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 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.

Over my years working in and around government in Oregon for more than 40 years, a few facts stood out.

One of them is that the divide between urban Oregonians and rural Oregonians is real.  And it persists.

So, says a major story that appeared a few days ago in the New York Times.  It appeared under this headline and subhead:

“Oregon’s Rural-Urban Divide Sparks Talk of Secession

“Conservatives have approved a series of ballot measures in pursuit of an improbable plan to redraw the state’s border.  We spent time in the region under dispute to see what the debate says about the country’s divisions.

“We’re exploring how America defines itself one place at a time. Residents in eastern Oregon say they are tired of being ruled by more liberal parts of the state.”

The reporters, Mike Baker and Hillary Swift, produced a fascinating story – perhaps even a foreboding one – about the reality.  It is serious enough that some East Oregonians want to be part of Idaho, not Oregon.  They are not likely to get their way, but they still try, if only because of the experience of trying.

For my part, I encountered the urban-rural divide in several ways:

• When I worked as deputy director of the Oregon Economic Development Department, the issue was front and center for us.  We wish we could have helped to produce results for rural Oregon – and we did in a few cases — but it was very difficult, given limits on time, space, and transportation systems.
• When I worked as a state lobbyist, I saw the factor straight ahead as the Oregon Legislature often illustrated that its key urban leaders did not understand rural issues, or even, on occasion, didn’t care to learn about them.
• One reason was Oregon is now and has been for years led by Democrats and many rural Oregonians are Republicans.  Plus, all legislative leaders in the last years have come from urban Oregon, so rural Oregonians have felt left out or even ignored.

Here are a few excerpts from the Times story, which is worth reading in its entirety:

• Corey Cook still holds a fondness for her days living in Portland, where the downtown pubs and riverfront cherry blossoms made her proud to call the Rose City home during her 20s.  But as she started growing wary of the metro area’s congestion and liberal politics, she moved to the suburbs, then the exurbs, before heading east, eventually escaping Portland’s sphere of influence on the other side of the Cascade Mountains in 2017.  But even here, where she now runs a Christian camp amid the foothill pines overlooking the Grande Ronde Valley, she cannot help but notice how the values of western Oregon are held over the eastern part of the state by way of laws making guns less accessible and abortions more accessible.
• The broad sense of estrangement felt across rural Oregon has led conservatives in recent years to pursue a scrupulous strategy to open a theoretical escape hatch, gathering thousands of signatures for a series of ballot measures that have now passed in 11 counties.  Those measures require regular meetings to discuss the idea of secession.  In those places, including Union County, Cook’s new home, county commissioners in rooms adorned by Oregon flags and maps are now obligated to talk about whether it would one day make sense to be part of Idaho.
• The “Greater Idaho” movement joins a long history of U.S. defection struggles.  In California, for example, there have been more than 200 attempts over the years to break up the state.  Greater Idaho sees its solution as simple — a shift in an existing border that would claim the entire eastern half of Oregon without creating an entirely new state.  Despite being a political long shot, the sustained and growing interest from residents in the area and attention from politicians in Idaho have illustrated how much the state is already divided in spirit.
• Oregon’s culture and politics have long been defined by east-west, rural-urban divides, with the Cascade Mountains standing like a curtain separating two distinct halves of the state.  The western side is rainier and denser in population, home to the state’s major universities and largest employers.  The eastern side has high deserts and vast skies and a more scattered population that recognizes a decades-long decline in conservative clout.
• A Republican has not been elected governor in 40 years.  [I worked for last one and, while he has great at his job, no Republican has been able to follow him.]
• Contrasts are part of eastern Oregon’s past and present.  Here, sagebrush flatlands are corralled by mountain peaks that approach 10,000 feet high, and desert terrains get buried in winter snow.  Communities longing for the robust timber industry of decades prior also embrace the pristine forests that draw people to a growing eco-tourism economy.

Now, as for the secession movement.  It is not very likely to be successful, given all that must happen – passage in the state legislatures of both Oregon and Idaho, as well as in Congress.  Tall asks.

To some residents in eastern Oregon, however, the secession movement has been cathartic, a sort of relief valve for decades of boiling frustrations with government in a region that feels absolutely neglected by Oregon’s power structure center west of the Cascade Mountain Range.

Further, redrawing state maps would require much more than fresh cartography.  Logistical challenges grow even more thorny with each new question.  Would people in eastern Oregon be ready to embrace a sales tax from Idaho?  How would Idaho, which bans legal marijuana, manage eastern Oregon’s thriving weed industry?  How would the states transition eastern Oregon’s state government employees, with some benefits already earned, to a new retirement system with different rules and compensation?

All tough questions. 

But the reality is that they won’t need to be answered because Eastern Oregon will not become part of Idaho any time soon.

Still, all this underlines again the need for political leaders and citizens in the West to find new and effective ways to understand citizens from the East.  After all, everyone is part of Oregon today.