Ha Ha!

It turns out that paying income taxes in New York, and registering to vote in New York, and living in New York, and summering in Oregon does not qualify you to run for governor in the Beaver State, so Nick Kristof will not be on the ballot:

Democratic gubernatorial hopeful Nick Kristof does not meet Oregon’s residency requirement to qualify to run for governor, Secretary of State Shemia Fagan announced Thursday morning.

Kristof grew up in rural Oregon, has owned property in the state for decades and returned to Oregon nearly every summer while working as a New York Times columnist in New York and abroad. He attested that he’s been a resident of Oregon long enough to run for its highest office.

In ruling he has not, elections officials in Fagan’s office focused on Kristof’s record of voting in New York state as recently as the 2020 general election. But they said their case was bolstered by his decision to maintain his New York drivers license through December 2020 and to continue paying New York income taxes well past the November 2019 deadline for a 2022 gubernatorial candidate to establish residency in Oregon.

In an OP/ED page that is legion for the the self-important pseudo intellectual arrogance of its regulars, (Dowd, Friedman, Brooks, Douthat, Stephens, Weiss, etc.) Kristof's sanctimony stood out.

………

Kristof can appeal the secretary of state’s decision to a circuit court and he said in a press conference Thursday afternoon that he plans to do so.

“We’re going to continue campaigning for governor and we’re going to win that, too,” Kristof said.

Of course he is, because he's a self-entitled ass.

………

Political observers expected Kristof would face pushback from entities including the secretary of state and others who might challenge his residency in court, even if the secretary of state had determined he qualified as a resident and could run for governor. Oregon’s constitution requires candidates to be a resident of the state for at least three years prior to the election in which they are running. “No person except a citizen of the United States, shall be eligible to the office of governor, nor shall any person be eligible to that office who shall not have attained the age of thirty years, and who shall not have been three years next preceding his election, a resident within this state,” the Constitution states.

Kristof has raised a lot of money, largely because he has been afflicting the afflicted and comforting the comfortable as a New York Times columnist, which means that a lot of money bags types, most of them who are from not Oregon, love him.

I hope that this ruling sticks.