Latest / BOB DOLE : 1995 Clinton's Comeback / Episode 474 The Fall of Bob Packwood (Part 8) The Packwood Interviews Dole 15

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Episode 474 The Fall of Bob Packwood (Part 8) The Packwood Interviews Dole 15 · BOB DOLE : 1995 Clinton's Comeback

0:25
SPEAKER_02: The ethics committee today released 10,000 pages of documents from its investigation of Packwood.
0:30
SPEAKER_02: Chairman Mitch McConnell said the evidence indicates Packwood engaged in, quote, a habitual pattern of aggressive, blatantly sexual advances.
0:38
SPEAKER_02: And he said it shows Packwood illegally altered key tapes and documents.
0:42
SPEAKER_02: McConnell said the matter is being turned over to the Justice Department for investigation.
0:47
SPEAKER_02: The committee's handling of the investigation.
2:05
SPEAKER_21: These are from the night uh after his resignation.
2:08
SPEAKER_21: He did an interview and that weekend afterwards, he did interviews with Barbara Walters, with Bob Schiefer, um, and uh the network news, and uh they are interesting in depth, and um he talks about not only the accusations and dealing with it, but what his future would be.
2:26
SPEAKER_21: And uh we have the the uh the benefit of it's been 30 years ago his future would end up being because he was he was he was uh it was referred for criminal action to the uh Justice Department.
2:39
SPEAKER_21: And I and I want to say that again uh I I would uh and stress it because you know he is uh is portrayed as the universal bad guy in all this.
2:49
SPEAKER_21: Um and here is a man who had an alcohol problem, who said he had an alcohol problem, who apologized for his actions uh for whatever he did, and he paid the price for what he did with these women.
3:00
SPEAKER_21: Um and um and it's reprehensible, and I I don't want to defend that.
3:07
SPEAKER_21: But he was referred for criminal investigation and it was never brought.
3:14
SPEAKER_21: And so all of these things that you hear about Bob Packwood and the potential uh, you know, criminal uh investigation, and the Justice Department's gonna look at it, and you know, he doctored his diaries as obstruction of justice, and and he um and that and that you know that he was trying to get force people into helping him to get his ex-wife a job.
3:35
SPEAKER_21: All that stuff was referred to the Justice Department, and no charges were ever brought.
3:40
SPEAKER_21: And he went on to form um Sunshine uh I think that was no Sunshine uh marketing or sunshine um uh research, which was a lobbying firm, uh that and he would go on to get, you know, pretty wealthy, I think, lobbying Congress uh from that position.
4:00
SPEAKER_21: He came back many years later uh as a guest of the finance committee to talk about finances.
4:06
SPEAKER_21: And we're gonna end this show with another weird aspect of this entire thing that happened a little bit later.
4:11
SPEAKER_21: But if you'll notice Bob Packwood had a lot of uh support out there.
4:15
SPEAKER_21: You know, when you look at the nature of this of these accusations, the nature of his actions uh and and and so forth, and as unpopular as you think he is 30 years down the road from memory, if you listen to the C-SPAN phone calls, you listen to the the pup people who called in, because that was a big deal back in those days in the early 90s, these shows where the people could call in and question people, you don't see that as much anymore.
4:40
SPEAKER_21: Um they were defending Bob Packwood.
4:44
SPEAKER_21: So uh he had support out there uh which would surprise, I think, most people.
4:50
SPEAKER_21: So with all that said, he was willing to do uh interviews.
4:54
SPEAKER_21: Uh we did one in the last episode with the CBS evening news that night, but he did one on 2020 with uh with Barbara Walters and he and he did uh the face of the nation.
5:05
SPEAKER_21: And uh I thought it was interesting that and and so we're gonna put together uh these interviews for you.
5:11
SPEAKER_21: You get to hear Bob Packwood defend himself uh that night after the resignation.
5:17
SPEAKER_21: Uh and uh it's right there for history.
5:20
SPEAKER_21: So with that, let's tune in to 2020 and Barbara Walters with Senator uh Bob Packwood.
5:31
SPEAKER_06: It is my duty to resign.
5:36
SPEAKER_06: It is the honorable thing to do for this country for the Senate.
5:44
SPEAKER_20: Senator Packwood's resignation is a sad ending to a long and illustrious career.
5:49
SPEAKER_20: I interviewed the senator when the allegations against him first became public.
5:53
SPEAKER_20: He told me then that resigning was the worst thing that could happen to him.
5:58
SPEAKER_20: Earlier today I spoke with him again in the only interview he granted the day after his stunning announcement.
6:05
SPEAKER_20: Senator Packwood, thank you for being uh with us.
6:09
SPEAKER_07: Happy to do it.
6:09
SPEAKER_20: The first question one has to ask is how are you feeling?
6:12
SPEAKER_20: You look pretty good.
6:14
SPEAKER_07: Actually, uh Barbara, I feel like a a gigantic cancer has been lifted off of my shoulders and uh much relieved and uh frankly very happy.
6:23
SPEAKER_20: That surprises me.
6:25
SPEAKER_20: Uh as of Wednesday night, when you were doing an interview in CNN with my colleague Hugh Downs, you said emphatically that you would not resign.
6:33
SPEAKER_20: And then yesterday you did.
6:34
SPEAKER_20: What changed your mind?
6:35
SPEAKER_20: Was it the was it the mountain of evidence?
6:37
SPEAKER_20: Was it a conversation with Senator Dole?
6:39
SPEAKER_20: What did it?
6:40
SPEAKER_07: No, it wasn't the mountain of evidence.
6:41
SPEAKER_07: I talked to Senator Dole and some of the others, and it was very clear uh that the Senate was going to have to go through, if I chose to contest it, a brutal battle.
6:51
SPEAKER_07: And I love the place, love the Senate, respect it.
6:53
SPEAKER_07: I didn't want to drag them through that, and I was ready to move on, and and you put all those factors together, and I decided to go ahead and resign.
7:00
SPEAKER_20: Today you announced that you were giving up the chairmanship of the very important finance committee and that you would leave the Senate on October 1st.
7:08
SPEAKER_20: Some thought you would stay longer.
7:10
SPEAKER_20: What next for you, Senator?
7:13
SPEAKER_07: Barbara, I haven't uh I haven't decided uh all of us like to think we could write.
7:17
SPEAKER_07: Uh as a matter of fact, I had two phone calls from publishers or agents.
7:20
SPEAKER_07: I don't know this business very well today, wanting to know about my diaries, but all one of them wanted to know about was the sex in the diaries, and I told him I wasn't interested in that.
7:29
SPEAKER_07: He kept he kept pushing me and wanting to know how much sex was in it.
7:33
SPEAKER_07: I probably got too wise, and I said, well, a little more than Francis of Assisi and a little less than Will Chamberlain, and uh but uh I'm not gonna let that guy touch my diaries with a 10-foot pole.
7:43
SPEAKER_20: Are you going to write a book?
7:44
SPEAKER_07: I don't know.
7:45
SPEAKER_07: I've got the discipline.
7:46
SPEAKER_07: I don't know if I've got the talent.
7:48
SPEAKER_07: These diaries are about 10,000 typewritten pages, single space long.
7:52
SPEAKER_07: There's uh there's enough material in there for for uh for a novel and for memoirs and editing the diaries and everything else.
7:59
SPEAKER_20: Well, you're gonna you're going to receive a pension of$89,000 a year, but is is that what you're going to do?
8:06
SPEAKER_20: Just live on that?
8:07
SPEAKER_20: Or are you employable?
8:08
SPEAKER_20: And if so, what would you like to do?
8:10
SPEAKER_07: You know, I haven't uh this has happened so suddenly, Barbara.
8:13
SPEAKER_07: I hadn't thought about it.
8:14
SPEAKER_07: Two days ago, no one was talking about expulsion or no one was talking about resignation, and I hadn't given any thought other than to serving out my term.
8:21
SPEAKER_07: It's somehow uh it's almost ever since I quit to quit drinking uh a number of years ago and went into an alcohol recovery program, a certain serenity has settled over me.
8:31
SPEAKER_07: And one way or another, uh, somebody's gonna take care of me.
8:34
SPEAKER_07: I don't I don't mean some angel, I mean somebody up there is gonna take care of me, and I really haven't uh given it a lot of thought, and I'm not too worried about it.
8:41
SPEAKER_20: Senator, in your diary, some of the quotes that we have seen, uh the committee found repeated graphic descriptions of sex with staffers.
8:49
SPEAKER_20: Uh, for example, you write, so-and-so and I made love, and she is the most stunning figure.
8:54
SPEAKER_20: Uh the 22 staff members I'd made love to, and probably 75 others I've had passionate relationships with.
9:01
SPEAKER_20: And then you describe sleeping with one woman as your Christian duty.
9:06
SPEAKER_20: Would you explain that to me, please?
9:07
SPEAKER_07: Yes, uh a lot of that you just read is uh somewhat great exaggeration and uh other wishful thinking, I think.
9:14
SPEAKER_07: But this uh this was a particular woman who claimed she had sex sexual relations very often, uh very seldom.
9:21
SPEAKER_07: And then one day she said, Well, she's been going to this fellow for seven years and they've been making love about three times a week.
9:26
SPEAKER_07: And I said, What?
9:28
SPEAKER_07: You've been telling me you didn't have any relations once a year.
9:31
SPEAKER_07: And again, what that that use of the term Christian duty, that is flip.
9:36
SPEAKER_07: Uh that I I didn't mean it in any sense other than that.
9:38
SPEAKER_07: And I was kidding her after she'd given me this impression that uh that she she uh hardly had any relations at all.
9:44
SPEAKER_20: Senator, you also wrote about donations that might have been illegal.
9:48
SPEAKER_20: You write, I think it's a felony.
9:49
SPEAKER_20: And in another place, I'm walking on thin ice.
9:52
SPEAKER_20: I think what most people cannot understand is why on earth did you keep a diary in which you wrote such incriminating things about yourself?
10:00
SPEAKER_07: Well, first, the the reference to the felony is simply wrong.
10:04
SPEAKER_07: There were again, that was that was flipped.
10:07
SPEAKER_07: There was no felony.
10:08
SPEAKER_07: I knew it at the time.
10:09
SPEAKER_07: When you are stream of consciousness thinking and dictating and holding a dictating machine up, you're not writing this out in hand, you're not typing it yourself.
10:18
SPEAKER_07: As things come to mind, you do not always think crisp, logical.
10:21
SPEAKER_07: It's like a draft, and I I would kid into this.
10:24
SPEAKER_07: It's like talking to a psychiatrist, and uh, and secondly, this was never going to be open until the year 2030.
10:30
SPEAKER_07: So I I really, within reason, didn't care what went into it.
10:34
SPEAKER_20: You wrote these diaries expecting them to be open at a later date, then you brought up the diaries yourself.
10:40
SPEAKER_20: But you know, people uh had asked Richard Nixon, uh, in retrospect, are you sorry about the tape?
10:45
SPEAKER_20: Senator, should anyone keep a diary?
10:47
SPEAKER_07: Probably not anymore, and it's unfortunate, Barbara, because in this diary, here are personal meetings with Nixon about personal one-to-one on Watergate and Judge Hainsworth and Ronald Reagan about you.
10:57
SPEAKER_07: And when I said you can't build a party on white Anglo-Saxon males with over 40, there aren't enough of us.
11:02
SPEAKER_20: You uh altered some of your diaries when you knew that they were going to be shown because of the fear of of just what's happened to you.
11:08
SPEAKER_20: Now this case is being referred to the Justice Department who could take criminal action.
11:12
SPEAKER_20: Possibly you could even go to prison.
11:14
SPEAKER_20: What happens now?
11:15
SPEAKER_07: Actually, the committee, the ethics committee, got the original diaries.
11:22
SPEAKER_07: What was altered was a copy of the diary that I was giving to my lawyers.
11:26
SPEAKER_07: I never thought this was ever going to the committee.
11:28
SPEAKER_07: I thought they had no right to it.
11:29
SPEAKER_07: I thought we had a constitutional privilege not to give it to them.
11:32
SPEAKER_07: But there are certain things I didn't want to go to my law firm.
11:35
SPEAKER_07: But the original diary was kept, and the committee got the original diary unaltered.
11:41
SPEAKER_20: Senator, do you think you did anything wrong?
11:45
SPEAKER_07: Oh, it it is clear I did, Barbara.
11:48
SPEAKER_07: If you if you approach people, men or women, uh, as apparently I I did in most of the cases I can't remember, and if I offended them, that is wrong, and I've apologized for it uh over and over, and uh, and I regret it, and uh I I don't know what more to say.
12:02
SPEAKER_20: Do you deserve to be expelled?
12:04
SPEAKER_07: Oh, you know, that's water over the bridge.
12:07
SPEAKER_07: Uh the ethics committee said so, and I've decided to resign.
12:10
SPEAKER_07: I I guess if I would have any question in this, there was one allegation involving any woman in the last 12 years.
12:18
SPEAKER_07: All the rest were older than that.
12:19
SPEAKER_07: Half a dozen were 25 years ago.
12:22
SPEAKER_07: I guess my question would be how far back in people's lives are we gonna go?
12:26
SPEAKER_20: Senator, the first time you went public about this, we did that first interview, you and I together, and you said, I don't want to be remembered uh as the Senator who was forced to resign.
12:37
SPEAKER_20: Is that inevitable now?
12:39
SPEAKER_07: Oh, you is it going to go down in history this way?
12:41
SPEAKER_07: Yes.
12:41
SPEAKER_07: Would I like to be remembered for the uh author of the Tax Reform Act?
12:44
SPEAKER_07: You bet.
12:45
SPEAKER_07: Would I like to be remembered for saving Hell's Canyon, uh, that great gorge between Oregon and Idaho, you bet.
12:50
SPEAKER_07: But I uh I understand after uh three years of headlines in the press uh that I will go down remembered for this one thing in this one case.
12:59
SPEAKER_07: Do I like it?
13:00
SPEAKER_07: No.
13:00
SPEAKER_07: Can I stop it?
13:01
SPEAKER_07: No.
13:02
SPEAKER_07: Uh therefore go on with life.
13:05
SPEAKER_20: Senator, this has been a very tough couple of days, and we appreciate your coming on with us.
13:10
SPEAKER_07: Happy to do it.
13:11
SPEAKER_04: Thanks a lot.
13:11
SPEAKER_04: Thank you, sir.
13:13
SPEAKER_04: As you said, it is a sad ending.
13:16
SPEAKER_04: But isn't it possible there's somewhat of a scapegoat flavor to the punishment the way it is, that they're gonna be symbolically piling other sins of the Senate on his back as they send him out, you know, and wash their hands of things like the Anita Hill Clarence Thomas hearings and so forth.
13:31
SPEAKER_20: Well, I think it would have been very hard for the Senate to continue uh to keep him, especially Republicans.
13:36
SPEAKER_20: But you know, Hugh, when he said that he was going to have these diaries open in 2030 as if he was ready for posterity, and yet now he's stripped of his committee, he can't make amendments, he can't speak at all from the Senate.
13:48
SPEAKER_20: All he can do now until he leaves is vote.
13:52
SPEAKER_21: Thank you, Barbara.
13:54
SPEAKER_21: I thought Senator Packwood brought up a very um interesting point that I don't want to say that I agree with him about you shouldn't make diaries anymore.
14:02
SPEAKER_21: I do think that some of what we've we've seen, but with the Nixon tapes, with the Packwood diaries, is gonna make life hard on historians down the road.
14:12
SPEAKER_21: Um already, you know, like even on our show, you know, I did a lot of of our Nixon and Lyndon Johnson series on their phone calls.
14:19
SPEAKER_21: And it's a shame that we've legalized all this to the point that you can't preserve history.
14:25
SPEAKER_21: And I think that's gonna be a real problem down the road for um for historians that they're that even though the history is getting preserved, emails are getting preserved and that kind of thing, but real time thoughts uh are not um because of the fear of something like this coming back to haunt you.
14:45
SPEAKER_21: Uh because, you know, in in in Packlett's case, it's a it's it's a real thing, um a humiliating experience for him.
14:53
SPEAKER_21: And you might say, well, you know, all this terrible things about about what he did.
14:58
SPEAKER_21: And I I'm not discounting the thing with the ladies, with the women, but at the same token, uh investigators are should have had the right to go into that diary and find what they needed to find, perhaps.
15:11
SPEAKER_21: But they didn't need all of it, all 10,000 comments.
15:14
SPEAKER_21: And you know, a diary is something where people keep um their most intimate thoughts, their their uh a record of of of their lives.
15:24
SPEAKER_21: And uh I don't know how fair that is to go in there, and I wouldn't do it.
15:27
SPEAKER_21: I would tell anybody that I'm a history, I love history and I love all the materials that we've saved and documenting.
15:33
SPEAKER_21: It's one of the reasons I do this show.
15:35
SPEAKER_21: Uh and uh I wouldn't tell anyone to to write down contemporary thoughts or keep a diary of anything because uh of the legal legal ramifications.
15:44
SPEAKER_21: And he makes that point in that that interview with Barbara Walters uh because not only because uh you can get yourself in trouble with what's there, but you we've seen with Richard Nixon and the tapes, they can get in there and start cherry-picking, and with the technology like it is today with AI and all the rest of it, you can cherry pick, put together, slice, spice, whatever you want to do, and put somebody and get somebody in a real trouble when there's exculpatory material there that you ignore and you don't show and you let get buried in the material because it's so vol voluminous voluminous, if that's the right word, uh volume of it, just so much of it.
16:21
SPEAKER_21: This is very true in Richard Nixon's case.
16:23
SPEAKER_21: Well, we have a tape with Henry P uh with Henry Peterson that we've played here where he says, I want to know the truth.
16:29
SPEAKER_21: Uh you tell him I you don't have to come to me again.
16:32
SPEAKER_21: Um you tell him I want everybody in this case to tell the truth.
16:36
SPEAKER_21: Now that's Richard Nixon talking to the deputy attorney general.
16:40
SPEAKER_21: And that tape wasn't seen until it showed up on C-SPAN years later when Jeff Shepherd was on there with Jill Weinbanks.
16:46
SPEAKER_21: And Jill Weinbanks want to act like, oh, I've I've never heard that tape before, but I've heard mountains of tapes of him just to breaking the law, so that doesn't matter.
16:53
SPEAKER_21: Well, you know, it damn sure does matter.
16:55
SPEAKER_21: And and and that was true in the Packwood's case, not criminal, but you know, he's got all this embarrassing stuff about it's Christian duty to sleep with this woman and all this craziness.
17:04
SPEAKER_21: Uh it's humiliating, it's embarrassing.
17:07
SPEAKER_21: And was it really anybody's business if it didn't pertain to the accusations that were there and it wasn't and and and and and other than that not being illegal, why do why does it have to be in the public domain?
17:18
SPEAKER_21: Why did we have to destroy that?
17:19
SPEAKER_21: And why are we taking away this tool of saving the history of this country because lawyers want to be able to delve into your personal life and hand it to the National Enquirer?
17:27
SPEAKER_21: You know?
17:28
SPEAKER_21: It's just a question that I think he's right about, and if you don't have any sympathy with him, I get it.
17:33
SPEAKER_21: But is it fair to anybody that their lives can be taken because they decided to document and his preserve for history and we want to splash it all over the news because we got some lawyers got the right to go in there and get it.
17:46
SPEAKER_21: And and you know, no right to privacy, I guess.
17:49
SPEAKER_21: But um I'll get off my soapbox on it.
17:53
SPEAKER_21: Senator Packwood would do another interview with uh Bill Schaefer, who I have always liked.
17:59
SPEAKER_21: Um he was at that point the host of Meet the Press, not Meet the Press, but uh Face the Nation.
18:04
SPEAKER_21: I get them confused.
18:06
SPEAKER_21: Um and Packwood did a really interesting interview with them.
18:08
SPEAKER_21: We're gonna let you hear that one.
18:10
SPEAKER_21: Um, and his defense of himself.
18:12
SPEAKER_21: And I'll have to say Schaefer doesn't pull any punches.
18:14
SPEAKER_21: Barbara Walter has a has a nice demeanor about the way she goes about asking questions.
18:18
SPEAKER_21: Schaefer was he he he hit at him a little bit, and it's a it's a really interesting interview.
18:26
SPEAKER_08: Broadcast.
18:26
SPEAKER_08: We start this morning in our Washington studio with Republican Senator from Oregon, Bob Packwood.
18:31
SPEAKER_08: Uh Senator Packwood, thank you for coming.
18:34
SPEAKER_08: You said Friday night, you described yourself as feeling like a giant cancer had been lifted from your shoulders.
18:41
SPEAKER_08: You said, and these are your words, that you were relieved, and you said frankly, you were very happy.
18:46
SPEAKER_08: Is that really true?
18:47
SPEAKER_07: It it is happy.
18:48
SPEAKER_07: Uh those are accurate words.
18:49
SPEAKER_07: Uh it's it's been three tough years.
18:51
SPEAKER_07: Uh no one could say it was easy.
18:55
SPEAKER_07: And it is like having a weight, cancer may be the wrong word, but a weight lifted off of your shoulders, and you say, Okay, now if now I can get on with the rest of my life.
19:03
SPEAKER_08: Well, does that mean your conscience is clear?
19:05
SPEAKER_07: That's a diff no, that's a different issue.
19:07
SPEAKER_07: And that's something we can get into at some other time.
19:09
SPEAKER_07: All I'm saying is this is weighed on me and weighed on me and weighed on me.
19:13
SPEAKER_07: And at the same time, I was able to carry on, I think, my duties in the Senate reasonably well.
19:18
SPEAKER_07: But I'm 63 and I've got time for another generation, another twenty years of a career of some kind, and it's time to get on with it.
19:25
SPEAKER_08: Well, is your conscience clear?
19:27
SPEAKER_07: Clear in what sense?
19:28
SPEAKER_08: Well, I mean, are you ashamed of what you did?
19:31
SPEAKER_08: Are you proud of what you did?
19:32
SPEAKER_08: Have you come to peace with yourself?
19:34
SPEAKER_07: I've uh I've come Are you sorry?
19:36
SPEAKER_07: I've come sh am I sorry, of course.
19:38
SPEAKER_07: Uh if I did the things that they said I did, uh am I sorry?
19:42
SPEAKER_07: Do I apologize?
19:43
SPEAKER_07: Yes.
19:44
SPEAKER_07: Uh but uh uh it is time to get on and and not look back.
19:48
SPEAKER_07: But what do you mean when you say if I did the things they said I did?
19:51
SPEAKER_07: Bob, I'm not I'm not gonna get into the specifics of the charges.
19:54
SPEAKER_07: That's over and gone.
19:56
SPEAKER_07: But but does that mean you don't know in your own mind whether you did these things?
19:59
SPEAKER_07: Oh, in many cases, and you'll find this when you read the transcript, uh in most cases, uh it I cannot remember the incident, cannot remember the people.
20:09
SPEAKER_07: I just I don't know.
20:11
SPEAKER_07: But are there regrets here?
20:14
SPEAKER_07: Of course there's regrets.
20:15
SPEAKER_07: I mean, how can you how can you not help but have regrets?
20:18
SPEAKER_08: But do you do you feel you have wronged anyone?
20:21
SPEAKER_08: Do you feel that these people are victims, that uh perhaps you you treated these people badly?
20:26
SPEAKER_07: Bob I'm I'm simply not going to get into that.
20:28
SPEAKER_07: That that is over.
20:29
SPEAKER_07: Uh, and uh I want to go on with my life, and uh I'm not gonna go back and and relive this.
20:35
SPEAKER_08: And you feel you owe no one an apology.
20:39
SPEAKER_07: I have apologized over and over.
20:41
SPEAKER_07: I apologize shortly after it happened publicly.
20:43
SPEAKER_07: I've apologized time and again.
20:45
SPEAKER_08: But I if I recall your apology, it was something to the effect if people took offense and I apologize.
20:51
SPEAKER_08: You you did not acknowledge that you had done anything wrong.
20:54
SPEAKER_08: You said if they took it the wrong way.
20:56
SPEAKER_07: I didn't know if I'd I didn't know if I'd done it.
20:58
SPEAKER_07: And I still don't know.
20:59
SPEAKER_07: In most of the cases, I have no memory of it.
21:03
SPEAKER_07: That's uh that's all I'm saying.
21:05
SPEAKER_08: How how is it that you can have no memory, Senator, if you can go into such specifics in your diary as you did?
21:11
SPEAKER_07: In in most cases, Bob, uh, this is the last question I'm gonna answer on this.
21:16
SPEAKER_07: Of the complainants, you read the diary, you don't find they're mentioned.
21:20
SPEAKER_07: There's no mention of the incident.
21:21
SPEAKER_07: Uh, there's it just isn't there in the diary, even.
21:24
SPEAKER_08: The the incidents are not in the diary, sir?
21:27
SPEAKER_07: No, not the not the ones that were complained of.
21:30
SPEAKER_08: But there were many things in the diary.
21:32
SPEAKER_08: There were many specifics in the diary.
21:34
SPEAKER_08: Some of the most intimate details of a person's life were were outlined in these diaries that you wrote.
21:40
SPEAKER_07: Well, the uh a diary, uh, I don't know if you've read many diaries.
21:43
SPEAKER_07: I've not read a lot, but I suppose eight or ten historical diaries.
21:46
SPEAKER_07: This diary uh wasn't much different than anybody else's diary you you would read, who kept a rather detailed diary of their life, whether it's business or government or the theater.
21:55
SPEAKER_08: Senator, with all due respect, you talked at one point about being down on the floor with a woman.
22:00
SPEAKER_07: Have you read other diaries?
22:01
SPEAKER_08: Well, maybe something like that would not be of interest.
22:04
SPEAKER_08: I I'm asking you, I guess one of the questions would be uh are you now saying that you don't remember those things or the things in your diary were not true?
22:12
SPEAKER_07: No, well, uh I I have discovered there are many inaccuracies in the diary.
22:16
SPEAKER_07: I just you have to realize I never read this diary.
22:18
SPEAKER_07: I dictated it, it was put away in a safe, kept for 25 years.
22:21
SPEAKER_07: I didn't review it, I didn't edit it in all those years.
22:25
SPEAKER_07: I have discovered since this came up that a number of the things that I put in it were inaccurate, and some of them simply weren't true.
22:31
SPEAKER_07: I didn't know it at the time, but they weren't true.
22:33
SPEAKER_08: Well, were there were they fantasies?
22:34
SPEAKER_08: I mean, was this something where you would just kind of make up things?
22:39
SPEAKER_07: Not so much thoughts.
22:40
SPEAKER_07: When I would put a thought in there, it would normally be accurate.
22:43
SPEAKER_07: But what I did discover is this.
22:44
SPEAKER_07: You and I, uh you and I go out to dinner, and I come back and I recount a conversation you and I have had, and on occasion, I discovered I would recount conversations that simply didn't happen.
22:56
SPEAKER_07: Now, was I putting into a conversational form what you and I were thinking, or what we might have alluded to, or even if we didn't, I would put it in a conversational form.
23:04
SPEAKER_07: So you will find on a number of occasions, three or four people will be involved in a meeting, and I will put down what was said, and then those three or four will be interviewed and say, that that wasn't didn't happen at all.
23:15
SPEAKER_07: Wasn't didn't wasn't said at all.
23:18
SPEAKER_08: Uh you know, one of the things that people ask me about, Senator, and I m I must say I'm curious about it myself, and you mentioned it just just now.
23:25
SPEAKER_08: You dictated many of these passages in the diary.
23:28
SPEAKER_08: As you were dictating it, were you thinking I mean these were very intimate things that you were talking about.
23:34
SPEAKER_08: Did you ever think about how that would be taken by the person who was taking your dictation and writing it down?
23:40
SPEAKER_07: The person uh the person who was taking it uh was my wasn't one of my closest associates.
23:46
SPEAKER_07: She was my legal and legislative secretary in Oregon in the mid-sixties, moved here when I came here, uh, would be one of my four or five closest, closest friends in this town, knew me well.
23:56
SPEAKER_07: And uh she transcribed and transcribed and transcribed it for 25 years.
24:01
SPEAKER_08: And it did not embarrass you for her to know some of these things.
24:04
SPEAKER_07: She and I uh she and I remain close friends.
24:05
SPEAKER_07: She and I never talked about the diary, as a matter of fact.
24:08
SPEAKER_07: But she and I remain close friends.
24:09
SPEAKER_07: Uh she's married now, and uh she and I and her husband are close friends, but she never uh she and I never talked about it.
24:15
SPEAKER_08: Senator, when you were changing some of the diary entries uh before when the uh before the Senate uh ethics committee said they wanted to see them, and after they said they wanted to.
24:25
SPEAKER_08: Uh did you realize you might be committing a felony?
24:28
SPEAKER_07: I want I want to emphasize this very clearly.
24:31
SPEAKER_07: The ethics committee got all of the unaltered diaries, the original diaries, they were never misled and they were never given any altered diaries that they relied upon.
24:44
SPEAKER_08: Well, what what is it in that report that they put out where on one side of the page they'd show the original diary and on the other side of the page they'd show a different account that you had changed?
24:54
SPEAKER_08: What is that?
24:54
SPEAKER_08: I kept a copy.
24:57
SPEAKER_07: And the copy I changed.
24:59
SPEAKER_07: The original was never changed, and the copy was never given to the committee.
25:05
SPEAKER_07: Only when I received a subpoena did I give the copy and the original.
25:09
SPEAKER_07: What why did you whatever it is you call it, why did you change the things you changed?
25:14
SPEAKER_07: Because for 25 years I kept this in a save, uh, and no one had ever seen it, except for the secretary that uh typed it, the woman that typed it, and she only had it transitorily.
25:23
SPEAKER_07: And for the first time in my life, it was going to go out of my hands and it was gonna go to the attorneys.
25:29
SPEAKER_07: That's where it was going.
25:29
SPEAKER_08: So it was not an effort to evade the law or orange.
25:32
SPEAKER_08: I never indicted to I never conceived, nor did my attorneys, that the ethics committee would ever see this diary.
25:40
SPEAKER_07: They thought uh they had no right to it.
25:42
SPEAKER_07: We had a constitutional privilege to protect it.
25:44
SPEAKER_07: So I I never at any time until finally a subpoena in a court decision ever thought that the ethics committee would ever have the diary.
25:52
SPEAKER_08: Senator, at one point you talk about meeting with Phil Graham, and you say in the diary how you were afraid or that uh what he was offering to you, and this was his offer to put$100,000 uh into your campaign as a way to skirt the campaign finance laws.
26:06
SPEAKER_08: Um you talk about meeting with an NRA official, you talk about uh meeting with other lobbyists.
26:12
SPEAKER_08: Why would not people come away from this saying that the Senate is a place where one goes to do backroom deals and that's how you get your business done in the Senate?
26:19
SPEAKER_07: Because those are all taken out of context and not in in the when you look at the full panoply of diary entries, you will see in this time and time and time again references to say, I will not allow that as a quid pro quo.
26:32
SPEAKER_07: I will not do this.
26:33
SPEAKER_07: If if these people think they can get in here and give money and get something there totally wrong and throw them out.
26:38
SPEAKER_07: But you don't uh interesting, you don't see any of those uh listed.
26:41
SPEAKER_08: But you did say at one point that uh the the deal that Senator Graham had offered you that the the both of you could be uh guilty of a felony.
26:48
SPEAKER_08: And and that was totally wrong.
26:50
SPEAKER_08: It was totally you had the situation wrong, or you misunderstood the situation.
26:56
SPEAKER_08: Uh at one point uh in the diaries you talk about one of the senators coming to see you, and I guess we now know it was Senator Danforth who was an organe priest.
27:04
SPEAKER_08: And at one point he said, uh Senator Packwood, uh I don't sense any repentance on your part.
27:10
SPEAKER_08: And it was a fairly heated exchange.
27:12
SPEAKER_07: Bob uh no, it wasn't a heated exchange.
27:14
SPEAKER_07: Jack is is not a heated person.
27:16
SPEAKER_07: But uh I I'm not gonna get into any more of the diary entries.
27:19
SPEAKER_07: Are you repentant, Senator?
27:20
SPEAKER_07: I'm not uh Bob, I'm not gonna get into any more of the diary entries.
27:23
SPEAKER_07: You've asked that question several times.
27:24
SPEAKER_07: Let's get on with that.
27:25
SPEAKER_08: I'm asking about Senator Packwood and where he goes from here.
27:28
SPEAKER_08: Are you repentant about what you have done, Senator?
27:31
SPEAKER_07: Am I embarrassed?
27:32
SPEAKER_07: Am I apologetic?
27:33
SPEAKER_07: Do I wish I hadn't done it?
27:34
SPEAKER_07: Of course.
27:36
SPEAKER_08: You you are a member of Alcoholics Anonymous.
27:38
SPEAKER_08: You consider yourself a reformed alcoholic.
27:41
SPEAKER_08: Well, let's let's well I go ahead and finish your question.
27:43
SPEAKER_07: Do you plan to seek any other help, sir?
27:46
SPEAKER_07: It uh I just want to comment on on AA as you know the term two words, alcoholic and anonymous, and then anybody that's in it does not talk about it or does not say they're in it.
27:55
SPEAKER_07: Just to say I'm in an alcohol recovery program.
27:58
SPEAKER_07: I hope it works.
27:59
SPEAKER_07: I've been in it for a number of years.
28:00
SPEAKER_07: It seems to be working, and I intend to continue in it.
28:03
SPEAKER_08: Do you think you should uh seek any other kind of help?
28:06
SPEAKER_08: I have sought other help.
28:08
SPEAKER_08: And uh uh All right.
28:10
SPEAKER_08: Senator, I'll let it go at that.
28:12
SPEAKER_08: Thank you.
28:12
SPEAKER_08: Thank you for joining.
28:13
SPEAKER_21: We'll be back in a minute to talk to you.
28:14
SPEAKER_21: I thought those were both really interesting um interviews with with Senator Packwood, and I think he lays out his own case and his own defense pretty well.
28:22
SPEAKER_21: We've we've let you hear everybody else piling on.
28:25
SPEAKER_21: I thought it would be interesting to end with letting uh Senator Packwood defend himself, which he did do on though in those interviews on the night that he resigned.
28:36
SPEAKER_21: Now, uh strangely enough, that's not the totally the end of the Bob Packwood uh story.
28:43
SPEAKER_21: A couple of years later, and this this should tell you something about no matter his character or his situation his his uh accusations against him and and the fact that they voted to expel him, he must have done something right as a senator because out of nowhere there is this move uh to draft him as a writing candidate in Oregon.
29:09
SPEAKER_21: Um it's just the craziest story when you look at everything, and he he very quickly nixed it that he was not interested in doing it, but here's this final story at the fall of the Bob Packwood, uh at the end of the Bob Packwood story of his fall from Grace.
29:40
SPEAKER_22: Right.
29:41
SPEAKER_22: Uh did Wes Cooley start this.
29:44
SPEAKER_18: Oh no, that's crazy.
29:46
SPEAKER_18: Yeah, that is crazy.
29:47
SPEAKER_18: That's a fairly really you're kidding.
29:50
SPEAKER_00: Oh, you've gotta be kidding.
29:52
SPEAKER_00: No way.
29:54
SPEAKER_00: After all he's done, I can't believe they would, you know.
29:59
SPEAKER_00: That desperate, there's gotta be somebody better than that.
30:02
SPEAKER_17: Contacted in Washington, D.C., former Senator Bob Packwood said he's flattered by the thought of a write-in campaign, but said he'll not consider running at this time.
30:12
SPEAKER_17: We contacted one of the women who leveled sexual harassment charges against Packwood.
30:16
SPEAKER_17: She laughed when we told her about the campaign, adding, I have nothing to say.
30:21
SPEAKER_17: Organizers are holding a press conference tomorrow.
30:23
SPEAKER_14: Bob Packwood resigned from the U.S.
30:25
SPEAKER_14: Senate after ethics scrutiny in another run in his future.
30:29
SPEAKER_14: Tonight on Channel 2 News at 6 30.
30:31
SPEAKER_14: Find out about a possible new campaign for him.
30:33
SPEAKER_24: Voters actually want him to return to the United States Senate.
30:36
SPEAKER_24: We'll have more on that sign coming up next.
30:39
SPEAKER_24: AGW Northwest News Channel 8.
30:41
SPEAKER_24: A new campaign office sprouted up along East Burns site overnight.
30:45
SPEAKER_15: But it's apparent shocked a few of our viewers who called us for the news.
30:48
SPEAKER_15: Elaine Murphy joining us live now from what appears to be a Bob Packwood write-in campaign.
30:53
SPEAKER_16: Elaine?
30:54
SPEAKER_16: Well, Carol, this is what has caught people's eyes.
30:57
SPEAKER_16: It's a beautifully lettered storefront with a very familiar name on it.
31:00
SPEAKER_16: We also received a fax at the station early this morning announcing a Bob Packwood write-in campaign, and some people simply don't believe it.
31:08
SPEAKER_16: Is it a hoax?
31:09
SPEAKER_16: We called the campaign phone line.
31:11
SPEAKER_03: It's Thursday, June 27th, and you've reached the Packwood Write-In campaign headquarters.
31:15
SPEAKER_03: We're sorry if we've been unable to return your call, but the overwhelming response from the media volunteers and contributors has kept us very busy.
31:22
SPEAKER_16: Overwhelming response?
31:23
SPEAKER_16: We went to headquarters, finding it overwhelmingly empty.
31:27
SPEAKER_16: We went next door where Mark Peterson is putting in a new toy store.
31:31
SPEAKER_25: I was here until about uh 8 30, 9 o'clock last night, um, trying to get the store ready to go, and uh didn't notice any lettering or anything on the windows.
31:40
SPEAKER_25: And I got here at about 6 15, 6 30 this morning, and uh the lettering was on the windows.
31:46
SPEAKER_16: Finding something odd about the midnight lettering job, we looked in the windows.
31:50
SPEAKER_16: Notice the phone cords go nowhere.
31:53
SPEAKER_16: Who owns this building?
31:55
SPEAKER_16: So you're leasing from from KXL.
31:58
SPEAKER_25: So I'm subleasing from KXL.
32:00
SPEAKER_16: So we went there in search of answers.
32:02
SPEAKER_09: We subleded the building to the Northwest Science Centers owned by a man by the name of John Atherton, I think his name, Scott Atherton, actually.
32:12
SPEAKER_16: So this is not a shameless radio promotion.
32:15
SPEAKER_09: No, I wish it was, but it's not.
32:16
SPEAKER_09: But I'm you're here, so it's worked.
32:18
SPEAKER_09: No.
32:19
SPEAKER_16: So if it isn't a radio promotion, is it legit?
32:22
SPEAKER_16: And who is this John Scott Atherton?
32:25
SPEAKER_16: And why would a sign company do this?
32:27
SPEAKER_16: Who is behind it?
32:28
SPEAKER_16: Just ask the man on the street.
32:31
SPEAKER_22: Bob Packwood, right.
32:33
SPEAKER_22: Uh did Wes Cooley start this?
32:36
SPEAKER_16: Late this afternoon I talked with John Atherton, the man who has sublet this property, and he said, and I quote, well, I can't say anything about it at the moment.
32:45
SPEAKER_16: End quote.
32:46
SPEAKER_16: As for Bob Packwood, he says he's flattered but won't consider running it this time.
32:50
SPEAKER_16: Meanwhile, there is a press conference here tomorrow, and we'll find out more about it then, Carol.
32:55
SPEAKER_24: Still no uh volunteers, though, parading in at this R.
32:59
SPEAKER_24: Lane?
32:59
SPEAKER_15: It's empty.
33:00
SPEAKER_24: Okay.
33:01
SPEAKER_24: Thanks for the update.
33:02
SPEAKER_15: And it may not change.
33:04
SPEAKER_15: We'll see.
33:05
SPEAKER_15: What do you think about that, Joe?
33:06
SPEAKER_19: I think somebody's very good.
33:09
SPEAKER_19: They they have a good idea of how to get some attention.
33:12
SPEAKER_10: Unknown group may be trying to force the senator back into the spotlight.
33:17
SPEAKER_03: It's Thursday, June 27th, and you've reached the Packwood Writing Campaign headquarters.
33:21
SPEAKER_23: You heard right.
33:22
SPEAKER_23: The Packwood Writing Campaign.
33:24
SPEAKER_23: Apparently set up in this small office in northeast Portland.
33:27
SPEAKER_23: Mark Peterson is opening a business right next door, and he hasn't seen any traffic.
33:32
SPEAKER_25: Got here about 6:30 this morning, and there was uh the sign in the window.
33:36
SPEAKER_25: I just kind of thought to myself, there goes the neighborhood.
33:38
SPEAKER_23: When we took to the streets and showed the announcement we received to people, their reaction was clear.
33:47
SPEAKER_23: I think it's ludicrous.
33:48
SPEAKER_01: Is this supposed to be a joke?
33:50
SPEAKER_23: That's turning out to be a good question, and one that's fairly difficult to answer, at least at this point.
33:55
SPEAKER_23: Yes, there's a two-door storefront.
33:57
SPEAKER_23: And yes, inside, there's a chart that lists some names that appear to be some kind of campaign structure, but none of those names are listed in the phone book.
34:05
SPEAKER_23: So we're left with a storefront, a press release, and a phone number.
34:09
SPEAKER_23: What happens when you call that?
34:10
SPEAKER_03: We say if we've been unable to return your calls, but the overwhelming response from the media volunteers and contributors has kept us very busy.
34:17
SPEAKER_23: Doesn't look busy, but even so, most campaigns are never too busy to answer calls from the media, especially one just trying to get off the ground.
34:26
SPEAKER_23: Matt Evans worked with Packwood.
34:27
SPEAKER_23: He says if it's a joke, it's a fabric.
34:30
SPEAKER_23: My God.
34:31
SPEAKER_25: Um how sick are some people?
34:33
SPEAKER_25: Don't they have better things to do with their time than that?
34:35
SPEAKER_23: If it's not a joke, then the Packwood write-in campaign's getting off to a very quiet start.
34:41
SPEAKER_23: In Portland, Jeremy Diesel, Channel 2 News.
34:44
SPEAKER_10: So, what does the former senator have to say about all of this?
34:46
SPEAKER_10: Channel 2 has contacted Packwood today in his Washington, D.C.
34:50
SPEAKER_10: office.
34:50
SPEAKER_10: The former senator told us he didn't know anything about the alleged write-in campaign.
34:54
SPEAKER_10: Packwood says he appreciates any support, but he's not running and discourages any kind of campaign on his behalf.
35:03
SPEAKER_18: Landed in the 10 o'clock news inbox?
35:05
SPEAKER_18: Well, we sat up and took notice.
35:07
SPEAKER_18: And then Jim Hyde wants this investigation.
35:13
SPEAKER_11: Say what?
35:14
SPEAKER_11: A packwood campaign headquarters?
35:16
SPEAKER_11: You're not serious.
35:18
SPEAKER_11: But this fax to the news media this morning listed this address on Eastbirdside and the phone number.
35:44
SPEAKER_11: Contacted today in Washington, D.C.
35:46
SPEAKER_11: to a former aide here in Portland.
35:47
SPEAKER_11: Packwood said he hadn't heard about the writing campaign.
35:50
SPEAKER_11: He's not a candidate, and thanks, but no thanks.
35:53
SPEAKER_11: Further investigation turned up Scott Atherton of Northeast Portland, who said he had set the facts.
36:10
SPEAKER_11: The professional looking signs in the window should have been the first clue.
36:14
SPEAKER_11: Why are you doing this?
36:16
SPEAKER_13: It's a uh great eight publicity stand for Northwest Science Center.
36:24
SPEAKER_11: Unless, of course, uh Packwood campaign gets there first.
36:28
SPEAKER_11: Nope, the aide says Mr.
36:29
SPEAKER_11: Packwood's DC consulting business is doing well.
36:32
SPEAKER_11: But if Packwood were to call the campaign, hopefully he has a good sense of humor.
36:36
SPEAKER_11: Jim Hyde, Oregon's News 12.
36:38
SPEAKER_17: Television and radio stations were facts to press release about the effort.
36:42
SPEAKER_17: But late last night, a local sign company admitted it was all a PR stunt.
36:47
SPEAKER_17: They wanted to prove the impact of using signs, and from the response they got, it appears they did exactly that.
36:53
SPEAKER_05: As it turns out, it was all a big joke.
36:54
SPEAKER_05: A new retail sign shop confessed to trying the experiment to prove the impact of signage.
37:00
SPEAKER_21: It's safe to say that it worked.
37:04
SPEAKER_21: That's a crazy story.
37:08
SPEAKER_21: But you know, the fact that it got that much traction and that much interest tells you something, I guess.
37:13
SPEAKER_21: Um just a little the we're not done with the series.
37:18
SPEAKER_21: Um I thought it would be interesting to let you hear Bob Packwood.
37:23
SPEAKER_21: Um both a speech from early in his career, one uh and uh uh from after his career was over and and the insight that he brings to government.
37:34
SPEAKER_21: And then I uh you'll hear me talk about this in one, but we're gonna we're gonna have let you hear, because throughout our Bob Dole series, we've we've been using his oral history uh in segments doing to do with whatever subject we were on.
37:49
SPEAKER_21: We're gonna present Bob Packwood's oral history on Bob Dole in its entirety, uh, because it's the best oral history I've ever heard as long as I've been doing this show.
37:59
SPEAKER_21: And that that should tell you something, because I've been on been on there six years.
38:02
SPEAKER_21: I've listened to a lot of oral histories, and he's that interesting.
38:06
SPEAKER_21: And uh so, like I said, it's a lot of great sadness at a man that talented to have his career blow up the way it did, but he is very a very good interview, extremely good interview.
38:19
SPEAKER_21: And so we're gonna we're gonna let you hear him speak, and we're going to have his oral history for you to enjoy all about Bob Dole and his insights about Bob Dole and the U.S.
38:29
SPEAKER_21: Senate.
38:30
SPEAKER_21: Plus, we have a special show coming up because I uh was a briefly a reporter for two years with the Lander Forum newspaper, and uh I had I did you know little stories because I was I was a mass communications major, but I started a column called Politically Speaking, and the first column that I wrote had to do with this scandal.
38:52
SPEAKER_21: That's why I have so much material on it, because uh I was the chairman of the College of Republicans and and I was had become the mass communications major, and the professor there thought ought to ask me to write something about this, uh sort of a Republican viewpoint, a a defense of Bob Packwood, which I did.
39:11
SPEAKER_21: And that began my column politically speaking, and we're gonna try to bring that back to Substack, uh, politically speaking with Randall Wallace.
39:19
SPEAKER_21: And so um, and I ran that column from September of 1995 through my graduation in May of 1996, which was through the South Carolina primary uh for for uh the presidency and the Senate primary that involved Strom Thurman and Harold Worley and um some of those campaigns that were going on in Greenwood and across the state.
39:45
SPEAKER_21: Um they were in June.
39:46
SPEAKER_21: I graduated in May, um, which I said so one of my columns was an endorsement of Senator Thurman.
39:51
SPEAKER_21: I'm gonna, as we go through this process in our season on the campaign, I'm gonna bring out those those old columns and let you hear them.
39:59
SPEAKER_21: Plus, we're gonna start them back on Substack.
40:02
SPEAKER_21: So politically speaking, we'll be back in business um as we move forward into our next season on 1996 and the Campaign of a Lifetime and Bob Dole.
40:14
SPEAKER_21: But we've still got a few special shows on Bob Packwood, and uh we hope you'll join us for those.
40:20
SPEAKER_07: Now what has gone wrong?
40:23
SPEAKER_07: Well, one, when I went into politics almost half a century ago, and even to a lesser degree when Larry started, most voters in Oregon were Republican or Democrat.
40:34
SPEAKER_07: When I first went into politics, 98 percent of the voters were either R or D, and two percent was everything else, socialists, communists, whatever whatever parties there were.
40:44
SPEAKER_07: So you had moderates in both parties that were inclined to tamper the nominees that were picked in both parties.
40:54
SPEAKER_07: Today you have almost a third of the voters registered as independent.
40:57
SPEAKER_07: They can't vote in the primary.
40:59
SPEAKER_07: Now, what would cause a person to leave his party and yet not join the other party?
41:08
SPEAKER_07: Unless he is so mad at his party but he doesn't really like the other party that he's willing to leave his party and give up his vote in the primary.
41:17
SPEAKER_07: Well, that is what has happened to both parties, Republican and Democrat.
41:22
SPEAKER_07: So who does that leave you in the party?
41:27
SPEAKER_07: More and more it leaves you the extremes in both parties who are inclined to have a stronger hand in picking the nominee because the moderates have left the party and have become independent.
41:40
SPEAKER_07: And uh more and uh more often than not you get zealots who are nominated.
41:46
SPEAKER_07: The worst part about zealots is they have no sense of humor.
41:49
SPEAKER_07: They are they are absolutely convinced they are right.
41:57
SPEAKER_07: And if you don't agree with them, you are wrong, or dumb, or corrupt, or probably all three.
42:03
SPEAKER_07: But there's no conceivable way that you could disagree with the zealot's position without being wrong.
42:09
SPEAKER_07: And therefore the possibility of negotiating compromises gets tougher.
42:15
SPEAKER_07: Now, what could you do in Oregon to stop it?
42:17
SPEAKER_07: Here at least be my suggestions.
42:19
SPEAKER_07: One let the parties open up their primaries to independence.
42:24
SPEAKER_07: They can do it by party rule if they want.
42:26
SPEAKER_07: It doesn't require a statute.
42:27
SPEAKER_07: I mean neither party can do it.
42:29
SPEAKER_07: Neither party will do it because the zealots in each party don't want their primary tainted by people that are not registered in the party.
42:39
SPEAKER_07: So that's your first hurdle.
42:41
SPEAKER_07: Secondly, if you can't open that up, go to nonpartisan elections, as we do with most municipal elections and and many uh county commission m most of the elections in Oregon are actually nonpartisan.
42:51
SPEAKER_07: Now, are there people who are Republican and Democrat?
42:53
SPEAKER_07: Yes.
42:55
SPEAKER_07: But does R or D appear on the ballot?
42:57
SPEAKER_07: No.
42:58
SPEAKER_07: And it's amazing.
42:59
SPEAKER_07: We see them govern our cities and governor counties, and we get along for better or for worse, somehow without quite the bitterness that you see uh in partisan forums.
43:08
SPEAKER_07: Now, does everybody on the Eugene City Council like each other, love each other, hug each other?
43:12
SPEAKER_07: No.
43:15
SPEAKER_07: Are they reasonably civil publicly?
43:19
SPEAKER_07: Reasonably.
43:21
SPEAKER_07: Uh yes, reasonably.
43:23
SPEAKER_07: But much more so than if it was uh Republican, Democrat, a Republican socialist, a Republican whatever, communist, whoever.
43:32
SPEAKER_07: Go to nonpartisan elections, and I realize what's going to happen in districts that are heavily Democrats, the top two people in the primary may be two Democrats.
43:42
SPEAKER_07: But at least you'd in a general election would have a uh a choice between two, and you could pick the one that you thought was uh the more centrist.
43:49
SPEAKER_07: You'd have districts that are so Republican that the two nominees would probably be Republican unless somebody got fifty percent of the vote in the primary, in which case they get the election.
43:57
SPEAKER_07: But the same way it works now.
44:00
SPEAKER_07: But until we come to something like that, I think you're gonna see this rather than this.
44:06
SPEAKER_07: And now again, I want to emphasize who's gonna oppose it.
44:10
SPEAKER_07: If you try to go to a nonpartisan primary, both political parties will oppose it.
44:16
SPEAKER_07: Most of the so-called special interest organizations, although I I hate that term because it's always used as a pejorative by somebody who doesn't like the other side.
44:26
SPEAKER_07: But there are more special the American Nursing Association, special interest groups, sure, American Student Association, sure, uh National Association of Coffeehouse Makers, yes, they're all special interests.
44:38
SPEAKER_07: They all have an interest.
44:39
SPEAKER_07: That doesn't mean they're terrible.
44:40
SPEAKER_07: They just have a unique interest because of their business.
44:44
SPEAKER_07: But the special interest organizations that have tremendous clout in primaries, Republican and Democrat, being able to nominate people that will support their special interest are not going to want to make this change either.
44:56
SPEAKER_07: Because they lose the capacity to have a in my mind inordinate influence on a primary election.
45:04
SPEAKER_07: So, ladies and gentlemen, that's it.
45:06
SPEAKER_07: We can get back to bipartisanship.
45:08
SPEAKER_07: But it would be a lot easier to get back to it if we had some kind of system of elections that allowed moderates in both parties a chance to be nominated, and then if you had moderates and both parties be nominated, my hunch would be you would see a lot of compromises achieved that at the moment are impossible to achieve because of this bitter division.
45:31
SPEAKER_07: Thank you very much.