SALEM – After a week of wondering whether congressional candidate Mike Erickson (R-Lake Oswego) would appear at a candidate forum in Salem, he and the five other candidates talked policy and addressed voter concerns at the Salem City Club Friday.

Organizers did not find out until the night before that Erickson would attend, but in the end it was each of OR-5’s congressional candidates, Erickson, State Sen. Kurt Schrader (D-Canby), Sean Bates (I-Salem), Doug Patterson (Constitution Party), Alex Polikoff (Pacific Green Party), and Steve Milligan (Libertarian), had a chance to tell the 150 people gathered what they would do if elected to congress.

Topics ranged from health care, to energy, to education, with each candidate having two minutes to tell the audience where they stood on the issue and what they would do.

Schrader told the audience of his hope to end the Iraq War in order to free up money to make their lives better at home. He told the crowd that he worked hard on the state level to improve alternative energy policy and education, and these were the exact same problems that needed to be fixed in Washington D.C.

“As your state senator, I was co-chair of the Ways and Means committee, and we emphasized education,” Schrader said. “The federal government only pays 19 percent of education costs. They only got there thanks to Darlene Hooley. But the Pell Grant program is anemic. Where’s the federal government, where’s money for the program? It’s in Iraq, it’s with Halliburton.”

It was also a chance for third-party candidates to be heard, and while many of them acknowledged that the race was realistically between Schrader and Erickson, one candidate, had a request of the two major-party candidates.

“Kurt, Mike, whichever of you goes to Washington D.C., I hope one of you turns this system around,” said Milligan, who, as a city council member in Monmouth, is the only other candidate in the race with political experience. “Right now, only people with campaign funding or with money get to serve. But there are others of us that are qualified. It’s not fair. Kurt and I should be the top two candidates on the ticket because we have experience, but I don’t have the money.”

While the format of the debate did not allow the candidates to go head to head, there were a couple tense moments when candidates used their time at the microphone to address other candidates personally. One such event occurred at the end of the debate, when Erickson took the opportunity to address Schrader’s energy policy head on.

“I believe in alternative energies,” Erickson said. “But we need short term solutions with alternative energies, and long-term solutions with drilling. Now I do believe the quality of the drilling technology is safer; we haven’t had an oil spill in 30 years. But Kurt Schrader voted against offshore drilling as a state senator. So he’s already said no to offshore drilling. I am going to say yes to offshore drilling, and doing it safely.”

The debate ended there, without an opportunity for Schrader to respond. Salem City Club president Bradd Swank then bid the candidates good luck, and let them know that they got their message out to constituents that were definitely paying attention.

“Let me remind the candidates of one thing,” Swank said. “These people vote. And they talk to people. Lots of people. This is what Oregon politics is all about.”