Terrorists are not monsters. They are losers.

Ashland Author Dean Ing sends a message.  Trump got it.

Predicted the future

Back in 1978 Ashland, Oregon author Dean Ing wrote Soft Targets, a book of uncanny prescience.  He predicted war with Islamic non state actors who would target civilians, not military targets.  The book was published right before the American embassy in Iran was overtaken and some 50 American civilians were taken as hostages.

The book predicted the near future but Dean Ing, who has a Ph.D. in communication and focused on psycholinguistics, said the solution to stop the terror was for American media to treat hostage-takers as pathetic losers, not as brave warriors.  The worst thing to do, he wrote, was to explain the monstrosity of their actions and to explain their motives.  That would turn them into heroes, warriors, fighters for a cause.

Dean Ing

No, he said, instead treat them as weaklings, comic in their pathetic struggle to be manly.

Ing predicted the upcoming struggle of the next decades--the pushback of Islamic nationalism against Western globalism.   He also predicted the tactics--disruption of life in the West with attacks by non-state actors on soft targets, i.e. civilians.

What he got partly wrong was Western media:  He did not anticipate how the 24-7 news cycle would create a demand for Breaking News, with high drama that pits frightening villains against the public. In Soft Targets he predicted the media would cooperate and adopt his prescription: trivialize and mock terrorists.  But TV stations don't cooperate.  They compete for audience.  Fear sells.  The demands of grabbing TV audience require high stakes, and vivid villains, and danger.   Masked men holding machine guns and public executions by beheadings provide the drama that holds an audience.   

The 2016 campaign displayed a partisan divide in messaging, one which the GOP won handily.  Obama and Hillary Clinton missed the public mood when they attempted to contextualize terror events.  The public read their reaction to be inadequate, and worse, as excusing terror.  They created an opportunity for all the GOP candidates to express the universal opinion of the news media, that terrorist attacks were terrible, breaking news horror in our faces.  Trump, Cruz, Rubio, Christie competed to say who would respond most "viciously,", the word Trump savored.  Rubio called it a war of civilizations, Christie called Obama weak and feckless, Cruz said the sand should glow, Trump said he would bomb them to shit.

That was then.   

Click Here for Video Clip, from RT, the Russian news outlet

Somehow, the advice Dean Ing gave 37 years ago has re-emerged with Trump.  There is no reason to suspect that Trump read Ing, or for that matter any book, but he does understand messaging.  Trump understands that terrorists want to be proud of their service, that they see themselves as warriors and martyrs.  Instead, Trump would deny them that.  Describe them as losers, as clownishly weak, as pathetic.

Trump:   "I won’t call them monsters because they would like that term. They would think that’s a great name. I will call them from now losers because that’s what they are, and we’ll have more of them. But they’re losers,"

That is pure Dean Ing, right from Soft Targets.

2015: Mixed message

Trump had been tweeting along the same lines back during the campaign but then his message was inconsistent.   A November, 2015 tweet called them "thugs and losers" which makes them both strong "thugs" and weak "losers."   But as President he has refined his message and Trump drops the "thug" and sticks with pathetic..

Terror incidents in Europe and the US have been carried out primarily by young men eager to make a grand statement.  The Boston Marathon bombing, the San Bernardino and Orlando shootings, and the 9-11 hijackings relate to Islamic radicalism but one can also include the Charleston church shooting by a white racist and Timothy McVey's militia-based Oklahoma City bombing.   Trump wants to deny them warrior status.   Instead, send a message to young people considering ISIS that they will be considered losers, not heroes.

Dean Ing has a record of close predictions.   Before the Iran hostage-taking there was Soft Targets.  Before drone airplanes were in the news there was Butcher Bird.  He predicted tiny--insect sized--weaponized drones before they became news.  These have come true.

His first books predicted nuclear war on American soil.  

Warning to Democrats: Amid Chaos, Trump Thrives

Trump is doing what he said he would do: change things

Forget Impeachment.   Worry about Re-Election.

It was the best of times.  Progressives are jubilant.  MSNBC ratings are up.  

Trump openly admitted obstructing justice on camera. Trump blurted top secret information to the Russians.  The White House is under investigation.  The FBI chief made contemporaneous notes of presidential misbehavior.  Does it get any better than this?

This is not a disaster for Trump.  Trump's base voters don't believe what they hear and they like what they see.

Remember the Trump brand. Trump represented rapid and dramatic change.  Trump was elected to shake things up, and that is what he is doing.   Democrats are thinking that President Trump must have wanted to project a tone of calm, competent executive management, in which case the events of the past week would have been a disaster, but since his brand was to shake thing up everything that is happening now confirms exactly what he voters expected.    The idea that the TV Networks and the NY Times and the constitutional fussbudgets are all upset is a positive.  Indeed, if they were happy and said that Trump had "matured" or "become presidential" that would have been the betrayal.

Trump is confirming his brand.  He is showing he didn't cave in or sell out.   It is the worst of times for progressives--unless and until he does something that actually undermines his brand.   Making nice with the Saudis is more likely to hurt him than admitting he told the FBI to stop investigating him, and Trump understands this.   The key thing to notice was not that he fired FBI Director Comey to stop the FBI's investigation of him; instead the key things is that he said it proudly and boldly on camera.

No drama

As long as Trump is popular with his base then GOP leaders in the House and Senate will mumble and avoid criticism of Trump.  It isn't their way of doing things but it is Trump's way and if the GOP voters support Trump--and they do--then Trump gets no criticism.  GOP leaders who want to represent sound government and continuity are the ones with the problem.  They represent continuity and Trump represents chaos.  

This would include Greg Walden, the congressman from my own district.   His own message is continuity and "no drama", the opposite of the Trump brand.  He is the incumbent and doesn't want the political order "shaken up."  He is in a place of power.   

So are other legislative leaders, and it is especially true of slow, mild, methodical.  Indeed, his appearance and manner are so mild that he is mocked by comedians for being  turtle-like.  

Meanwhile, Thad Guyer briefly left his political view spot in Vietnam to do a field report on conversations real people in swing state Florida.   His observations are in line with my reading of the situation.   Trump is doing fine.

“Field Report: Trump Safe with his Voters”

Trump is safe with his voters, and Republicans thus far a safe as well with their voters.  The Trump scandals have not even moved the needle with Republican voters.  On the weekend I attended a mini-class reunion for the North Miami High Class of 68, and those are my findings.

Thad Guyer

I am one of 8 to 10 who attend this guys-only annual event.  Here’s the demographic data: (1) We are all white ages 66 or 67. (2) None of us still live in Miami, but all live in the Southeast, except for me. (3) 9 with college degrees, 1 without, and only me with post-grad degree. (4) All are currently married, except me. (5) All of us are homeowners. (6) Nine still work, 7 full time and 3 part time, 1 is disabled. (7) All are online and use email. (8) Of the ten of us, all regularly vote, 7 are Republicans, 3 democrats.  (9) All 7 Republicans voted for Trump. One of the 3 Democrats did not vote in 2016, one did not vote for Hillary after Sanders lost, one voted for Hillary.  All 7 Republicans mostly watch Fox News when they want a political update.  Only 2 of us has any paid national newspaper subscription, all read unpaid news online, and only I read Breitbart or Drudge, with the other 9 being only vaguely familiar with either. (10) Eight of the 10 don’t know a single person on Obamacare. All ten of us have Medicare, all 10 buy Part B policies.

The current media firestorm on Trump scandals does not move the needle against Trump with any of the Republicans. All 10 of us think the mainstream media is unreliable, exaggerated, and has been out to get Trump from the start.  We all view the steady reporting of “new revelations” by anonymous sources to be unreliable, and the seven Republicans see it as irrelevant to any important issue facing the country.  8 of the 10 of us think that FoxNews basically has the right balance in reporting the scandal, i.e., voters should pay attention, but there is so far very little of substance there.  

None of the 7 Republicans would vote for a Democrat in the midterms, and certainly not based on Obamacare repeal, which affects none of them or anyone they know. Indeed, 8 of the 10 of us have no more interest in the 2018 midterms than in any other midterm in memory.  All 7 Republicans said they will go vote Republican as a way of supporting Trump, and 2 of the three Democrats said they may or may not vote at all.

If this group is representative of white males in the country at large, then Trump and Republicans look secure to me.  

Think Local

The Nation is me.

Day Seven, in the week without you-know-who.   For a week I have ignored that giant golden source of heat, light, and gravity.   I have pretended there is politics without our Sun King.   His speeches, his travels, his tweets, whether he stooped to accommodate the person giving him a gold medal or whether he was actually bowing in recognition of the magistracy of Islam and oil wealth, they are all the news.

The exercise was instructive.   

Conclusion:  the sun is everywhere and we cannot escape it.

Think Globally, Act Locally

College classmates James Fallows and Debra Fallows have been traveling the country looking at communities that seem to work.   The burden of their message is that amid all the problems in Washington DC, with its fake news, political gridlock, ugliness, dumbing down, and general disfunction there exists another America, one that lives at the city and county level, and that there is a lot of good going on there.

They cite the redevelopment of Fresno with a downtown art district and the re-emergence of the rustbelt Great Lake city of Erie, Pennsylvania as an employment center.   They visited Bend and admired the brew culture.

Their message is simple:  real self government in America is working.  It works at the local level, where people actually live.

And locally in my community there are good things happening: a library and Rogue Community College are re-centering the historic downtown with new activity, there is new building, new parks, and a city government that appears to work.   The work of local self government is underway.  Kids are getting educated, water and sewer systems work, city parks and county libraries are open.  People go to work and live their lives.

All quiet.

We had a local election for the offices of school boards, library district board members, transit district boards.   Turnout was minuscule: , and this in a state where elections are by mail.   One get the ballot and a voters pamphlet in the mail, one can fill it out at leisure, then mail it back in.   Easy.

One of the candidates for the Library District board announced that he didn't like or use libraries and he would use the office, if elected, to reduce costs significantly since we didn't need libraries.  He lost soundly.   Another candidate said essentially the same thing about the Transit District, saying the didn't use or appreciate the service.  He won.   A perennial  candidate for local offices said he wanted to get onto a school board so he could shake things up and cut costs dramatically.  He lost.

What does all this mean?   I consider it to mean that the general work of local government is going on without great effect from the national turmoil.  All the offices are non-partisan.  None of the fifty or so candidates in the local Voters Pamphlet mentioned national politics. 

You can escape the sun.   You just have to get down to the non-partisan level of on-the-ground self government.  The serious work of government including water out of the taps, of streets being maintained, of schools open, of police responding to 911 calls are all taking place with civic minded people volunteering to make the community better.   People disagree about what that is, but it is done without reference to the issues that are argued about on cable news.    They want government to work, and it does.

Quick and Dirty: An explanation of Blue Urban and Red Rural

L'état c'est moi

Day Six:   A week without mentioning You-Know, a week without reference to the man who is the center of gravity, heat, and light in American politics.  The one whose influence makes everyone adjust and react.   The Sun King.  Our Sun King.   

French King Louis 14th was called Louis the Great, or the Sun King.    "I am the nation," he said.  The power came from his role--King--but also because he asserted it.  The forces of constitutionalism, of checks and balances, of multiple and diverse sources of power, were not yet in place--or were in place, but did not push back.



A quick observation about urban and rural.  Some things are so obvious they are easy to overlook.

1896:  That was then.

The map of red and blue counties is startling.   I have seen examples of it dozens of time used to make the point that America is Republican.  Look, there's so much red.  The map shows the R-D vote by county, so a more careful understanding of the map is that rural America votes Republican, urban America votes Democratic.

It has not always been that way.  In the time of McKinley vs. William Jennings Bryon the voters in manufacturing states were Republican and southerners and other rural people were Democrats.

It is different now.   This is the county by county map of the 2016 election:

2016 Election, by County

City thinking/rural thinking.   I have lived in cities, but I own a farm.  There is a difference between city thinking and rural thinking, and the policies of each political party align with a point of view.

Cities put people in close proximity to one another.  If your neighbor swings a bat or plays loud music it effects your life.  In rural areas your neighbor--and you--have more elbow room and can swing a bat or make noise with less effect on others.   It is over-simple, but true:  city people tolerate regulations because they need them while rural people value freedom from regulation more.  (Democrats are aligned with environmental and labor regulations; Republicans stand up and cheer at their removal.)

Urban people need shared services including mass transit, water and sewerage systems, police systems, and they have the wealth to support high culture like symphony orchestras and universities.  Rural people are more self reliant with their own wells and septic tanks, county sheriff patrols rather than city police, and if they required living near a symphony hall they would move into town, not live outside one.  (Democrats are aligned with governmental systems, Republicans cheer "small government.")

Urban people are confronted with diversity in workplace and shared systems.  Rural people are more homogenous.  (Democrats, especially as Hillary Clinton defined the coalition, emphasized inclusion.  Republicans have become the party of traditional demographics and cultural symbols.)

Urban people live primarily indoors and they receive goods which have messy externalities. Rural people more likely earn their livings outdoors and they produce things with messy externalities.  Beef is raised on farms that have smells, trees are cut down leaving slash and stumps, energy is drilled with heavy equipment and methane leaks--all of which happens in rural areas.  It is delivered to urban supermarkets in cellophane wrapped packages, as bound stacks of plywood, and as gasoline at a pump.  Urban people don't confront the costs and reality of externalities, so they want to reduce or eliminate them, while rural people producing those goods consider their expectations unrealistic, and therefore resent them.  (Democrats want to regulate negative externalities; Republicans campaign against those externalities.)

Urban people tend to see guns as a threat.  Rural people tend to see them as a way to protect against threats.  Urban people have police close at hand while rural people do not, so they are more inclined to self-help.   (Democrats, especially Hillary Clinton after Sandy Hook murders, present themselves as the gun-regulation party; Republicans present themselves as the gun-freedom party.)

That's it.  You don't need a Ph.D. in political science or psychology.  You just need to have paid attention to the difference between city thinking and rural thinking.   KISS: Keep it simple, stupid.

Solution for a Democratic candidate for president or a rural congressional district:  complicate and interrupt the partisan lineup.   Subtle nuanced details will not suffice.  Hillary Clinton repeatedly asserted that she only wanted to regulate guns with background checks for felons and people with documented mental disease.  Details did not matter.  She was perceived as anti-gun because she said bad things about guns.   

1.  Openly and boldly say that guns are a reality in rural areas.  Say the 2nd Amendment is in the constitution, period.  Say that people who want to kill mass numbers of people can do a better job of it with a car or truck than with a gun.  You do not have to praise guns but you need to observe that your respect the reality of them.  (This will shock some people and give the candidate some news coverage as a "new kind of Democrat."  Good.)

Rural and Urban.   Foreground farmland, industrial White City and Medford in background

2.  Say that you think timber cutting is a darned good thing.  We have suppressed fires and therefore caused a grave problem.  Plus wood is a renewable resource.  (Environmentalists will protest the word "harvest" and some will support your Democratic primary opponent.  Good.  You will get some news coverage for that, too.   You would be positioned as a "realistic Democrat."  In fact, people who live and work surrounded by conifers consider them a resource, not a tree museum.  Let the environmentalists who live in adobe houses cast the first stone.)

3. Say you respect the right to farm.  Everyone says they agree with this, but you can make it a clear point of advocacy for recognition of the reality of externalities.  I live downwind from a cattle ranch.  Corn silage stinks--worse than cow manure, which also stinks.  There you have it--an inevitable externality of eating beef.  Say you understand this and support the farmer, when grown on EFU lands.  

Note that one does not need to be a rural resident to make these points.  A city person can do it.  Indeed, a city person may be able to be a more aggressive defender of rural values than a rural person because it would appear less to be an attack on people who live "in town", because you yourself do so.  What is important is the tone: it is OK to express the notion that you, too, resent city people who don't understand rural reality.

How Conservative or Liberal is my Representative?

L'état c'est moi

Day Five, in the week without you-know who.

There is one political force so big,  so newsworthy, and so central to current politics that every other political actor is working in response to him.  His tweets create defenders and opponents and serve as breaking news for the media.

This week is an experiment: to see if there is life without that central source of light, heat, and gravity.   He is the modern Sun King.  He imagines himself the one indispensable man, the person who embodies the Nation.  And because he has the self confidence to think that--and the office of president--the media and other politicians accept that premise.   They have to.

I have turned off the sun.

A website attempts to map the terrain of the ideology of Representatives and Senators.

Every now and then it is good to get a reality-fix, a way to set and adjust the calibrations.  Source:  www.govtrack.us     

Here is the direct link to the chart for Representatives and Senators:   https://www.govtrack.us/congress/members/current

It is just one source, but it is non-government, non-partisan and it attempts to put people on a scale so one can measure them against other Representatives and Senators.

Yesterday I posted the chart from this source for Greg Walden, my congressman, the Chair of the Energy and Commerce committee that was in charge of writing the Trumpcare bill.   Walden had not been a particularly conservative congressman, when compared to his Republican colleagues, as this chart confirms.   A Democrat who wants to challenge Walden can point to his presumed change from bi-partisanship, but not for having a longstanding "too conservative" voting record.  Such a charge would not be accurate, nor plausible.  This chart points to a narrative tack that a challenger would likely need to take:  Walden used to be pretty reasonable but he changed.     And his situation did change.  He became a Chairman of a powerful committee in the middle of the healthcare debate.  His responsibilities grew, from representing his District to marshaling the votes to repeal Obamacare.  A Democrat can argue that he lost his soul to power and ambition.

Greg Walden's Score

For comparison, here below is the chart for Elizabeth Warren.  Voters have some sense that she might be the most ideologically and stylistically liberal US Senator.   There is evidence for that.   People eager to see her a presidential frontrunner need to consider this chart.   If ones view is that we need a strongly liberal spokesperson, then Warren may be the right choice.   But a president needs to create a coalition of the whole country.  Perhaps it means something that in state after state people elect to the Senate people less liberal than she is.

Elizabeth Warren's Score

Elizabeth Warren scores as more liberal than Bernie Sanders.  Sanders shows as more conservative than Warren and the other Massachusetts Senator, Markey.

Bernie Sanders Score

Who is that Senator just to the left of Sanders, jammed in between the two Massachusetts Senators, the second most liberal member of the Senate?   Oregon's Jeff Merkley.   Facebook and other commentary among liberal progressive environmentalists often cite Jeff Merkley.  Some find him acceptable, some a little weaker than they would like on progressive and environmental purity.  Protesters picketed my home when he had an event here, unhappy that the was supporting a fellow Democrat in his Senate race in 2016.  Their goal was to push him leftward.   Local climate groups openly see this as the best leverage they have over representatives.   "Hold their feet to the fire".  Republicans are hopeless, they recognize,  but Democrats are moveable because they will lose to a Republican if too many Democratic voters spill off to a Green Party candidate.   It is a high risk strategy, a kind of game of chicken,  because it makes Merkley more vulnerable to a Republican who presents himself as a reasonable moderate, of the kind that just won statewide office as Secretary of State.   The strategy is to make the Democrat as environmental as possible, under threat of losing to the Republican.   And sometimes the Democrat has to lose, just to keep the threat plausible.  Every Democrat remembers the lesson of Al Gore losing Florida and the White House, with Ralph Nader getting many more votes than the margin of victory.

Jeff Merkley Score

Ron Wyden is widely condemned within environmental and progressive Facebook discussions.  He is called a miserable sellout, a traitor, a conservative no better than Republicans.   He scores very high for leadership but is just left of the center-point of national Democrats.   Wyden is loved--and condemned--for being a moderate Democrat, and the chart confirms the general sense of Wyden's politics.   Wyden wins easy victories over Republicans statewide, and even carries the 2nd Congressional District.  Wyden's electability in the rural and agricultural eastern and southern Oregon district shows that voters there do in fact vote for Democrats.  Wyden wins there; Merkley loses there.   Democrats considering challenging Greg Walden can take hope and take instruction, if they choose to.  But there is a wrinkle in the calculation: Wyden scares off strong Republican opposition; Walden is strong Republican opposition.  

Ron Wyden's Score

Trudging

A Democratic candidate for Congress needs to catch a spark of enthusiasm and desire for change that is unnecessary for Wyden.  Wyden is the continuity-candidate.   A Democrats hoping to unseat Walden needs to inspire and focus the desire for change.  The Democrat needs to embody some kind of surprise or sparkle.  Greg Walden has grabbed the niche of the quiet, no drama guy--now interrupted by the drama surrounding his Town Halls.  The challenger needs to excite people.   Indivisible may handle the heavy lifting job of making people see Walden in a new light of disappointment.  But the Democrat needs to stand for something interesting.

Walden is communicating in his Town Halls.  Life in Congress, just now anyway, is a long, hard slog.  He cannot help communicating that.  He is trying to sell a miserable, dishonest product (Trumpcare) to a skeptical audience--misery for a salesman.  But this sets the stage for the Democrat.   "Greg, you had your turn.  Time to go.  Take a rest."

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.