Saxton: more suckage than a Hoover Deluxe

Yesterday's Steve Duin column offered Oregonians an enlightening picture of GOP goobernatorial hopeful Ron Saxton.

In a nutshell: he's either a hard assed, hard core, rabid American Taliban style conservative trying to wrap himself as a moderate or he's a moderate trying very desperately to shake some hardcore conservative groove thing in the faces of the GOP base.

Duin seems to think its a move to boost Ben Westlund:

But I no longer believe Saxton is counting on that base or, once he survives the primary, a midsummer veer toward the political center. What he's counting on is that 38 percent of the vote may be enough in a general election in which independent Ben Westlund will run with more passion, more purpose and more progressive ideas than the Democratic incumbent.

Duin could be right. But why would Saxton fall on his sword to help Westlund? Is it just an "anybody but the Democrats" sort of thing?