The Guv screws up his courage.

The Nose was running last Friday with a buddy who belongs to the Multnomah Athletic Club. The Nose isn't a member--the MAC is too exclusive for common beaks--but occasionally he goes as a guest and gets to rub deltoids with the city's ruling class, sit in the steam room and dream about someday having a portfolio of mutual funds worth whining about.

But the Nose digresses. He emerged from the locker room last Friday, walked upstairs and witnessed a room full of several hundred aging, well-dressed types listening to some guy in jeans.

The Nose poked his nose in and asked quietly what was going on. "Sshh," he was told. "Kitzhaber is giving his last State of the State speech, and he's telling the audience that this is a time for political courage!"

Grabbing a chair, the Nose sat down, helped himself to a dinner roll and listened to the governor's pitch to patch a $700 million hole in the state budget.

John Kitzhaber isn't exactly a spellbinder, but his message was clear:

1) Everyone else is a bimbo.

2) He's got the solution.

To drive home his first point, the guv went off on Republicans for being afraid to raise taxes. He went off on Democrats for being afraid to cut programs. He even went off on Lars Larson for replacing reasonable debate with "the mindless ideology of the talk-show host." (Note to governor: This is like dangling catnip in front of a Bengal tiger).

As for the solution part, the governor said:

a. Raise taxes on cigarettes.

b. Raise taxes on beer and wine.

c. Postpone a planned income-tax cut.

By the end of the speech, when Kitz said, "We too must find the courage and the will to ensure [Oregon's] bright future," the room was filled with so much guv luv that the Nose wondered if someone had slipped some Ecstasy into the coffee. People were swooning, and a woman--who, I was informed, was Senate Minority Leader Kate Brown--was telling everyone in shouting distance that the speech had transformed her soul and that "we need to pass a cigarette tax. I totally support the cigarette tax!"

Now, the Nose isn't as cynical as you might think when it comes to the matter of politics. But it seems to the Nose that praising our governor (who is in his last year in office, and has literally nothing to lose) for political courage seems to be setting the bar a bit low.

To give but three examples of what would qualify, in the Nose's humble opinion, as true political bravery:

1) Reform PERS. There is not one informed person in the entire state who won't concede that this state's retirement system is unfair and out of whack with actuarial reality--and, if reformed, could save the state hundreds of millions of dollars. While Republican Ron Saxton has mentioned this as part of his gubernatorial campaign, we've heard not a peep from the sitting guv.

2) Overhaul state taxes. During his two terms in office, the governor has commissioned umpteen white papers that all come to the same conclusion--we have an archaic tax system that doesn't protect us from economic downturns. Those white papers are now sitting on a shelf in the guv's office, next to photos of Kitzhaber tooling down the Rogue River.

3) Institute the employer mandate. Many years ago, Kitzhaber said he wanted employers of a certain size to be required to provide health insurance to their workers, a plan that would save the state millions and millions of dollars. Nothing happened, and the governor has since dropped the idea like a nuclear rod.

OK, perhaps the Nose is being unrealistic. After all, Kitz is a lame duck. Besides, a special session is upon us, and the governor and Legislature have to patch the leaks, not buy a new roof. Then again, here's a guy who opened his speech by saying, "It's much easier to govern in good times than in bad times." Seems like a lesson learned seven years too late.

Of course, the Nose really doesn't know much about politics.

WWeek 2015