By editorial board • 

Read gets nod for state treasurer, Rosenbloom for attorney

Given Oregon’s pronounced Democratic dominance, the GOP has often struggled to recruit credible candidates. It has frequently been saddled with obscure or extreme standard-bearers harboring no realistic hope.

This year, the party is blessed with highly qualified contenders for governor and secretary of state. And as staunch believers in political checks and balances, we applaud that shift.

But its treasurer and attorney general hopefuls — Jeff Gudman and Daniel Crowe, respectively — fall well short. They command no more consideration that their counterparts from the Libertarian, Progressive and Pacific Green parties.

Democratic treasurer candidate Tobias Read has a credible opponent in former legislative colleague Chris Telfer.

However, after being primaried out of the Senate by her own party’s dominant right wing, this recovering Republican is running on the Independent Party of Oregon ticket. And even though the IPO shows signs of eventually becoming a viable third option, the label currently represents a prohibitive handicap in a statewide race in which both traditional parties are represented.

Read, a 40-year-old Beaverton resident, recently completed his fifth two-year term in the House. Last session, he served as speaker pro-tem and a member of Joint Ways & Means, the Legislature’s powerful pursestring committee.

A former Nike executive and one-time federal Treasury Department employee, he holds a bachelor’s from Willamette University and MBA from the University of Washington. He’s considered a prodigious fundraiser, having consistently topped $200,00 in virtually uncontested House runs, and figures to swamp the field in this race.

A licensed CPA, Telfer heads a major accounting firm in Bend, teaches accounting at Oregon State University’s new Bend campus and serves on the Bend City Council. She did her undergraduate studies at the University of Denver and graduate work at Franklin University and the University of Oregon.

She served four years in the Oregon Senate. After she lost to a more conservative primary challenger, then-Gov. John Kitzhaber named her to the state Lottery Commission, where she holds the designated CPA seat.

Telfer has solid credentials, but we give Read a narrow edge.

Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum, holder of B.A. and J.D. degrees from the University of Oregon, served previously as a private practice attorney, assistant U.S. attorney and district, circuit and appellate court judge.

She has turned in a performance deserving of re-election. We are particularly impressed with her consumer protection and public records work, and the settlement she managed to wring from Oracle in the Cover Oregon catastrophe.

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