brooklyn bridge at night

A Governor Truly Tightens His Belt

SALEM, Ore., April 27 — He swore off beer, had to put the pricey organic bananas back on the supermarket shelf and squeezed four meals out of a single chicken, all in the name of reducing hunger. And this is not even an election year.

Gov. Theodore R. Kulongoski's decision to live on $3 a day in grocery money for a week, as he had been urged to do in an Oregon "food stamp challenge," could confound the surest cynic. At 66, he was just elected to his second term, with a budget surplus surpassing $1 billion and a legislature controlled by his fellow Democrats. So just what was there to gain politically?