For parents interested in the protection of their children from child sex trafficking, with their concerns about the Oregon public schools and the teachers’ unions, parents may be interested in the breaking news that Nicholas Kristof, a two-time Pulitzer Prize winning journalist with the New York Times, is considering running for governor of Oregon. Parents might want to make a summer reading program out of reading his books. Who is he really?

In 2013 Kristof was named an International Freedom Conductor by the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center for his work exposing human trafficking and linking it to modern slavery.

In a 2021 New York Times essay, Kristof wrote he favors education reform more than teachers’ unions do, although he expressed some of the best states with good public schools were because of their teachers’ unions. Given that Oregon has one of the worst public-school systems in the nation, how will Kristof speak to that in Oregon?

Kristof who is a self-described Progressive, citizens will want to look at who he associates with and what he writes about which can be illuminating as to whether Oregon citizens might consider him to be a good or not good choice for all the citizens of Oregon. Will Kristof bring his international human trafficking journalistic investigation skills to Portland, Oregon? That would be a story worth following.

Kristof’s newest book Tightrope: Americans Reaching for Hope had one reviewer commenting,

“In short, one has one very good book powerfully evoking the lives of the desperate poor together with a boring book of rather tired and banal policy recommendations that could be pulled verbatim from the Democratic 2020 platform.”

With President Obama’s book, The Audacity of Hope, and Bill Clinton’s video The Man from Hope, some may see Kristof’s book as a kind of strategy for a bigger office as sthe repeat pattern is recognizable as the usual Democratic pattern of the use of hope.

Given that some of Kristof’s focus, his work, his books coincide with President Donald J. Trump’s executive orders and work on child sex trafficking, human trafficking, the working class, and illegal immigration it will be interesting to see how the Democratic National Central Committee reacts to Kristof “considering” a run for governor in Oregon.

Nicholas grew up on a sheep and Cherry farm in Yamhill, Oregon and has been back in Oregon for a few years. Their farm is now a vineyard.

With 38% of Oregonians registered as non-affiliated for voting purposes will the major and minor political parties and candidates do anything different next year to draw those voters to their candidates? Or will the usual playbooks be brought out and repeated?


--Margo Logan

Post Date: 2021-07-20 20:46:43

Last Update: 2021-07-20 21:31:26