Word: mccalls
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...real gem McCall's staff dreamed up, though, was a program of sending"negative greeting cards" to tourists, prospective immigrants, and anyone who contemplated moving to, or even visiting Oregon. However, the cards were only half serious--most of them emphasized the heavy rains Oregonians experience each year--and they probably backfired by actually drawing attention to the state's pristine beauty...
Before he entered politics, McCall worked as a journalist and a televison commentator in Portland, and this background may have resulted in another of his idiosyncrasies: open press relations. Long before politicians began crooning about "government under glass" and "sunshine" laws, McCall was churning out ways to let the people in on the decision-making process. He opened his staff meetings to the press for instance. (At one such public session, the governor spent half an hour deciding whether to remove one welfare recipient's telephone. He eventually solved the dilemma by taking up a collection in the room...
...McCall's administration, everything was open to the press. He got a law through the legislature that permitted press presence at any gathering at which a decision could theoretically be reached--a cocktail party, for example, or a reception where a majority of the legislature was present. Some state officials invited reporters to listen in on their phone conversations, and a few even made tapes of the calls if no reporters could be present...
Before leaving office three years ago, McCall talked of forming a "Third Force" in American Politics--outside of, yet competing against, the two party system. Whether the idea has amounted to anything, or whether it merely represented the vague ramblings of a frustrated Ralph Nade is unclear. But McCall will be speaking in Piper Auditorium on April 18 at 8 p.m., and he may throw some light on where he and his hoped-for movement are going...
Even if "Land Use Planning: A View from the West," McCall's topic, doesn't send you into paroxisms of intellectual delight, simply listening to McCall talk should be a pleasure. His speaking style is light, slangy, and occasionally outrageous. When governor he hired an avant-garde poet as a speechwriting assistant, and he once read a tract from the libretto of "Hair" to a staid group of Masons. Who know's what he'll say to a group of college students...