Westlund for State Treasurer

Ben Westlund will make a great governor. Which is why we should elect him State Treasurer.

Oh, Westlund will do a great job as treasurer, too. He knows the numbers. He likes the numbers. The fact that he is not a CPA is not a handicap. The job is a policy position, after all.

What does this have to do with Westlund as governor? In many ways Westlund is far more qualified for that role than any other, and more qualified than anyone else in state politics. He has been a state representative. He has been a state senator. And now, if we elect him, he will have been state treasurer.

To that training we add the man himself: Westlund has vision. He has heart. He had cancer and rather than retreat, he lived life even more fully: that life he chose to lead was one of public service, not sitting on an island somewhere playing golf.

While he can tell you more than you want to know about anything in government, he can also crystalize in 30 seconds the essence of complicated policy. He also has the knowledge of the game inside of the capitol building that can get things done that seem beyond reach.

Which will, when Kulongoski stops warming the chair in the governor’s office in two years, make Ben Westlund the most highly trained and qualified candidate for governor we have had in the state in a long, long time.