Political Desk

Mac man files for Wu’s congressional seat

Published: March 1, 2008

Chappell: Seeks Republican bid

By DAVID BATES
Of the News-Register

A 31-year-old McMinnville man has filed to seek the Republican nomination in the First Congressional District in the May primary.

Claude William Chappell IV, who’s backing the long-shot presidential campaign of conservative Texas Congressman Ron Paul, is the first Republican to officially qualify for the ballot. Two others filed papers, but one was declared ineligible and the other hasn’t cleared the verification process yet.

Disqualified was Stephan Brodhead, a Hillsboro real estate investor. He had not maintained First District registration as a Republican the required 180 days.

Still undergoing verification is Joel Haugen, a small businessman from the Columbia County community of Scappoose.

Chappell grew up in a conservative household in the Portland area. His father worked for the telephone company and his mother worked as a nurse.

He attended public schools and a parochial school affiliated with the Seventh-day Adventist Church, then served three years in the U.S. Army.

Chappell holds a bachelor’s degree in communications from Walla Walla College. He has also taken medical coursework at Mount Hood Community College.

He spent the last seven years working as a pathologist’s assistant. The required him to travel extensively, visiting hospitals and clinics. He recently launched an Internet-based business called ProMedPulse.com, designed to provide social networking opportunities in the medical field.

Chappell said he initially gravitated to the presidential campaign of Sen. Fred Thompson of Tennessee, known for his role in a hit TV series. When Thompson’s campaign quickly fizzled, he switched to Paul, energized by the Texas congressman’s anti-war rhetoric.

“He was talking about exactly what I believed in - fiscal conservatism coupled with social liberalism,” Chappell said.

“The Republican Party once championed those values. It was once the party of smaller government, fiscal responsibility, a humble foreign policy and the absolute affirmation of individual liberties. Today, in the mire of terrorist threats and knee-jerk reactionary foreign policy, Republicans have lost their way and are losing the country.”

Paul, who ran for the presidency in 1988 as a Libertarian, is a maverick Republican whose long-shot bid for the White House has endeared him to both ends of the political spectrum. Those on the left like his opposition to the Patriot Act and Iraq War, those on the right his uncompromising and unwavering stance on illegal immigration.

Two candidates have filed for the Democratic nomination, incumbent David Wu, seeking his sixth term in the seat, and political unknown Mark Welyczko of Aloha.

The Portland Democrat claimed the seat in 1998, winning a tight race against a well-financed Republican opponent, Molly Bordonaro. He replaced fellow Democrat Elizabeth Furse.