I was fairly new to Oregon when I picked my candidate for President and started looking for ways to get involved in the 2020 campaign.
Over the course of a long life, I had occasionally dived into the political deep end before. But I'd been younger then.
I was only 27 when I volunteered for John Warner's first run for the Senate in 1978. By good fortune, I became an insider in that effort, which gave me a chance to get to know that remarkable man - and to escort his remarkable wife, Elizabeth Taylor, to a few public events.
In Gary Hart's 2004 presidential campaign - the one without the blonde - I played a strategic role at the Virginia Democratic Convention and stepped in at the last minute to preside over the successful Hart caucus.
Mark Warner's 2001 gubernatorial campaign introduced me to marathon door-to-door campaigning, a skill I'll be using again this year.
And I suppose I'll add Howard Dean's presidential campaign, too. Though I really only did a week of hard work for Dean, that was in Manchester, New Hampshire - the fulfillment of a lifelong dream of playing a role in the Granite State's first-in-the-nation primary.
But those experiences seem to have been from another age. It had been four decades since I made the sort of effort that followed my decision to join Elizabeth Warren's all-volunteer Oregon campaign. From that effort, I learned a great deal about my new home state and its politics in five months of fairly intensive travel.
To be candid, Warren hadn't been my first choice to topple Donald Trump. I had initially favored Al Franken, who was - yes, I'll say it - cancelled.
But Warren proved an excellent choice for me. While I disagreed with many of her plans, long experience has taught me not to pay too much attention to what presidential candidates say they'll do in office. That sort of analysis might work for down-ballot offices, but the Presidency presents challenges beyond the capacity of mortal man or woman to imagine. Until you've taken a seat behind that desk, you simply can't know what you'll learn, what events will come at you, what choices you'll have to make.
As a lifelong student and longtime teacher of history, I've come to look for the personal qualities that have, in the past, made for presidential greatness: vision; imagination; the ability to listen; wisdom; intellectual curiosity; the ability to build a team and use it well; great moral courage; a high energy level; ruthlessness; the ability to learn and grow.
That last one, especially.
Only one President in our history was suited to the job when he took the oath of office. The Constitutional Convention of 1787 had drawn up Article II with George Washington in mind, and the Presidency fit him like a glove. Every president since has had to grow into it. Those who didn't grow enough have gone down in history as failures.
Campaigning for Elizabeth Warren quickly exposed me to one harsh reality of Oregon politics - the domination of the state by one great metropolis and two smaller cities - Portland, Salem and Eugene - and by one party, the Democrats. I quickly learned that the Warren campaign's strategy focused on seven counties along the upper I-5 corridor. Oregon's other 29 counties - including mine (beautiful Clatsop) - "didn't count".
I wasn't entirely shocked. My native Virginia is usually dominated by blue urban areas - the suhurbs of Washington, DC (NoVA); Richmond; and the seven cities of Tidewater. But in Virginia, the red rural and small town areas are sufficiently populous that they can occasionally overwhelm the Democrats' urban strongholds. Indeed, that happened last November.
In Oregon, the imbalance is on an entirely different order of magnitude. I had heard of secessionist movements in the East, and walkouts by Republican legislators - but I'd always assumed the worst about those involved. Now, I began to understand. In Oregon, unless you live in the Portand metro area, Salem or Eugene, you're not in charge of your own destiny. And if you're not a Democrat, you're just along for the ride.
People tend to resent things like that.
This realization did not cause me to rethink my commitment to Elizabeth Warren. The folks involved in her campaign were fine people. They were simply playing the game the way it's played in today's Oregon.
But, not being from one of the seven counties that count - and being a volunteer - I wasn't required to play the game their way. If Elizabeth Warren won the nomination, and went on to become President, she would be President of all Americans - not just those whose votes counted in a primary strategy.
So I persuaded a small cadre of the PDX crowd to join me in a 36-County Project - an effort to find Warren chairs in every county in Oregon. Over the next few months, I visited Democratic meetings in Clatsop, Tillamook, Columbia, Hood River, Wasco, Yamhill, and Jackson counties. Other road warriors took our message eastward as far as Union County - and we persuaded the national campaign to send us telephone lists of registered Democrats in distant counties, so we could attempt to recruit leaders without making so many long drives.
I also helped our team set up a table at the biennial Democratic Summit at Sunriver - the only presidential campaign to do so. We met Democrats from all over the state, recruited new local leaders, and handed out nice, quickly-made buttons honoring Congressman Elijah Cummings, who had died two days before the Summit.
As a result of our efforts, by the time Warren's national campaign began to falter, the 36-County Project had found effective leaders in some 22 of Oregon's 36 counties - including counties as remote from Portland as Harney and Coos.
The 36-County Project was, for me, a true introduction to my new home state. I met people and learned things I could never have encountered in the quiet, privileged enclave of Cannon Beach.
This spring, as I begin my campaign for the Oregon House of Representatives, the lessons of the 36-County Project remain with me. My perception of Oregon is of a state dominated by one great metropolis, two allied cities, and a single political party. And I certainly relate to the sense that many Oregonians - in most of the 36 counties - have of being unrepresented in halls of their own legislature.
This year, I'm running as a non-party candidate - my natural position for a pragmatic centrist in a polarized, two-party world. My campaign will necessarily focus on the one issue that motivated me to run - the climate crisis, and the failure of the two-party system to address that crisis. But that failure strikes me that as symptomatic of the polarized red-blue division in our state and nation.
And that division - so long as it persists - will present an almost insurmountable obstacle to developing the sort of civic dialogue and united effort required to save our planet from the worse impacts of planetary heating.
This year, I have made myself this promise: During my campaign fir the Oregon House, I will present a plan to reform the way in which Oregonians elect members of that house. This plan - while it would be innovative in the United States - has been time-tested abroad. It is based on a model political scientists term parallel voting, and its great advantage is that it would assure that virtually every Oregonian - no matter where they live - will end up voting for someone who goes to Salem - and who speaks for both their political views and their region.
In the next week, I'll post an outline of this plan. I hope you'll check back, read the plan, and think it over.
Your feedback will be most welcome.
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