Steve Duin: Knute Buehler just the first to bail out on governor's race

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Knute Buehler

(Steve Duin)

BEND - A week ago, Knute Buehler, an orthopedic surgeon and freshman Republican legislator from Bend, announced he would not run for Oregon governor in 2016.

It's the smart, calculated call, I suppose. Campaigning against Kate Brown has yet to bring out the best in him. But it's bad news for a state that desperately needs more than a whiff of Monica Wehby to get pumped about the next election.

At a time when self-defeating narcissism is dominating the GOP's national stage, there's much to like in Buehler.

Knute Buehler and his wife, Patty

Roseburg certainly brought out the best in the guy. Growing up in Roseburg set Buehler in motion for Oregon State, where he became the university's first Rhodes Scholar in 1988, and med school at Johns Hopkins.

Skepticism has proved equally inspiring. "People have always told me I can't do things," Buehler said. "That's always been a big motivator."

And fatherhood? Hannah, the youngest of his two children, was doing relief work in Senegal last summer at the age of 16, and just enrolled as a freshman at Pitzer College, where she will major in environmental studies.

Does she challenge her father on environmental issues? "More all the time," Buehler said. "I can hardly wait until Thanksgiving."

But when prodded on Brown, who defeated him by eight percentage points in the 2012 race for Secretary of State, Buehler lost that wry, engaging perspective.

Asked to sum up the governor Monday at Bend Brewing, Buehler said, "One word: pandering. Pandering to the environmental lobby in regards to low-carbon fuels. Pandering to the Oregon Education Association in regards to testing standards for K-12 students."

He was equally caustic when asked how Brown has handled the six months since John Kitzhaber's unexpected resignation:  "I'm not sure her years in Salem prepared her to deal with these complex issues," Buehler said.  "Even her educational background, as a lawyer and practicing for a few years in family law. I'm not sure that's adequate preparation for the job she has."

The benefit of "being trained as a scientist and a physician," Buehler added, is that "we're trained to solve problems. When you're trained as a lawyer, you're trained to win arguments. We have too much of that."

In so many aspects of his life, Buehler, 51, is far more surgical, and far less argumentative, in his approach. He has built a successful orthopedic practice. He serves on the non-profit boards at the Ford Family Foundation and St. Charles Health System.

And maybe the intensity of his critique of Brown reflects the need to occasionally sound like a contentious Republican when Buehler eschews the conservative line on so many of the contentious social issues.

He is pro-choice.   He's long been good on marriage equality. The highlight of his 2015 session was a bill that allows women access to over-the-counter contraceptives, despite what he calls "the distrust of a Republican who would come up with an innovative idea in regards to birth-control legislation."

Distrust of Republicans is a controlling influence in state-wide races, even at a time, Buehler notes, that voters are bailing out of Oregon's Democratic Party at record rates.

And confidence in elevating Republicans to the governor's mansion isn't helped by a Trump campaign built on insults and shameless self-promotion.

"People are frustrated by the lack of solutions to problems, especially at the national level," Buehler says. "There's a natural draw to the simplistic approach Trump takes on these issues.

"But it's exactly the wrong direction to go. The Republican Party is seen as meaner, smaller and louder. It needs to be bigger, better and bolder."

Buehler has long believed he has a part to play in changing the party's direction and fortunes. When I first spoke to Buehler in 1988, several weeks before he left for Oxford, he spoke about the impact of the Rhodes Scholarship. He couldn't simply return from the odyssey abroad, he said, "to become a typical surgeon in a big-city hospital.

"I'm expected to contribute more now."

I only wish he had decided to go after Governor Brown somewhere else than Bend Brewing.

-- Steve Duin

sduin@oregonian.com

503-221-8597; @SteveDuin

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