PERSPECTIVE FROM THE 19^TH HOLE: This is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus use an image from my favorite sport, golf. Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all of my professional positions, including as a Congressional press secretary in Washington, D.C., an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and a private sector lobbyist. This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.

It’s always risky to make – or, in this case, to post – election impressions hard upon seeing the final results. But, for me, from my post in the cheap seats, there is not really much risk, if only because a few people will care what I think about the 2018 mid-term election.

So, here in the spirit of retired late night show host David Letterman, is my Top 10 List from an Oregon perspective:

1. Democrats ran in the table in Oregon. They’ll be in charge nearly everywhere except, again, for most parts of rural Oregon.
2. Democrat Kate Brown easily won over Republican challenger, Knute Buehler, preserving a decades-long tradition of Ds in the governor’s office. In recent elections, quality Republican candidates such as Ron Saxton and Chris Dudley couldn’t the job done. This time, another credible candidate, Buehler, lost. Early reports indicate that Brown won only a handful of counties, but won by large enough margins in Multnomah and Lane Counties, plus Portland, to pull off the victory.

[The last Republican to hold the governor’s chair was the late Victor Atiyeh who found a way to campaign and govern from the middle. I had the privilege of working with and for him for several years. It’s been 35 years since a Republican held the governor’s office.]

3. To win, Brown had to overcome challenges to her ability to take the lead on major state issues, including K-12 education and homelessness. She did. Plus, she raised a lot of money to offset huge donations to Buehler from Nike CEO Phil Knight.
4. Super-majorities in the Oregon House and Oregon Senate will allow Democrats to work their will on tax increases, with the only buffer being that such increases could be initiated to the ballot.
5. The D inclination to raise taxes gained additional traction when a ballot measure — #104 – went down to a clear defeat. It would have increased the number of issues subject to the three-fifths majority vote requirement.
6. Totals for Democrats, as they usually operate from the left of center, illustrate that Oregonians appear again to support big government and the potential for more government.
7. Oregon’s congressional delegation will remain the same, which is not necessarily a surprise, though both Representative Greg Walden, R-Oregon, and Representative Peter DeFazio, D-Oregon, had to fend off challenges – Walden from the left and DeFazio from the right.
8. One of the congressional winners in Oregon was Representative Kurt Schrader, D-Oregon, which is good news for me for two reasons: (1) I know Schrader well from my days lobbying when he served in the legislature and he always conducted himself with courtesy and distinction, and (2) he is a Member of Congress who hews toward the middle on issues, which is often where the best solutions lie.
9. I usually refrain from the business of attributing election victories to a certain categories – urban women, vocal suburban interests, conservative men – because those labels ignore the differences between and among members of those groups. But, in Oregon, in the demography vs. geography debate, at least one fact is again clear: There are two Oregons – an urban area and a rural Oregon. Folks who live in those areas don’t think like those from the other area, nor do they vote like it. That’s why, again, almost all of those who represent rural Oregon in the Legislature will be Republicans. Almost all of those who represent urban Oregon will be Democrats.
10. So, did what happen in Oregon last night constitute a repudiation of President Donald Trump, given his bombastic character and tendency not to tell the truth about much of anything? No surprise here. The answer is yes. But we knew that going in. A majority of Oregonians have opposed Trump all along and, while Trump was not an issue in most election races here, he would have lost had he been on the ballot.

For me, one of the main questions in the aftermath of any election is this: Will those who campaigned find a way to govern?

In their thoughtful article, the “Mindsets of Political Compromise,” two authors (Amy Guttman from the University of Pennsylvania, and Dennis Thompson from Harvard University) say the likely answer is no.

“The increasing incursion of campaigning into governing – the ‘permanent campaign’ – encourages political attitudes and arguments that make compromise difficult…The resistance to democratic compromise is anchored in what we call an uncompromising mindset, a cluster of attitudes and arguments that encourage standing on principle and mistrusting opponents.”

Further, my view is that the very nature of campaigning these days – calling your opponent vile names and criticizing every proposal from the other side as not worth the time of day – is beyond what we used to call “campaigning.”

The character makes it even more difficult to find common ground in the business of governing.