Betsy Johnson has a machine gun

Yesterday's campaign fiasco in Portlandia has drawn much attention to gubernatorial hopeful Betsy Johnson's appalling position on gun control – a stance that was going to doom her candidacy sooner or later, but who knew it would kill it before it's even June?

An alert reader who rummages around a lot on the internet found this fascinating 2013 story from the Astorian newspaper. Johnson was in a school in the tiny burg of Jewell talking to the children of some of her constituents. And early on in the session, some interesting things were revealed:

"Sen. Johnson, what is your opinion on the gun control issue?" asked Thomas Meehan, a junior high student at Jewell.

"Oh Thomas, you've asked the question of this legislative session. Let me answer it in a kind of odd way. I am the only member of my caucus that belongs to the NRA. I'm a Class 3 holder which means that I can legally possess a machine gun and actually have one. So I take the Second Amendment pretty seriously," said Johnson, who left several students with their mouths wide open....

 Meehan said that his mom likes to hunt and has a rifle.

"Some of my colleagues would have the government come into her house and take away her guns," said Johnson. "They hate guns that much. The rest of us – many of the rest of us – respect the right, I believe offered in the Constitution, for law-abiding citizens to possess weapons. And so that is where the debate is going to be. I'm going to come down on the side of protecting your mother's Second Amendment rights. But it is going to be a nasty, personal, contentious issue," Johnson said.

Barring a miracle, she's done. If I had to call it now, I'd say it will be something like 47 percent for Kotek, 28 for Drazan, 25 for Johnson. The assassins at Willamette Weed can take the summer off. There's no need to paint Betsy as a wacko. Her machine gun ownership says it all.