Shawn Vestal: Dave Wilson still believes in voice of independence

The most intriguing candidacy in our region came from someone who didn’t make it to Tuesday’s main event.

Dave Wilson ran as an independent for Cathy McMorris Rodgers’ seat – a seat in which she has proven once again to be as safe as a bubble-wrapped tricyclist. From the first, Wilson’s candidacy seemed like a challenge to voters to put our ballots where our mouths are. He staked out positions that were clearly located between the poles, he steered clear of the unproductively divisive dead ends, and he said practical, obvious things that flouted the conventional and intentional horse puckey that comprises 97.4 percent of all campaign speech.

Wilson, in other words, represented what so many people say they want, and he never stood a chance.

That was the conventional wisdom, anyway. Wilson posted respectable numbers in the August primary, garnering more than 15,000 votes, or nearly 12 percent of the total. Still, that left him way behind Democrat Joe Pakootas – whose public presence at that point was a fraction of Wilson’s – and way, way behind McMorris Rodgers.

Still, Wilson doesn’t agree that an independent campaign is a hopeless cause. He says he believes he could have run a better campaign and perhaps made it to the general election if he had started earlier and gotten out to meet more people. And he’s going to spend the next year considering whether he will give it another shot.

“I consider myself a conservative Democrat or a moderate Republican,” Wilson said Tuesday. “But I think in order to end the gridlock it’s going to take somebody who’s not tied to the party system. … I think it’s what the country needs. We need a few independents in the House of Representatives.”

The question of independence and independents in American politics is a tricky one. A lot of people call themselves independent. A lot of people claim to abhor partisan gridlock and big money and robo-re-election for incumbents. A lot of people say they want an end to the revolving door between government and lobbying.

And yet, election after election, voters reinforce all of that with their votes for status quo candidates. Part of this is because the system – the parties, the advertising avalanche, the media, the conventional wisdom – feels insurmountable. But part of it, at least, is that many of us are more partisan than we admit.

According to several polls, a plurality – and sometimes a majority – of Americans identify in some way as an independent. A Pew Research Center survey this year concluded that most Americans “do not have uniformly conservative or liberal views. Most do not see either party as a threat to the nation. And more believe their representatives in government should meet halfway to resolve contentious disputes.”

Yet the number of partisan Americans with extremely negative views of the other party has risen steeply, Pew found. And some of the independence is not a flight from partisanship at all. In a post titled “The Myth of the Independent Voter” at The Cook Political Report, Amy Walter wrote that a large majority of those who call themselves independent say they “lean” toward one party or the other. She cited a University of Chicago study that surveyed more than 55,000 American voters in 2012, which found that the leaners often were as closely aligned with the core values of the party they lean toward as those who identify strongly with that party.

“This suggests that voters are not abandoning their party labels because the party has become too extreme in its policy positions,” she wrote. “Instead, many may be leaving because they see the party as getting too moderate or insufficiently aligned with its core values.”

Wilson’s independence is not of that flavor. He grew up in truly a “divided family” – his father and grandfather were staunch Republicans and his mother and uncles devoted Democrats. They lived in Moline, Ill., the home of John Deere and a deep blue pro-union town. But he grew up hearing, and appreciating, both sides of many issues. Over the course of 10 presidential elections, he says, he’s voted five times for the Republican and five for the Democrat.

Wilson, who founded Interface College, ran on a campaign to “end the gridlock” – an appealing idea that sometimes seems impossible. He made a pledge to accept only individual contributions of $500 or less. He pledged never to shut down the government, as McMorris Rodgers’ gang in the House has done and seems to relish threatening.

He said that he talked to some 4,000 voters around the district, and he expected to hear a lot of support for McMorris Rodgers. It is the conventional wisdom, after all, that she is well-nigh unbeatable, or at least has been against all comers so far. But Wilson said that her aura of invincibility arises from the limited choices before voters – her support, he said, “is a mile wide and an inch deep.”

I don’t know if Wilson would make a good representative. But it seems crazy that someone who espouses exactly what nearly everyone says they want is considered doomed from the get-go.

Wilson’s not nearly so gloomy about the odds for an independent. And while he hasn’t decided for sure, it wouldn’t be surprising at all to see his name on the ballot again – without that R or D.

“I think it can be done,” he said. “If we start earlier and work harder, I think it can be done.”