Who Wants to Run for Congress???

L'Etat c'est moi

Day Four:  A week without you-know.   The political world is currently a reaction to that central force of energy.  His gaffs, his tweets, his travel, his accusations, his appointments, his investigations are the centerpiece of the political world.   He is the center around which everything circles, at the national level anyway.   He is the Sun King, Louis XIV, in his own mind the absolute monarch, the force of creation, the nation embodied by himself.

Let's avert our eyes for a week.   

This is a Casting Call.  This is a request for Volunteers.

Who wants to run for Congress?  Yes, a Democrat can win this time.

If you are thinking about running for Congress in Oregon's 2nd Congressional District, please let me know.   I am attempting to pull together a list of declared candidates plus people who are "considering it."

Here is the problem.  You can be the solution, if you play it right.

There is an idea out there that Walden is unbeatable.  It is a Republican district.  Actually, it is a district with a huge block of Un-Affiliated voters, but with more Republicans than Democrats.   The most cursory look at a map tells the story: The Second District is rural and it is the one Oregon district that is in the "Mountain West."   City-people vote for Democrats; Rural-people vote for Republicans.  Simple.

Maybe not.   Every ten or twenty years there is a "wave election."  There is something in the political mood that changes everything.   The year 1974 was one such election.  Watergate was in the news, Republican loyalists in safe districts were in trouble, the Republican brand was weak.   A popular moderate Republican--John Dellenback--lost his seat to a liberal populist Democrat--Jim Weaver, right here in Southern Oregon.  It happened like that all across America.   Richard Nixon swept the country in 1972 but two years later the pendulum swung back, in a wave election.

In 2008 Republicans were blamed for the financial crisis.   Obama won big, even carrying Indiana.  Democrats passed, barely, the ACA.  There was a popular rebellion and the House of Representatives swept bright red Republican, another wave election, away from Obama.  

The stars are lining up against Walden.   The divisions within the GOP created a tone of disappointment with the Republican brand.   Walden has been in Congress ten terms and would be running for the eleventh term,  and he is forced by his senior Committee Chairmanship at Energy and Commerce to have voted the party line on Trumpcare.  Walden was a loyalist Republican at exactly the wrong time for him.

Walden looks weak and tired.  He is subject to criticism that is both accurate and plausible: he stopped doing what made him popular--genial bipartisan cooperation--and became a party loyalist, part of Ryan's team, the team that passed a bill that hurts his District.  Time for new blood.

Walden used to be pretty moderate.  Then he became a party leader.

Will he lose?   I believe it depends in large part on the Democratic opposition.  On you.  The nature of his opponent will help determine what the issues are. There are several candidate archetypes that would match up well against Walden.   

David vs. Goliath.  I posited in an earlier blog that an ideal person would look like a real farmer: a person in work clothes versus the DC city slicker.  In this matchup it would be a rural populist versus the congressman with all the campaign contributions from health insurers.  It would be the honest truth-telling little guy versus the big shot.  The issue would be representation and fidelity to the district, with Trumpcare being the symbol of where Walden failed us by showing his true colors.  (Note that Walden's success in climbing the Party leadership pole becomes Walden's problem, not the sign of his success.)

New vs. Old.   There is room for a bright fresh-face candidate.  The issue here would emphasize that Walden has been in Congress for ten terms and as he got senior in leadership he became captured by the special interests he so successfully raised money from.  (Note that Walden's seniority and experience becomes Walden's problem, not the sign of his success.)

New Ideas vs. Same-Old.   There is room for a candidate who advances a very specific policy idea that Walden has not.   The more general theme is that Walden had his turn, that he is more interested in party leadership than in aggressive ideas for his District.  The idea might be dramatic development of solar arrays in Eastern Oregon.  Another idea is intentional tax incentives for rural-redevelopment.  In either case, the candidate complains that while Walden was busy working to kick tens of thousands of people in his district off Medicaid to please Paul Ryan, someone ought to have been working for something real, like  factories in Bend and Klamath Falls.

White Hat vs. Black Hat.  This would be a candidate who presents as someone somewhat urban and professional in bearing.   The matchup would not attempt to out-rural Walden; instead it would note that being in Congress is a professional occupation.   An attorney from Bend or Medford or Ashland could do this.   Here, the candidate offers a straight-up Democratic alternative to Walden.  The case would be that Walden has been sucked into the DC special interest swamp and that the Democratic candidate understands the DC environment but has remained clean.  Good guy vs. the guy who, sadly, fell from grace.  

Health Care professional vs. Politician.   In this matchup someone with an expert knowledge of health care becomes a candidate aroused by the flagrant injustice and mean-spiritedness of Trumpcare.  It is righteous indignation at the damage caused the District by Walden's having sold out to Paul Ryan and the millionaires wanting tax cuts.  The physical or nurse or public health official or hospital administrator ideally would wear a physician smock throughout the campaign, making this a contest between a caregiver vs. a politician.

Notice to potential candidates.  Yes, you probably have a couple of dozen policies in which you have formed opinions: college tuition, natural gas pipeline, timber harvest, arming the Kurds, tariffs with China, taxation of dividends and capital gains, PERS reform, salaries paid to former presidents.    These matter very little.   What matters is how you fit into a matchup with Greg Walden that is understandable at first glance.   If you are running, for example, as the Health Care professional vs. the politician then you need not be "rural".   You don't need to look like a farmer.  You need to look like a nurse or physician.  You can be from Medford or Ashland.   You only need to look like a farmer if the matchup is between rural-you vs. city-slicker Walden.

There are lots of matchups.  Your biography and situation will help define how you frame the issues.

Who is interested in running?   Let me know here, please.   If you know names of people please send them to me.