In the fall of 1988, I was finishing up my teaching credential work at Portland State University. I was student teaching social studies classes at Sam Barlow High School in Gresham and taking a night class at PSU called “Media and Politics.”

The professor, Marko Haggard, was instructing the last class of his career while continuing on with his political commentary at Portland’s KATU television station. Add in that 1988 was the year George H.W. Bush was elected president, and my teaching assignment was to teach students about the Constitution in a political studies class, and one might conclude I was at least aware of the system.

What stuck out to me was how in one session, Prof. Haggard made a blanket statement about both politicians and members of the media. He told us how the seemingly successful people on all sides of the political spectrum understand one central theme: “The masses are asses.” He noted how politicians, for the most part, treat the public in this manner in order to get into office and subsequently keep their jobs ad infinitum.

Also discussed was how the media could influence the public (and their voting habits) by airing, or not airing, stories about politicians. The classic example to Oregonians is how The Oregonian newspaper knew of Neil Goldschmidt’s affair with a teenager while he was mayor of Portland, and for some reason did not go to the press with the story.

Imagine how politics in Oregon might now be if Norma Paulus had benefit of the citizens knowing of the affair, and became governor while Goldschmidt was sitting inside his house with a sexual predator sign out front? Fast forward to the current political climate, in which Oregon’s now fourth-term governor got re-elected, even though his girlfriend’s story was finally brought to light.

Imagine the second term of Gov. Chris Dudley. Imagine Obamacare passing Congress if the nation would have known that the architect of the law, Prof. Jonathan Gruber of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, called American voters “stupid” and helped get Obama’s signature piece of legislation passed by deceiving the nation’s populace?

Does the Haggard Theorem hold water? All I know is that I did not vote for the current governor of Oregon, or the current president of the U.S., but I did get an A in Prof. Haggard’s class.

Matt Janes

Astoria