U.S. Rep. Darlene Hooley's unexpected retirement from Congress triggered a hasty dust-up among candidates eager to win her 5th District seat, but now that the dust has settled, the choice for voters is clear: Kurt Schrader is the best candidate in the race. He earns the endorsement of the Gazette-Times.

Schrader, a veterinarian and farmer from Canby, is billed as a conservative Democrat and has earned the endorsement of a number of Republicans, including state Sen. Frank Morse from Albany. (Morse actually is the co-chairman of Schrader's campaign in Benton County.)

Schrader has won praise for his legislative experience, including a stint as the co-chair of the Legislature's powerful Ways and Means Committee. He has a reputation in the Legislature as a careful shepherd of our tax money, and that experience will serve him well in Congress. He seems to be a natural successor to Hooley.

Meanwhile, the candidacy of Schrader's Republican opponent, Lake Oswego businessman Mike Erickson, has stumbled from one disaster to the next. Erickson has no experience in elected office, although he has fallen short in a number of campaigns. He has been vague about his positions on issues.

His strongest position in the campaign has been to attack Schrader for failing to pay his property taxes on time. (In fact, records show that Schrader was late on paying taxes nine times; the Oregonian reported that the amount of interest paid on the overdue bills varied from 16 cents to more than $800 from 1993 to 2003.)

Oregon's 5th District covers the northern portion of Benton County and a wide range of territory outside the county, including Marion, Polk, Lincoln and Tillamook counties, in addition to much of Clackamas County. That covers a lot of ground. Kurt Schrader is the candidate best-suited to represent the wide interests of the Oregonians in the 5th District.

ABOUT ENDORSEMENTS

A word about the Gazette-Times' endorsement process: Our endorsements, like all of the G-T's editorial positions, are meant to represent the opinion of the newspaper and not the opinion of any single person.

Members of the G-T's editorial board are Mike McInally, the paper's publisher, and Theresa Novak, the paper's city editor; Novak also coordinates the G-T's editorial page. Opinions expressed on the page are reached through consensus: If a member of the editorial board cannot agree with a certain position, the editorial page won't take that position. In the case of endorsements in contested races, if the board cannot agree on the best candidate for any particular race, we won't endorse a candidate in that race.