VIDEO: Oregon GOP Primary Escalates from “Bickering” to “Street Fight” and “War”

While Oregon’s Republican primary for governor has long been a contentious and ugly race to the right, candidate Sam Carpenter recently amped up the conflict even more. While speaking with the Benton County Republican Women, Carpenter told his fellow candidates “I’m not bickering with you guys anymore,” and labeled the GOP primary contest “a street fight,” and “war.”
“Whichever far-right candidate manages to survive this ’street fight’ of a primary will head into the general election bloodied and with a fractured base,” said DGA Press Secretary Melissa Miller. “Oregonians want a governor who’s focused on fighting for the people and small businesses of their state, not one who cares only about fighting their political rivals in a brutally extreme partisan battle.”
Video of Carpenter discussing this internecine GOP war is available HERE and a transcript of his comments is below:
“So we’re gonna do this a little differently. You all know what the problems are, you all know what the solutions are. You’ve been listening to it for months and months. I’m pretty tired of talking about it aren’t you? No? Ok. We all know what the problems are and we all know the solutions. Let’s talk about how we are going to get it done. I want to thank Jack Tacy for endorsing me today. This is a war, this is a street fight. We Republicans are all so nice all the time. And that’s why we’re where we are. Gun rights, abortion, immigration. Go on down the line. That’s why we’re here. It’s a street fight. And we can all be very nice about it. I want to show you something. We’ve got 6 scientific polls, I’ve got a copy for you. You guys just for the sake of argument let’s just assume these are correct, ok? Knute Buehler, right now 39%, Sam Carpenter 24%, Greg Wooldridge 11, Bruce Cuff 3, you’re 2, We didn’t do you Dave cause you were zero last time, sorry. I’m not bickering with you guys anymore. There’s some weird stuff going on out there.”

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