Kroger Speaks to Young Professionals Club

John Kroger, who’s running for the Democratic nomination for State Attorney General, addressed an intimate group of about fifty Thursday night and engaged in a brief Q&A session.

Kroger, a professor at Lewis and Clark Law School and a former federal prosecutor, praised current Attorney General Hardy Myers, who announced this summer he would not be seeking reelection after almost twelve years as Oregon’s top law enforcement official. In announcing his decision, Myers, now 68, cited his age and a belief that the Justice Department can benefit from fresh leadership.

Kroger did however, highlight some key philosophical distinctions between himself and Myers, and suggested he would pursue a broader approach to the position.

“Hardy is really focused on being a lawyer for the state boards and state agencies, and while that’s a core function of the office, I think the Attorney General should be doing much more than that,” Kroger said. “If I’m elected, I’ll devote much more attention to the litigation power of the state – we’ll go after polluters, and companies that rip off consumers in a much more aggressive fashion.”

Kroger also described his top priorities as pursuing environmental enforcement- which met with audible sounds of approval from the crowd- and using the bully pulpit of the AG’s office to push for a greater emphasis on drug treatment as opposed to simple incarceration.

“I’m a former narcotics prosecutor, and I prosecuted the mafia, Enron, and drug trafficking organizations, and I like locking people up if they break the law, but the reality is, we won’t make any progress on something like the meth problem in the state, unless we offer access to serious drug treatment,” he said.

Kroger’s opponent in the May primary is State Rep. Greg Macpherson, who enjoys the support of Gov. Ted Kulongoski, former Gov. Barbara Roberts, and Rep. Darlene Hooley, who, to date, is the only member of the congressional delegation to endorse a candidate.

But Kroger, who is running as an outsider, said he feels his campaign is steadily gathering momentum, and pointed to the support of former Gov. John Kitzhaber, the majority of Portland City Council members, and various other District Attorneys and law enforcement officials as evidence.

Still, he acknowledged that fundraising was a central challenge for the campaign.

“We’ve done all the sorts of things we’ve needed to do over the past two or three months to get the campaign off the ground, but if we don’t raise a whole lot of money, I’m gonna lose – it’s that simple, because a huge percentage of Oregonians will know nothing about the race, and when they finally do start paying attention, it well revolve around whatever they see on TV,” Kroger said. “So I can win if I’m outspent a little bit, but I can’t win if I’m crushed financially.”

So far, the Republicans have not publicly announced a candidate for Attorney General, but Oregon Republican Party spokeswoman, Brianne Hyder, said that the Republicans prefer to work with the candidates behind closed doors initially, in an effort to avoid what she characterized as intra-party turmoil seen among the Democrats. Hyder did say, however, that the party would unveil their choice in the coming weeks.

“We like to do things a bit differently, and manage our candidates internally before we put forward our best candidate, but we have things in the works, and when the time is right, we’ll release the name,” she said.