Former local talk show host Starrett to run for governor

Mary Starrett, a former talk show host who recently helped start an anti-abortion group, says she plans to run for governor as the nominee of the conservative Constitution Party.

Starrett, 51, told The Oregonian newspaper Tuesday that she will seek the party’s nomination when it holds a convention in Lake Oswego on Saturday.

If Starrett wins the nomination, she would be the only anti-abortion candidate in the race. Gov. Ted Kulongoski, a Democrat, and Republican challenger Ron Saxton support a woman’s right to choose. Saxton, however, has said he would back some limits on the procedure, such as parental notification.

The Constitution Party did not field a candidate in the 2002 governor’s race because it did not want to draw votes from Kevin Mannix, the Republican candidate that year who shares the Constitution Party’s opposition to abortion.

That isn’t a concern this year.

“If the Republicans were doing their job, I wouldn’t be doing this,” Starrett told the paper.

Starrett hosted a morning talk show on a Portland television station for more than a decade and later had a talk show on a Portland-based Christian radio station.

She recently helped start an anti-abortion group called Oregonians for Life. That group has accused Oregon Right to Life – the state’s largest organization opposing abortion – of being too willing to compromise.

Bob Ekstrom, the chairman of the state Constitution Party, has said the party would field a well-known candidate in this year’s election. He has yet to announce that it will be Starrett.

Ekstrom said the chosen candidate will make opposition to abortion a central campaign theme.

The Constitution Party platform also stresses limited government and an official role for religion in public life.