Ron - I am not smearing anyone. The whole process is a matter of public record. Here's how it works.

1. Somebody with a lot of financial clout and a political agenda comes to a state like Oregon from some place else.
2. The last few times I've seen in happen, they have been promoting an agenda to cut taxes, severely, like Grover Norquist, though it wasn't him who was here.
3. They hire signature gatherers to collect signatures on the petitions. Recently, Oregon passed a law mandating that they cannot pay the gatherers on a "per signature basis" like they used to, but they still pay them.
4. Along with the petition to cut taxes, they will have a petition that will target one of these other issues: (a) gay marriage, (b) abortion, (c) prayer in the school--that will extend to nativity scenes at Christmas and etc. (c)teaching creationism as science (d) the right to display the 10 commandments on public buildings. And I think there are a few others.
5. When I go down to the post office to get my mail on any given day prior to an election, these people will be out side, sitting in folding chairs behind little tables. And they will have both petitions. They will have both petitions. They will try to get everybody coming out of the post office to sign both of them.
6. Once they have enough signatures to get their issues on the ballot, you think they would go away.
7. They don't.
8. The reason they don't go away is because they want to look sincere, they want the pedestrian traffic to think they care about the issues, and they have an idea that those individual signers have something invested, and they want to remind them of that.
9. They not only want to make sure these people come to the polls, but they want to make sure they vote the proper way on each of the initiatives.

                Ron - This works. The county I live in had to close its public libraries last year. The local school district is having to combine elementry classrooms and shut down schools.

                You think I'm cynical? I really don't like these people and I wish my county had one little tiny fraction of all that money that's been wasted in Iraq.