Tawnya, now 34, recalled sitting with Erickson in his new Mercedes that January, parked across from the abortion clinic.... "I was bawling so hard I couldn't speak. He looked so sad. He looked like he cared," she said.... "I asked him, 'Are you sure you don't want a baby?' " she said. "He shook his head. I opened the door, got out bawling and crossed the street and walked up to the clinic."
As if Mike Erickson's primary campaign against Kevin Mannix wasn't nauseating enough, now comes a story in which the solidly and inflexibly anti-abortion gave a former girlfriend $300 to have an abortion in 2001. Personally, it's not the abortion that disturbs me; that's a personal choice guaranteed a woman by the Constitution. What isn't guaranteed, however, is the lying and the re-arranging of history that Erickson seems to be engaged in. It would be easy to pass off Erickson's accuser as being just another angry ex-girlfriend looking to exact a measure of revenge for perceived scorn and mistreatment. It would be except that Tawnya (she agreed to speak on condition that only her first name be used) seems to have a fair amount of evidence (and a couple witnesses) to back up her story. Upon closer examination, it would indeed seem that Mike Erickson- no one's mental giant to begin with- is in fact a liar and a hypocrite...and not even a particularly good one at that. Pleading ignorance and a faulty memory at virtually every turn, Erickson seems to think that the best defense is to play dumb in spite of the mounting evidence against him. Jeebus, this is the best that the Oregon GOP could come up with in CD5? Erickson may be a successful businessman, but if brains were dynamite, the man wouldn't be able to blow his nose.
An Oregon City woman who dated congressional candidate Mike Erickson seven years ago said she asked him directly whether he wanted to have a baby. He shook his head no, she said, and paid for her abortion.
In interviews with The Oregonian, the woman said she met Erickson in September 2000, and she had the abortion in January 2001. They saw each other afterward, she said, even going on a trip to Mexico in March, before the relationship ended.... Her story is backed up by medical and other records, and the accounts of two friends, one of whom was with her at the abortion. Their story conflicts directly with Erickson's version.
I could care less if Erickson boinked the entire Trailblazers dance team. Hey, man...good on ya...but if you're going to run for Congress on a disturbingly Conservative, anti-abortion platform, you'd best be certain that your past can withstand the scrutiny that's sure to follow. Erickson is apparently not smart enough to follow this simple advice...and what he's left with is a strategy composed entirely of lying in the present to cover up lies from the past.
It's not as if Mike Erickson is the sharpest tool in the shed to begin with. Anyone who saw any of his mind-numbingly simplistic primary ads can certainly vouch for that. When your campaign is almost wholly comprised of simplistic and bombastic sound bites designed to play on the fears of the ignorant, ill-informed, and reactionary God-fearing White Folk, you clearly have little of any value to offer to anyone who cares about issues.
I can only hope that at some point Erickson will stop with the lies, the half-truths, and the selective memory loss. If we were in Texas, I'd be feeling pretty depressed right now, because there would be a VERY good chance that Erickson would be elected to Congress in spite of his myriad ethical and moral shortcomings, though. Here in Oregon, though, Republicans would struggle in CD5 even if Erickson was the second coming of God His Own Self.
WE DESERVE BETTER than lies and hypocrisy...and it appears that for once we might just get it...if only because Mike Erickson is too stupid to be able to tell a decent lie.
