Scott Swanson
With Gov. Kate Brown bowing out, a proposed debate between the top gubernatorial candidates became, instead, campaign stump speeches by her chief opponents, Republican Knute Buehler and Independent Patrick Starnes, to an audience of newspaper publishers Friday, July 20.
Brown declined an invitation from the Oregon Newspaper Publishers Association to appear at its annual convention, held this year in Powell Butte.
In her absence, Buehler, a physician and current legislator from Bend, and…