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 to 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 press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon (Les AuCoin), as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as 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.  I could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf.  The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie.  And it is where you want to be on a golf course.

If I was former Oregon senator Betsy Johnson running as an independent for governor, I would relish reading a story in this week’s Wall Street Journal.

Under this headline – “Beware, party bosses, the rise of the ‘unaffiliateds’ is coming for you” – here is what it said:

“In recent years, Gallup has found in poll after poll that, by big margins, more Americans consider themselves Independents than Republicans or Democrats.  Last month, 40 per cent of Americans identified as Independents; 28 per cent as Republicans, and 30 per cent as Democrats.”

Similar trends are occurring in Oregon.

Here, Johnson has mounted an aggressive campaign to connect with voters – whether Republican, Democrat, or Independent.  Running as an independent herself, she will go directly into the general election without having to go through a primary.

And, given the unpredictable state of politics in Oregon, it might not only be independent voters who choose to cast ballots for Johnson.

It could be the only time in recent history that an independent candidate actually has a chance to ascend to the state’s top political job.  Usually, such candidates play spoiler roles in the race.  Not Johnson.

In the Wall Street Journal article on the growth of independent voters, the author, Tony Woodlief, wrote this:

“The decennial battle over shaping 7,194 congressional and state legislative districts across the United States is drawing to a close.  I hope the politicians involved in this ritual enjoyed it, because 10 years from now, if present trends continue, they’re going to have a much harder time using map-drawing software to pick their voters instead of just letting voters pick their politicians.

“The assumption that most voters are faithful adherents of Team Red or Team Blue drives redistricting, just as it fuels the media’s constant refrain that the nation is bitterly divided.  But subscribing to that view requires ignoring or soft-pedaling the reality that Americans are steadily shifting away from partisan affiliations.”

Some analysts, however, say that independents are closet partisans, citing nationwide election-year surveys showing that most independents say they “lean” toward one major party or the other.  But that’s true in part because pollsters insist that they choose a side.

Woodlief adds:  “Come Election Day, most independents do vote for the candidates of the party they were leaning toward, which skeptics treat as proof of their secret, enduring loyalty.  But following individual voters across multiple elections reveals that independents lean toward a single party with far less consistency and fervor than even the weakest of Democrats and Republicans.

“Imagine this:  Real choices. What all this means is that common-sense candidates with the stomach to enter the fray, knock on doors and raise enough small-dollar donations to garner name recognition, even in a media environment that favors partisan spitball fights, have a real chance of attracting independent voters. The party bosses are sitting atop dying brands.  In the long run, no amount of map-drawing machinations can save them.”

For Johnson in the Oregon governor’s race, the challenge is to appeal statewide on the basis of the image she crafted over more than 20 years in the Legislature.  At the Capitol, she went both ways.  She was a Democrat, but often voted with Republicans.

The tendency showed her independent spirit, as well as an ability to find what I call the “smart middle,” regardless of what the two parties thought or advocated.

It is what has endeared her to many citizens interested in a different kind of governor’s race.

For Johnson, the statistics below indicate the challenge and the opportunity.

Non-affiliated voters have exploded in number since the Oregon’s Motor Voter law went into effect in January 2016.  In the month prior, December 2015, there were 825,282 registered Democrats, 642,552 Republicans, 527,302 nonaffiliated voters, and 2,169,258 voters total.

So, in the past six years, Oregon has added nearly 800,000 new voters, almost 500,000 of whom are not registered with any party.

In the spirit of full disclosure, I dealt with Johnson a lot when I worked as a lobbyist at the Capitol.  I found her to be a breath of fresh air regardless of whether the clients I represented agreed with her or not.

She would say what she thought, sometimes in a gruff, earthy manner, but always with respect for anyone who happened to disagree with her.

So far, even without a primary election, she is carving out a reputation as a credible candidate, if only from the standpoint of how much money she has raised.  In that category, she leads the entire field of Republican and Democrat candidates.

Along the way, she has attracted high-profile support from such Oregon business leaders as Phil Knight from Nike and Tim Boyle from Columbia Sportswear.

That, alone, won’t bring her victory next November.  But it is one reason why a credible analyst told me this about her campaign:  It is possible she could win – not probable, but possible.

For now, that’s all an independent gubernatorial candidate could hope for.