Candidate, Oregon State Senate, District 3, 2026

Candidate, Secretary of State, State of Oregon, 2024

Candidate, United States House of Representatives, Oregon, District 2, 2016, 2018

Candidate, Alaska State House of Representatives, District 31, 2002

No caucus information on file.

Former Live-in Tutor, Rochester Better Chance

Contract Administrator, British Petroleum Exploration Incorporated, 2012-2013

Contracts Advisor, British Petroleum Exploration Incorporated, 2010-2011

Contracts Superintendent, British Petroleum Exploration Incorporated, 2006-2010

Senior Contracts Engineer, British Petroleum Exploration Incorporated, 1997-2006

Senior Attorney, Anchorage Telephone Utility, 1992-1997

Assistant Municipal Attorney, Municipality of Anchorage, 1983-1997

Teacher, University of North Dakota School of Business and Accounting, 1981-1982

Specialist 4th, United States Army, 1972-1973

Board memberr, Greensprings Rural Fire Department, 2015-2016

Reason for Seeking Public Office:

Hi. I am Jim Crary and I am running for the U.S. Congress, in Oregon's Second Congressional District, as a Democrat.

In my 25+ years of drafting and negotiating contracts I learned that:

1. If two parties want to reach a deal they can;

2. One party can, if they are strong enough, force a bad deal upon the other party;

3. The one-sided, strong arm approach is not a recipe for long term success;

4. Unless a deal is basically fair to both parties and unless both parties get something valuable out of the deal, short term gains for the stronger party often turn into long term problems;

5. In the best (i.e. most successful) deals neither side will get 100% of what they want but both parties must get something of value.

My contracting experience and perspective is what is lacking in Washington and that is what I want to change.

In addition to my experience and perspective I see that too often "politicians" do not give voters straight, unambiguous answers to questions. Rather than giving straight, unambiguous answers "politicians" give what I call a "Dodge-ball" answer. That is they "dodge, duck, dip, dive and dodge" the question and instead segue into some canned spiel that neither answers the question nor commits them to anything. "Politicians" give "Dodge-ball" non-answers not only because voters accept them but because "politicians" know that if they were to give a straight, unambiguous answers they are going to alienate a large percentage of voters.

In my campaign I am going to:

Treat you as an intelligent, thinking person;
Listen to you when you tell me what issues are important to you;
Not talk in broad meaningless platitudes (e.g. "I want to cut government waste" (but never identify exactly where I would cut)) but instead lay out exactly what I want to do and how I want to do it (please see "Issues and Positions");
Not give "Dodgeball" answers to your questions and instead give you straight answers to your questions;
Run an "issues and ideas" campaign rather than your typical negative "tear down the other candidate" campaign;
Solicit your vote not your money.
Obviously, by adopting these non-"politician" actions I am giving my opponent(s) plenty of ammunition with which to attack me. My hope is that you, the voters, will ask my opponent(s) the same questions that you ask me and then compare and contrast his/her/their answers to mine. If you do that, we can change things in D.C.. If, on the other hand, you do not compare and contrast my answers to his/hers/theirs; and just accept their continued "Politic/Dodgeball" non-answers to your questions, D.C. will remain the partisan morass it is.

So, I hope you will:

· Take the time to ask us all questions;

· Then compare and contrast our answers; and

· Then vote for whoever, on the whole, best reflects what is important to you.