Pediatric neurosurgeon and accused stalker Monica Wehby easily beat second place Jason Conger 50 percent to 37 percent yesterday in Oregon’s Republican US Senate primary, after voters ran out of time to make an informed decision.
A police report detailing allegations that Wehby repeatedly stalked her ex-boyfriend at his home, entered without his invitation, and harassed his employees, did not emerge until Friday, May 16, the last day in which Oregon voters could be reasonably assured of putting their ballot in the mail and having it arrive by the state’s Tuesday, May 18 received-by deadline.
Wehby will go on to be trounced by Democratic incumbent Senator Jeff Merkley in the November general election.
Every election season our state’s editorial boards chime in with demands to switch Washington’s postmarked-by Election Day ballot deadline to Oregon’s more restrictive received-by deadline. The argument is that forcing voters to return their ballots sooner would result in faster election results. But as I’ve repeatedly explained, it won’t. Our elections departments can’t keep up with the volume of ballots that already arrive during the final couple days of the election. All switching the deadline would do is disenfranchise thousands of additional Washington voters.
But the Wehby incident illustrates another disadvantage to Oregon’s received-by deadline: it effectively shortens the election season by three or four days, leaving many voters unable to respond to late-breaking news like Wehby’s stalking scandal. In Washington, you can drop your ballot off at your neighborhood post office as late as Tuesday afternoon and be reasonably assured that your vote will eventually be counted, but in Oregon you damn well better put your ballot in the mail by Friday, Saturday at the absolute latest. Sure, first class mail sometimes arrives next day when mailed within the same urban center, but sometimes it doesn’t. So you’d be crazy to post your ballot on a Monday.
In practice, Tuesday’s proximity to the weekend essentially moves Oregon’s vote-by-mail Election Day to the previous Friday.
There are many advantages to a vote-by-mail election, not the least of which being the vastly reduced opportunities for voter suppression. But there is no reason to exacerbate the system’s weaknesses in pursuit of maybe reporting election results a tiny bit faster.
Shouldn’t you be criticizing the media, not to mention Wehby’s opponents, for not discovering and then making this information public sooner, rather than criticizing the election process for, um, setting dates and announcing them well in advance? Perhaps the intent was to drop the bomb just before the election all along, only Wehby already had a lead too large to be affected.
Since we’re talking allegations and yesterday’s election results, it seems that an all-out effort by accused rapist, serial sexual predator, and acknowledged adulterer Bill Clinton wasn’t enough to get his in-law past her primary:
http://www.philly.com/philly/n.....trict.html
Drag a Board certification in pediatric surgery through a primary season, you never know what you’ll find.
@1 Do you have a job? Or is being the first one to troll every HA comment thread it? And if so, how much does it pay? I’d troll my own blog for the right money, and do it damn better than you.
If you want to know why the Wehby information wasn’t requested sooner, you’ll have to ask her opposition. Or perhaps Senator Merkley:
An employee of the Democratic Party of Oregon was the first person to request the April 2013 police report of timber baron Andrew Miller accusing Republican Senate candidate Monica Wehby of “stalking” him after a break-up.
Jon Friedman, who listed a Northeast Portland address, requested the report from Portland police on April 17, 2014, documents obtained by The Oregonian through a public records request show. Friedman did not immediately return a message seeking comment Monday.
Friedman works as a research assistant for the Democratic Party of Oregon, said Jamal Raad, party spokesman. Raad declined to comment further.
Raad previously worked as a spokesman for Democratic Sen. Jeff Merkley, who is seeking re-election to a second term. Merkley will face Wehby or state Rep. Jason Conger, R-Bend, depending on who wins the May 20 Republican primary.
http://www.oregonlive.com/poli.....ort_f.html
Sometimes things take time to reach the surface. Perhaps someone had the dirt on Wehby and for some unknown reason held off on reporting it. Wouldn’t be the first time,
http://jonathanturley.org/2008.....air-story/
would it?
@ 2
I gotta tell you. Had you written your headline differently I would not have commented at all, Goldy.
Sloppy, sloppy me. I knew I was too much in a hurry. Maybe so I could be @2 FIRST!
Wehby isn’t Boarded in pediatric surgery. She’s double-Boarded. In neurosurgery and in pediatric neurosurgery.
Biography
Monica Wehby, MD, is a pediatric neurosurgeon with Legacy Medical Group-Neurosurgery. She is board-certified by the American Association of Neurological Surgeons and the American Board of Pediatric Neurosurgeons.
Dr. Wehby earned her medical degree from Baylor College of Medicine, completed her neurosurgery residency at UCLA Medical Center and was awarded a neurosurgery fellowship at Primary Children’s Medical Center. Dr. Wehby won the Congressional Medal of Distinction for improving children’s health and previously served as medical director of pediatric neurosurgery at The Children’s Hospital at Legacy Emanuel.
http://www.legacyhealth.org/pr.....by-md.aspx
Congressional Medal recipient, too. Wouldja look at that.
Of course, honors are nice but they don’t always accurately represent the recipient. Bill Clinton is a Rhodes scholar and what a scumbag sleaze he turned out to be.
Yes, of course. Failure on the part of the opposition to conduct simple due diligence
Cameron Joseph @cam_joseph
Conger, Wehby’s opponent, said he didn’t invest in oppo research bc he wanted a “clean campaign,” admits it was a “huge mistake”
must be the fault of Oregon’s election process.
Blue Oregon’s wondering if maybe she possibly could be this year’s Angle or O’Donnell, apparently.
Of course, given how dreamy Senator McConnell thinks Monica Wehby is, ya gotta wonder if the NRSC actually vets the candidates they recruit. – See more at: http://www.blueoregon.com/#sthash.Dvs0gnUI.dpuf
Good point about mailing deadlines, but Oregon has scores of drop boxes where voters can deposit their ballots up until 8:00 PM on election day. Voters don’t have to mail their ballots.
Two dozen ballot drop boxes in Portland alone. On this they do far better than King County Elections anemic effort.
@5 This proves what? Doctors are psychos, too? Thanks for reminding me, I’ll keep that in mind the next time I have a heart attack.
Anything the Blethen Times says is a good idea probably isn’t.
re 1 — “…accused rapist, serial sexual predator, and acknowledged adulterer Bill Clinton….”
“If the President does it, it’s not illegal.” Richard Milhous Nixon
10
Yes, Nixon was truly a bad president and a crook to boot!
Well, now that it is out there, Merkley will be able to cruise past this crazy republican in the general election. Maybe it was smart to wait on this info – until the republican fools voted for the psycho candidate and it is too late to take her name off the ballot.
Who cares that she is board certified – she is certifiably crazy and a stalker.