The basic rubric for determining the "battleground states" for the 2004 election, according to the pundits, are close results from four years ago. Judging by various estimates, there are between 15 and 19 "swing states" that will determine the outcome of this years election; one of these is my home state, Oregon.

In the 2000 campaign, Vice President Al Gore defeated Texas Governor George W. Bush in the state of Oregon by a paltry 6,765 votes out of 1,533,968--a mere four tenths of a percentage point. Although the race was not as close as Florida or New Mexico, which were decided by a few hundred votes each, the Presidential election in the state of Oregon was just about as close as they come.

Using the aforementioned methodology, clearly Oregon should be labeled a swing state, no?

No.

Although Oregon was once the bastion of Western Republicanism--it was known as the "Vermont of the West" when Vermont was still solidly GOP also--today, the state parties are similarly unbalanced. While just a decade ago liberal Republican Senators Mark Hatfield and Bob Packwood--Chairmen of the Appropriations and Finance Committees in the 1990s, respectively--were all-powerful in the state and epitomized the rogue, bipartisanship that the state admired, today it is the Democratic party that holds all statewide elective offices (other than Sen. Gordon Smith) and four out of five House seats.

What possibly could have caused all of this change? (I recommend Robert E. Burton's Democrats of Oregon: The Pattern of Minority Politics 1900-1956 for a good historical background on the subject)

In 1988, the year Vice President George H. W. Bush won the popular vote by 7,000,000 and the Electoral College by a 426-112 margin over Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis, the Democrat garnered 50,000+ more votes than Bush the Elder. This must have seemed like quite the stunning achievement given the fact that Oregon had voted Democratic in seven of the 32 presidential elections in the state's history to that point (if you take out FDR, it was three out of 28!). Perhaps the 1988 vote was an aberration, some pundits wondered.

As history would show, this was not a freak incidence, but rather the "watershed" election that realigned the parties in the state. In each proceeding presidential campaign the state has become increasingly Democratic, voting twice for Bill Clinton and for Gore in 2000 (as noted before). As a result, it appears as though 2000--not 1988--was the anomaly for the state.

So what happened in 2000?

I'm sure the issue has been thoroughly analyzed by political scientists far wiser than me. However, the main reasons (like across the country) were Gore's lack of charisma and the Nader factor (I experienced reactions to both of these when I canvassed north Portland on election night 2000).

As a result, Gore's abnormally low results in the state should not necessarily lead people to think that Oregon is a battleground.

This is the first in a series of two articles on the race in Oregon.