Where Portland goes, Oregon follows: in the case of vaccinations, that's good.
Most of the time Medford resents Portland. Today, Southern Oregon should be grateful for the Portland-area's high rate of vaccinations.
Peter Sage is a former Jackson County Commissioner and retired Financial Advisor. He operates a small farm and writes a political blog daily: https://petersage.substack.com
Portland is big, we are small. Portland is dense, we are spread out. Portland has the headquarters; we have the branches. Portland is liberal and Democratic. Medford is conservative and leans Republican. On statewide issues, Portland outvotes Medford. Portland gets its way; Medford deals with the consequences.
Medford has a tradition of local pride in this one-sided rivalry. Eighty years ago, Medford-area politicians flirted with a renegade movement to split off from the upstate population center and join the State of Jefferson movement.
Some people in Southern Oregon and Northern California staged a temporary blockade on Highway 99 to draw attention to the supposed neglect of downstate Oregon and the upper realms of California, and certainly being outvoted, in our respective state capitols. The movement fizzled when its big inauguration event coincided with the death of its chief promoter and the attack on Pearl Harbor.
My first childhood consciousness of Medford's rivalry with Portland came in the 1959-60 school year. Portland's Jefferson High School football team had a 34-game winning streak, led by Terry Baker, who later won the Heisman Trophy, and Mel Renfro, later an all-pro NFL cornerback. Our family joined caravans of cars driving up to Portland's Municipal Stadium to watch the state championship game. Medford High won 7-6. Medford then went on to win the state basketball championship and state baseball championship. It was Medford athletics' finest hour and year, and it became an enduring part of Medford's sense of identity. We could punch above our weight. We could take on Portland and win.
Portland resentment is in the air Medford residents breathe. It doesn't need to be explained or argued. Portland is the big bully and they will push us around—because they can. That sense of local victimization is available on the political shelf, to be used when necessary. It saved my brief political career.
I was a Jackson County Commissioner during the 1982 recession when the Federal Reserve worked to end inflation expectations by raising interest rates into the high teens. Building stopped. Timber harvests stopped. Jackson County's general fund income collapsed since it came almost entirely from receipts from federal timber sales. We suddenly needed to lay off half of county employees. The public was furious about closed parks and libraries and slow service generally. County employees started a recall campaign against me, the complaint being that I was "out of touch" with what local people wanted, i.e. services we could not afford.
While recall petitions circulated, the county learned that the powers that be in the State of Oregon—people in Portland, Salem, somewhere up north—had purchased an option to buy several hundred acres of land to site a state prison on county land just outside Medford. It was the first anyone here had heard of it. I had my opportunity to stand up for Medford against the big, bad bullies upstate—the familiar complaint. I rushed to the TV cameras and said, "Eugene and Corvallis get universities, Salem gets the Capitol, and Portland gets all the money, and the people upstate tell us that we get a big state prison to contend with. No way." Local citizens loved it. I got fan mail and phone calls of congratulations. I was in touch with my constituents after all. The recall fizzled.
Medford residents grouse about the big Multnomah County vote, as if it is somehow odd and unfair that a county of 830,000 should have more political power than a county of 223,000. We hear the comment a lot: "Portland gets what Portland wants." It is true that in the statewide vote Democrat Kate Brown soundly defeated Knute Buehler 934,000 votes to 815,000—a margin of 119,000. The results in Multnomah County were 279,000 to 84,000, a margin of 195,000 in favor of Brown. Knute Buehler won the state, except for Multnomah County, but of course it is ridiculous to say "except for Multnomah County." They are Oregonians, too. But so is Medford, and Jackson County voted 51 percent for Buehler.
We are in this together, and Portland gets what Portland wants.
The disturbances in Portland and Governor Brown's COVID policies both exacerbated the downstate people's sense of alienation from Portland. Whatever nuances people in Portland might feel about policing the rock-throwing, arson, and looting taking place by people hiding within protests are largely lost on people here. The continued violence seemed incomprehensible to people I spoke with, including people like myself who vote Democratic and generally support Kate Brown.
A much larger percentage of people here in Southern Oregon are "vaccine hesitant," and oppose wearing masks and observing social distancing rules. More people here watch Fox. A majority of voters here voted for Trump. What’s true of support for national policies trickles down to the equivalent local policies. The County Commissioners here lobbied for fewer restrictions. I hear it commonly among local residents, including health care workers in close contact with dozens of people a day: They don't think COVID is very serious, they don't think masks do any good, they don't think the COVID vaccines are safe, and they resent a Democratic governor from upstate Portland metro telling them what to do. It is yet another iteration of the Big Dog pushing us around.
(I think those stances are out of line with science, with society’s needs, and even with shared community values such as respect for others. I am thrilled to be vaccinated. But these are some of my fellow Medford residents, and I report what I see and hear.)
That attitude shows up in vaccination rates that are below the statewide average in Jackson County. The low rates—barely 50% of eligible people—mean Jackson County businesses remain under more COVID restrictions than are businesses in the Portland metro area. The price of COVID denial and resistance for Medford residents is more regulation, not less, and we are way behind the curve to meet the 65% county threshold that would drop us into a less restrictive category. Happily for Jackson County, the state as a whole will likely meet the goal of 70% vaccination for vaccine-eligible people. This is because of the very high margin in Portland metro compliance. We ride on their coattails. They will save us from ourselves.
They outvoted us, like always. This time, Medford should thank them.
Southern Oregon’s most prolific partisan pundit weighs in with more useless chatter. One might have thought all that money would have bought an education. Evidently not.