tax statement for your government education bill? I don't know about my education. Hell, I'm 80 years old. Oh, I was just saying that if you look at your property tax statement, have you looked at your property tax statement? Well, sure I have. It's a lot of it schools.

Oh, yeah, that's what I'm getting at, though. That's what I'm getting at. You know, a huge percentage of that is, in fact, I think about half mine, about half of mine is the school districts and various educational districts in there, too. So interesting stuff. Feel your pain there, buddy. Appreciate the call. Let me go to line four. Hi, you're on.

This is Bill. Who's this? Hi, Bill. This is Francine again. I'll give you another bite. Go ahead. All right. I appreciate it.

Yeah, I just got to say, Christine Drazen would be like, you know, Tina like, you know. I'm sorry. I don't trust her at all. But here's the reason I'm calling is last election, we had some pretty good people all running, but they all were running. And so all our votes got divided up. And I kept trying to push this idea that why don't they kind of, you know, see how, what happens in the primary, whoever's ahead, put them in the front as governor and everybody

else take a, you know, a seat along with the governor, you know, like I can't remember his name, the guy, the school guy, you know, him. Oh, yeah, yeah. You know, the one I really like, though, out of all of them back then was a mean, mean boss Bob. Ever mean boss Bob Tiernan? Yes, I do. Yeah.

He always looked, you know, just the way he looked, I loved him from the grocery outlet guy, because, you know, he always looked like the stereotype of every bad boss you ever had, the mean one, you know, but he wasn't. I just wish people would get smart and approach us with, you know, an idea of, We want the Democrats out. We have to make some concessions, and everybody can't be a star. Everybody has to play a little part, a different role to make this happen if we want to get some power back in the state. But doesn't that to your case, then, to your point, though, speak to Christine Drazen's strength in this race? Well, I don't know. I'm not ready to speak to who's going to make it, okay?

Okay. I mean, who's going to be the most powerful? Yeah, I get it. I get it. Yeah, but what you're hoping, what you're hoping we're not going to see is another 17 round. Republican race, right? Exactly. I mean, you know, if we had gotten, you know, if all the candidates had really been supporting of the idea of we need to take back the state from the Democrats, they could have made some concessions, you know, instead of me, no me, no me, you know. Well, you know, politics, you have to have some ego to get into politics, you know.

No, but you also have to be smart if you want to succeed, and they weren't being smart. They had a lot of possibilities there, and they just let it all fall away. All right. Fair enough. Appreciate the call there. 770K-M-E-D. It's open phones here. Bill Mears Show on Wheels Up Wednesday.

Hi, who's this? Morning. Brother Bill, this is Brad with the SLM. Oh, wait a minute. Wait a minute. I have you on a button now. Your theme. In heaven, there is no beer.

That's why we drink it here. Oh, my God. And eat lots of petita. I don't know how pizza goes with beer, but we're going to find out. What's up? Hey, you know, we're a day late, but to your listeners, you've got a lot of vets that listen. I just want to say thanks for your service to our country. Well, I'm not serving the country like those people were serving the country,

especially the ones who got injured in war battle and all the rest of it, Brother Brad. But speaking of that, I love history. I just happened to be doing my research, and I ran into a guy. You know, World War II was full of guys that just came home, went back to life, but they made a mark. And the guy I'm referring to, his name is Lafette Poole and Poole, excuse me, Peele, Double, El. Anyway, he was a Sherman tank commander.

This dude took out 258 vehicles in the war. Wow. Yeah. And they had to replace, I think, three tanks that he was in. He survived, but he got

wounded severely and made it out and went back to life. But you know these guys talk about human beings and it served our country that gave their all and what a mark wow now think about it the way we were looking at that war especially world war two we were looking at this as existential we were looking at this as you know possibly extinguishing the united states of america although the war wasn't necessarily on on our soil, fortunately, to the same extent that it was in other nations, because at least

we were able to feed the war machine, weren't we? You know, what saved the United States in the history of war was our ability to produce. And also the Pacific and Atlantic Ocean. Also the Pacific and Atlantic Ocean. Oh, yeah, absolutely. I don't know if that makes as much of a protectant today, but, you know, with our intercontinental ballistics, but I digress. But thanks for you're always exposing people to history.

It's very valuable. Thank you very much, Brad. Good hearing from you. 844. If you are on hold, I will immediately get to you. Well, immediately afternoons, okay? And we'll be right back. This is the Bill Meyer Show, 7705-633.

Anything on your mind for Wheels Up Wednesday? Our homes. To turn on your headlights and watch for kids, whether they're walking to and from school or around the neighborhood with friends. This is also the time of year when we see frost and fallen leaves. Be aware of slippery road conditions and watch your speed. Thank you for helping to keep our roads safe. This is the Bill Meyer show on 1063 KMED.

Got something on your mind? Give Bill a shout at 541-770-633-770 KMED. By the way, Friday, noon to 2 is what I'm going to be out there at Fred Meyer, South Medford, Fred Meyer. Scuba Steve and I are battling it out for Supremacy for the Salvation Army. I'll be ringing the bell from noon to two. Steve will be out there from Cool 103.5 at 10 to noon. So you're there.

I'm battened cleanup, I guess, apparently. And we're just going to find out who's more generous. Is it the classic hits audience or is it the talk radio audience? We're going to find out. Yeah. And Steve's already making muscles at me. But anyway, so I'll be live out there. I'd love to get a chance to meet you, noon to two, this coming Friday,

okay? Friday noon to two, South Medford, Fred Meyer, once again for the Red Cross, local Red Cross. I'm not in the Red Cross, I'm sorry, Salvation Army. I'm thinking Red and I'm thinking Red Cross of a Red Cettle. That's what I'm doing. We'll get that right. Let's go to, who do we got? Is this, Mark? Mark, you had a question this morning. How are you doing? Welcome. I'm doing well. Thank you for being on the radio and keeping everybody straight. My pleasure.

Anyway, welcome back. What are you thinking? I'm thinking, you know, where's the, where's all the, like, funds for the marijuana? They're talking about increasing state parks. We legalize marijuana in the state to build revenue. And my question to you is, are state audits, are they public record? Do we have the right as constituents to go in and look at the state office? it and find out where all the money is.

Yeah, well, you can certainly look at where the budgets are, where to go exactly, I couldn't say right now at top of my head. But, yeah, that is open. It is an open record. What, you know, since I knew you were going to ask this one, now take it for the source, but there's an AI system I kind of like called altered dot systems that I've been playing around with lately. And so I wanted to find out where the marijuana money, how much of it is and where it goes,

okay and it's not a huge amount of money mark i don't know if you realize this uh it's uh anywhere it peaked out the legal marijuana money peaked out at 180 million and that was in 2021 we're about uh 160 170 a year right now now that's not a huge amount of money in the state budget but it's not nothing okay so i just wanted you to know it's not nearly it's kind of like how everybody thinks that the lottery should be paying for everything, right? You know how they sold that to us a number of years ago? But right now, about 40% of this 170 million or so goes to the state school fund, 20% to mental health, alcoholism, and drug, 15% to OSP, cities get 10%.

And so they give out a few grants. In fact, I know the city of Medford and Grants Pass, they've been hanging the Alzheimer's marijuana money grant. 10% of it goes to counties and about 5% to the Oregon Health Authority for drug abuse prevention. So there we go. That's how the money is spoken for at the moment, if that helps you. Yeah, it does. I mean, my whole problem with Oregon, I've lived in Southern Oregon my entire life, and I'm a business owner. And, you know, in Oregon, we have some of the highest tax rates in the nation.

Our unemployment rate is low. I mean, or hi, I don't understand how we got from where we were 30 years ago in Oregon to where we are now. And I really hope that Drazen gets in office. I believe that she's going to fix it. I voted for. I voted for Trump and the presidency, and they threw my vote out because my signature didn't match. So my vote wasn't even counting. I think what we're dealing with right now, what's the difference between 30 years ago or even 40 years ago?

and today, I would dare say that we were run by a more serious class of people. Would that be a fair way of looking at it? I would say it would be, yeah. Yeah, when you have more people, you know, sitting around worrying about whether or not someone is saying the wrong thing about some dude in a dress masquerading as a woman wanting to go into the locker room. I mean, you kind of lost your culture, so, I mean, that's the starting point, okay? Appreciate the call there, Mark. Let me go to David. David's in Phoenix.

David, you wanted to talk about Christine Drazen, too. Go ahead. Just good morning, Bill. Morning. Thanks for the show, as always. Oh, you're welcome. I wish you would say the name of the woman that you interviewed, I believe, last week. Yeah, that is Danielle Bethel.

Danielle Bethel. She is a county commission. Did that with a B? I have bad hearing. Oh. Yeah. at D-A-N-I-E-L-E. Danielle Bethel with a B, B, B, as in Boy.

Well, B-H-L-B-L. Yeah, Bethel. Thank you so, thank you so very much. I hope she gets her name out there a little more, so people like me with a small brain will be able to remember her name. Oh, yeah, I mean, I'll talk to all of the candidates, but like I said, it's a little early to declare a winner for anybody at this point. That's all I'm getting at.

No, no, I agree. So the reason I ask for a repeat of Daniel Bethel's name again is because I'd like perhaps Kevin Sparrett, the Lithincol's, the Robinson's, and Herman Berchiger to speak to Christine Drazen about how the walkout went and how she threw people under the bus. I really believe that Christine Drazen is really, truly a soft Democrat, not a Republican, and I really believe that she just wants to be governor so bad she can taste it for whatever reasons, whatever her real reasons are, and I'll work very hard to support another candidate. Let me ask you, though, on a statewide candidacy. Now, I'm not, you know, I'm not a Christine Drazen fluffer. You know, I'm not going to sit there and try to, you know, boost her up or anything like, I'm going to try to boost anybody up at this point in time.

Do you believe that anything other than, as you termed it, a soft Democrat could win on a statewide basis? I'm just trying to get you to plumb your honesty about this because I know, you know, political, you know, political, it's an emotional choice. What do you say? I believe that things are bad enough that if people would, I don't know, I still, my mind is twisted why more people didn't vote in a special election in Medford. Yeah, it irritates me too. I don't understand how people allowed John West to be recalled, okay, it twists my head. we sort of get what we get if we want to just go out to pizza and watch TV, and we don't want to participate.

It's a participatory thing. But I believe if people participate, yes, we have a chance, a reasonable chance. And I also believe that I really think it's a fool's game to vote for Christine Drazen, but that's just my opinion. All right. Well, that's what we'll be hashing on here over the coming months. All right. Thank you, David. Appreciate that. It's $8.56 and change.

We've had all this heavy-duty talk. We had a dad joke to lighten it, all right? So Douglas Dean gets the Dad Joke of the Day. Dad Joke of the Day, sponsored by Two Dogs Fabricating on Brian Wayoff, Sage Road in Medford. Can you beat this one? This is what Doug sent in. What would a pie say if it could talk? It would say, hey, you want a piece of me?

You got a better one? Go to Two DogsFab.com and submit that. By the way, Two DogsFab is Southern Oregon's exclusive North Star dealer and all custom jobs under one roof. It'll save you time and it'll bring your costs down while constructing your bed or a trailer exactly the way you want at Two DogsFab.com. You want a piece of me? I like that.