Prediction: Walden to resign

Greg Walden will resign from Congress to become a lobbyist. He would be great at it. 

It's a prediction. Watch for it.

Greg Walden has climbed high up the slippery pole of congressional success.  He succeeded Bob Smith in a district widely considered "Safe Republican." He put in the work and paid his dues as Chair for four years of the Republican National Republican Congressional Committee, making him the 5th most senior Republican in the House. 

Pathway to his Committee Chairmanship

He was rewarded with the Chairmanship of the Energy and Commerce Committee, a plum assignment at the committee handling legislation to repeal and replace Obamacare. It is in the center of health care, energy, and telecommunication legislation.

He had the respect accorded to people with power. A word or two or a tiny carve-out in legislative language can mean billions of dollars one way or another for a company, and what happens in committee is largely invisible. The result is that Walden received hundreds of thousands of dollars in political contributions from the industries the committee oversaw.  

The election just changed things for Walden.

He is no longer Chair of anything. Republicans lost their majority. This is a huge come-down. Instead of being addressed as Mr. Chairman he is the one saying it. 

You can go back, but it feels lousy. 

Gerrymandered district.

Mid-term wins for Democrats in Governorships and state legislatures portend an end to the aggressive gerrymandering. Republican victories in the 2010 election allowed drawing District boundaries such that the Cook Political Report estimated that Democrats nationwide needed to win 57% of the Congressional vote to win a majority of House seats. That is likely over. 

Another is that his safe seat isn't so safe. Or pleasant.  Walden had gotten accustomed to winning with 70% of the vote. He would hold town meetings and be greeted with well-wishers. That ended eighteen months ago with efforts to end the Affordable Care Act. Unhappy crowds showed up at public events, so now he slips into town and meets with hand-picked groups, privately.

Walden won with 56% of the vote. This isn't "safe Republican," territory. It is "lean Republican" territory. He narrowly won Jackson County with 51% of the vote and lost Deschutes county with 49% of the vote. Those are the two largest and fastest growing counties in his District, representing 193,000 of the District's 360,000 votes. Now the population and media centers of his District are hostile territory--filled with unhappy constituents. It is still a Republican District, but less so. His home county was his worst county. He got 34% of the vote in Hood River.

He isn't popular the way he used to be. That has got to hurt.

His last town meeting, April 2017, and an auditorium of protest 

Plus, another big unknown: re-districting. Oregon will gain another congressional seat, and each current District will lose about 150,000 in population, as those shift to a new district. Walden's Hood River home is in exurban Portland, and it would be a reasonable place to move out of the District into a new one, which would put his home in a Democratic area. Life became more complicated.

A better future for Walden: broadcast lobbyist  Voters see Greg Walden in his in-District costume as a comfortable, casual, approachable Mr. Nice Guy. There is another Greg Walden, the man of sophistication and power who deals with fellow legislators and the representatives of powerful business interests, the one seen in DC but not at home.

He would fit in comfortably on K Street and he could associate with a firm there and be very happy. There is a ready-made job waiting for him. Gordan Smith, the former Oregon US Senator, has been head of the National Association of Broadcasters since 2009. Smith is 66. Walden is a long time broadcaster. Walden would be a natural for that job. What an improvement over being a former chair in the minority party. No hiding from crowds in Ashland or Bend. No trying to explain that yes, he voted to end protection for pre-existing conditions but that actually he favors protection for them. 

Walden is at home here.

What a drag.

Instead, he would be spending his time with pleasant people of the kind Walden was very comfortable with, people with legislative agendas who write giant checks to help elect Republicans--his kind of people. Good people. Smart people. People who see things his way.

Time to move on.

When will this happen? Sometime during this term of office. It just makes sense.





Note regarding Comments.  They are back.  Let me give a warning to readers: An anonymous commenter is writing once again in the style of Curt Ankerberg. These comments are typically vulgar, and currently they are iterations of the theme of what is imagined to be my sexual incapacity, i.e. "limp dick." Ankerberg recently lost yet another election. This blog wrote repeatedly warning voters about Ankerberg.