Iif you did an Oregon politics version of the celeb mag standby "the most fascinating people of the year," Ben Westlund would have to be right up there. He probably was more charismatic than anyone else who ran for governor this year, but more than that he is trying to do something new: Found a new political movement.
 Ben Westlund |
His departure last winter from the state Republican Party seemed part of the machinery of his gubernatorial bid, announced around the same time. But the governor's race is long gone, abandoned last summer, as is his neutrality in it: He wound up endorsing Democratic Governor Ted Kulongoski, which should win him some points with the second-term executive in the months and years ahead. (That could and probably will manifest in ways other than an appointment of Westlund to something or other, which the senator indicates he wouldn't want anyway.)
Equally, it likely will not with the members of his old Republican caucus. As the Bend Bulletin remarked today in a profile of Westlund's prospects, "When Westlund launched his independent campaign for governor, Senate Minority Leader Ted Ferrioli, R-John Day, said Westlund would be invited back into the Republican caucus if the campaign didn't pan out. At least for now, it appears the welcome mat is no longer out."
All of which matters now because Westlund will have to go back to work in the Senate, a Senate dominated not by independents like himself - though those ranks have been added to the addition of former Democratic Senator Avel Gordly of Portland - but by Democrats and Republicans. And he is now headed into the last half of his Senate term: In 2008, if he wants to remain in the Senate, he will have to run for re-election, in a heavily Republican district, presumably as an independent.
How all of that will go over will likely depend on what Westlund does next.