03/02/2008

By JULIA SILVERMAN  / Associated Press

Lawyer Stephen Griffith is a political recruiter's dream. His resume includes Harvard, Stanford and Oxford; he's served on the Portland school board and on the board of directors for the Oregon League of Conservation Voters.

But Griffith faces a difficult challenge in his run to represent Lake Oswego and southwest Portland in the state House of Representatives. He will be running as a Republican in a year when the state party is in debt and Democrats are expected to extend their domination of Oregon politics.

Griffith and other Republicans running in swing districts say they know the odds, but rebuilding their party has to begin somewhere, so why not with them?

"It may be a troubled party now, it can be doctrinaire, but it doesn't mean it has to be that way," Griffith said. "It doesn't mean I can't try."

Republicans concede they have no chance of taking back the state Senate in 2008. They haven't even announced candidates to run against Democratic Sens. Laurie Monnes-Anderson of Gresham and Joanne Verger of Coos Bay, both of whom were assumed to be vulnerable.

As for the House, Republicans enter the election season trailing by two seats, so it's possible they could retake the chamber they lost in 2006.

The GOP lacks candidates in some key House districts. A few Republicans, however, have emerged in potentially competitive races, such as the seat held by Rep. Larry Galizio, D-Tigard, and the one being vacated by former House Speaker Karen Minnis, R-Wood Village.

And then there's Griffith. Erudite and patrician, he's a throwback to the days when moderate Republicans such as Gov. Tom McCall and Sen. Mark Hatfield were leading the party. These days, conservatives might disparagingly refer to Griffith as a "RINO," or "Republican in Name Only."

He acknowledges that he could have had an easier time if he had switched his registration and run as a Democrat, or even if he had moved to a neighboring district that's also got an open seat and a history of electing Republicans. But remaking a party, Griffith says, starts with broadening its scope.

"I'm not a very partisan person," he said. "What I would hope to bring to the political process is a little less calculation, more authenticity."

That kind of post-partisan ideal, most often voiced on the national campaign trail by Barack Obama, is echoed by John Nelsen, a Reynolds school board chair who is hoping to hang onto the seat Karen Minnis held for years, even in a district with a 9-point Democratic voter registration edge. He jokes that while it may be a difficult year to be a Republican in Oregon, it's been a difficult lifetime to be a Republican in liberal Multnomah County. And yet he's survived.

"I am really tired of the rancor between the parties," Nelsen said. "I'm setting up (get-to-know-you) coffees now, and virtually every one is at the home of a Democrat."

Choosing to run as a Republican, Nelsen said, was a vote of faith in a value system he holds dear, from small government to the power of the free market. Of Minnis, his well-known predecessor whose race in 2006 was the most expensive state House race in Oregon history, he says they have "style differences. But I would be a fool not to take advantage of her experience, knowledge, and wisdom," on the campaign trail.

Tony Marino, who is running against Galizio, said he was persuaded to run by party leaders.

"There was an outcry from the party, of 'Look, we need this district,'" Marino said. "They said, 'We believe you are the one.' That empowered me. It felt like I could begin making a difference.

He said he knows he's got an uphill battle: Galizio is a two-term incumbent who has been rising at the Capitol, and chairs the influential Ways and Means subcommittee on education, a topic that's front and center in the fast-growing suburban district.

But competition breeds new ideas, he said.

"Even if just the sliver of my ideas were able to influence him (Galizio) in his decision-making, I will feel like I did something good," Marino said.

Even now, with Republicans seemingly in free-fall, and Democrats in the ascendancy in Oregon, both sides seem to know the pendulum will eventually swing back. Rep. Diane Rosenbaum, D-Portland, said as much in her valedictory speech at the end of the just-concluded February special session, telling her colleagues across the aisle that their time, sooner or later, would come.

Griffith said that's the mark of a democracy, and a real reason to run for office, even against seemingly long odds.

"Really, long term, it's not healthy for Oregon to have only one vibrant party," he said. "There comes a time when the interests of that one party will diverge from the common good. The longer they are in power, the more that's true."