Steve Duin: Where's Walden? Between a rock and a hard place

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Lining up in the rain to hear Rep. Greg Walden at his April 12 town hall in Hood River

(Steve Duin)

HOOD RIVER - When Rep. Greg Walden finally came home to face the music in the Gorge in mid-April, the raucous, restless chorus was clear:

You're better than this, Greg.

In the crowd of 800 at Hood River Middle School were cherry growers, nurses, dental technicians, neighbors, retirees and family friends.  Each time they begged their congressman to fight with them, to stand for something, you could hear their incredulous, unnerving alarm.

They miss the old Walden. The one who wasn't so comfortable with stupidity. The one who didn't abide demeaning and dehumanizing slander about immigrants.

The one who could bring voters together without trying to sell them on the precious notion that he doesn't have the time to challenge the fragile, misbegotten ego in the White House.

"I have spoken out," Walden insists, "but I'll tell you where I can play a more important role: being in the room."

As if this preening president has ever taken serious note of Greg Walden in the shadows.

Donald Trump surely was the elephant in the energized rooms when Walden finally ventured out to the most moderate edge of his district.

He arrived with the Boy Scouts, the usual slides about his achievements, the familiar blue blazer and cliches about border security and his support for the military.

It all felt stiff and mannered and awkward until Walden defended Trump's April 7 missile strike on Syria, then added, "I think North Korea is probably the most dangerous place on the planet, because you have a leader who is unpredictable."

The laughter that rumbled through the auditorium was both therapeutic and emboldening. While these voters miss the old Greg Walden, they recognized another Republican without a trace of irony.

Over the course of two hours, Walden framed the box in which he finds himself after 18 years in Congress. He acknowledged that, yes, he did "help write" the American Health Care Act that would have stripped coverage from more than 64,000 residents of his district by 2026.

He's no fan of the Paris climate accords, fretting what they "cost American taxpayers." He supports the Keystone and Dakota pipelines because "I'd rather have our fuel in pipelines than rail cars." He doesn't support an independent commission investigating Russian ties to the Trump administration during the 2016 election.

The Senate can deal with that inquiry in a bipartisan fashion, Walden reasons, while he keeps his head down, and his West Wing hall pass warm, in the House.

That aloof caution frustrated many in the Gorge. Walden so often returned to border security and the need to "properly evaluate" the refugees fleeing Sarin gas and civil war in Syria that a voter rose to say, "I'm tired of the fear-mongering. I don't fear my neighbors to the south. I don't fear my neighbors to the north. Nor do I fear Syrian refugees."

Yet Trump was the cattle prod that usually brought the crowd to its feet, if only to ask why the Greg Walden they used to know remains so silent or complicit.

Well, Walden finally allowed, Trump didn't score well in Hood River, but the reality-TV star carried every other county in his district.

And what, after all, has really changed since Nov. 8?

To his credit, Walden answered questions for two hours. He was doggedly calm amid the catcalls. He stood in against the curve.

But he imparted no sense of urgency. He couldn't name a disaster, beyond taxpayer fatigue, that would inspire him to react on climate change. Beyond his opposition to the Muslim ban, he sees no reason to break from the madding crowd.

I get it. In Trump's shadow, loyalty tests are the rage. One act of resistance, and Greg loses the illusion of access. If he's cast as an anti-Trump Republican, he reasons, he can't succeed as a tepid Walden Republican.

He's caught between "a rock and a hard place."

You'd think an Oregon Republican has never been there before.

"Any honest politician would have to admit to the ambition and ego that motivate his or her journey in public life," the late Sen. Mark Hatfield wrote 40 years ago in the book with that phrase stamped on its spine.

"How rare, though, to see a politician truly jeopardize his or her political career because of a commitment to principle."

The courage, say, to confront a president, be that Richard Nixon or Donald Trump. To oppose the commander-in-chief's passion for strategic weapons. To vote against his nominees to the Supreme Court. To make a lonely break with his party, as Hatfield did in 1995 to kill the balanced budget amendment.

Hatfield, of course, was better than the ugliness of the times. He didn't shill for the White House. Unlike Greg Walden, he understood that the real challenge he faced was not the next town hall or the next election, but the stern judgment of history.

-- Steve Duin

stephen.b.duin@gmail.com

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