Election year is here — again — and once we get past the January 26th election to VOTE YES ON MEASURES 66 & 67, it will be time to return to our favorite springtime political activity: primaries. Portland has one excellent, crowded City Council primary; there’s a very interesting race for Metro President (cough BobStacey); and possibly a State House in Clackamas that might catch my interest. But the biggie, of course, is the primary for the Democratic nomination for Governor. Former Secretary of State Bill Bradbury is pitted against former Governor John Kitzhaber. Both men have terrific chops, not to mention rock-solid creds with Oregon’s Democratic Party base. It’s an election the Dems won’t lose; which either one comes through should easily defeat whoever the GOP tosses out.

Both candidates have been touring the state, getting into the swing of campaigning, ramping up the website and other tools, raising money; the usual election preliminaries. But now that 2010 is starting to lose that new car smell, it’s time for the campaigns to get down to brass tacks. Kicking things off, Dr John released the first policy paper, his plan for jobs and the economy. The key word here, for this plan and his entire campaign, is “transformational”.

He means it, too.

Kitzhaber has a very simple analysis of what’s gone wrong in Oregon and why we are where we are today: We’ve been doing everything wrong. Speaking at Tuesday’s “Jobs and Economy Strategy” rollout, he threw himself under the bus as one of the purveyors of doing-it-wrongness:

I tried to manage the state of Oregon two years at a time around the biennial budget. There wasn’t any long-term plan.

I think in many cases we asked the wrong questions and we argued about the wrong things. We asked how much we spent last year rather than what do we need to invest this year in order to get the outcomes we want tomorrow? We asked how much we’re spending rather than what are the results we’re getting for those expenditures of the public resources.

Changing this wrong way of doing state business will take more than adopting a long-term budget; virtually every aspect of how the state funds, delivers and evaluates service must be challenged. Getting himself elected governor is not the answer, although I’m sure he’d consider it part of the solution:

I learned the hard way it’s not enough to change policies and policy-makers. If Oregon wants a different future and a different set of outcomes, we’ve got to change the systems through which we deliver public services.

The “Jobs and Economy” strategy (available on his website, both for web viewing and as a pdf download) is as full of enumerated lists as it is devoid of specific programmatic proposals. The latter, of course, makes sense. The collapse of the American economy between the time Obama won the Democratic nomination and then took office made many of his specific campaign proposals either obsolete, untenable or politically unviable. Kitzhaber did provide a few suggestions in his comments and the following W&A, such as thinning badly managed public forests to provide jobs, clear out undergrowth and move a biomass energy industry forward. But the primary aim of his economic strategy is not to provide policy specifics. His aim is to prepare Oregon for the big changes to come.

To that end, his first list was precisely that: What it will take to change the wrong way the state has done its business?

1. We have to have the courage to challenge assumptions and premises of many of our most cherished programs.
2. We need to be able to jettison the current state budget process, which is incapable of driving the kind of transformational change we need; and replacing it with one built on long-term, transparent, performance-based investment.
3. We need to recognize that this kind of transformation cannot take place overnight or even over the course of a single biennium. So we have to build a broad-enough base of support, outside the political process, so that we can continue to move forward towards this objective regardless of the political make-up of the Legislature and regardless of changes in the Executive branch.

The final point is straight from his work with the Archimedes Movement, his project to bring Oregonians together to rethink how Oregon and national government and politics can be done:

The mission of the Archimedes Movement is to create a new space for civic engagement outside of our traditional legislative and governance structures so that we can work on solutions to the common problems we face.

Kitzhaber’s plan addresses not just the long-term transformational changes he asserts Oregon needs, however; he also recognizes, and seeks to act on, short-term issues “to help people who are struggling with the current recession”. He does not offer anything outside of the Democratic mainstream, as noted by Jeff Mapes; but since he insists that there is no “silver bullet,” he simply asserts the obvious need to do everything possible now: provide access to capital for small businesses; promote energy efficiency to create immediate jobs, including for skilled workers, and reduce energy costs (freeing up capital); invest in transportation infrastructure (using funds provided by 2009 Legislature), which will provide immediate jobs and development for future economic growth; thinning in public forests, as noted above; and targeted employer-connected training for high-demand jobs. These are the basics that need to get done now; Kitzhaber believes these kinds of efforts are possible with current resources.

These short-term steps are not, of course, transformation; but until some of the worst effects of the current recession are ameliorated, no one is going to be interested in long-term systemic changes.

Once the state is in a position to address long-term transformations, Kitzhaber sees four areas in which Oregon can prosper: 1, Oregonians selling to the world; 2, Oregonians selling to other Oregonians (instead of buying out-of-state); 3, increasing the efficiency in how the “community sector” works so that public money is kept in Oregon and spent wisely, freeing public and private capital for other uses; and 4, taking advantage of areas in which Oregon has expertise and proven leadership.

What is essential for the success of Kitzhaber’s plan (I assume for his entire platform, not just jobs and economy) is to build the conditions for carrying-out a long-term strategy. As noted above, Kitzhaber is seeking to buld extra-political support that will not falter whatever the make-up of the Legislature, the occupant of Mahonia Manor, or the exigencies of contemporary politics. This is exciting to me because this is exactly what Candidate Obama said President Obama would need, and what Americans have, for the most part, refused to provide. If we in Oregon can demonstrate that this is possible, if we can unite not just to win an election but to carry forward a comprehensive, long-term program of change — if we can do this as citizen-activists, working with an elected leaders and not merely cogs in a campaign — we can bring about the transformation Kitzhaber calls for. We can show the rest of the nation how change is both possible and viable.

I support John Kitzhaber not because I think he is “better” than Bill Bradbury; I know Bradbury would make an excellent governor and a huge upgrade from what we currently tolerate. What sets Kitz apart is the same thing that set Howard Dean apart from the pretenders in 2003: the vision of a new political environment, one where citizens are an active, daily, normal part of the governing process. I see many other leaders in Oregon with that same vision, beginning with Jefferson Smith but including most of the “young” cohort in the Legislature: Gelser, Kahl, Bailey, Clem and others. Jesse Cornett, running for Portland City Council, is of that same group. These are all political leaders who are working to expand the pool of those who participate in political life, not to win elections but to win a new and better life for all Oregonians.

You can add your own thoughts about what you think Kitzhaber ought to do as governor as well as vote for other people’s suggestions: his “Ideas” page on the website lets you add your proposals directly (these are monitored and reviewed by both the Governor and his staff; they are taking these very seriously).

The plan on the website. And downloadable pdf.

I’m looking forward to Bradbury’s response and his own proposals; that's going to be next Wednesday morning, here in Portland. Report to follow.