After installing two big union bosses as right hands in his front office, now Governor Kulongoski has paid back another political promise by installing Patty Wentz, a former Willamette Week reporter and mouthpiece of all things waaaay left of center,as his official spokeswoman for Governor Kulongoski while Anna Richter Taylor is on maternity leave. Read it here and here.
Among the issues Wentz and her union backed group “Our Oregon” were involved with this past legislative session:

• “Predatory” lending practices which put out of business dozens of pay day loan companies which loaned money to people who can’t get bank loans. Where do poor people go to borrow money now? (Patty Wentz probably will set up a loan business with the state tax money.)
• The “Healthy Kids” plan which would have imposed an 85 cent tax on every pack of cigarettes to “fund” universal health care for kids whose parents earn more than 80K a year. By funding we mean less than half of this money grab dole would have been used to fund the universal health care plan.
  
• The subprime mortgage market felt Wentz’s wrath. She sought to make individual mortgage lenders personally responsible for customers who couldn’t make their payments—for 3 years.

There’s much more. Just call her Patty “redistributionism” Wentz.