Sen. Westlund goes solo to face latest challenge
Former Republican has a history of overcoming longshot prospects

BY STEVE LAW

April 16, 2006

Ben Westlund hasn't done anything so brash since plunking down $200,000 for a prize-winning bull.

Almost three decades ago, the then-newcomer to Eastern Oregon's cattle-breeding business tried to make a splash with Reggie, a bull born the day Reggie Jackson slugged three home runs for the New York Yankees to clinch the 1977 World Series.

Westlund recouped his purchase price in three months by selling Reggie's sperm to cattle breeders.

Now, the self-made millionaire has an equally audacious plan: to become Oregon's first governor since the Great Depression to be elected from outside the two-party system.

It's a longshot for Westlund, a moderate Republican state senator from the Bend area who recently dropped his GOP registration.

Independents lack ready access to monied trade unions and business lobbies, to campaign machinery, and to a base of voters who loyally support their party line.

Also, Westlund must gather 18,000 signatures by Aug. 29, mostly from fellow independents, just to make the November ballot.

However, nobody is counting him out just yet. Westlund is causing other candidates and interest groups to pay attention, even though he won't appear on the May primary ballot.

He's talking big ideas to pull Oregon out of its funk, such as restructuring the tax system and providing universal health care. He presents a good story, an amiable urban cowboy who survived lung cancer and conquered alcoholism.

Oregon's leading independent pollster, Tim Hibbitts, can envision a scenario in which Westlund wins, especially if there's a repeat of the 2002 general election matchup of Democrat Ted Kulongoski and Republican Kevin Mannix.

Both could emerge bruised from competitive primaries, Hibbitts said, with Westlund appearing as a fresh face.

Westlund is positioning himself as the second coming of Tom McCall, the popular governor from 1967-75 who reigned when liberal and moderate Republicans dominated Oregon politics.

That could appeal to moderate Republicans turned off by the party's conservative tilt, to liberal Democrats disenchanted with Kulongoski's centrist stances, and to non-aligned voters who aren't excited about either party.

Westlund calls it the "radical middle."

Appeal to school mothers

At a recent series of coffeehouse meetings in Salem, Westlund openly pushed his plan to raise taxes, normally the kiss of death for today's politicians.

With his trademark glasses resting low on his nose, Westlund talked up a tax-reform package that adds some type of sales tax, reduces capital-gains taxes and raises an additional $1 billion for schools, colleges and state services.

That will create jobs, aid businesses and fill much of the $1.7 billion shortfall Westlund sees in state funding, he said.

"There is no perfect system," he told a group of Salem mothers from the local Stand for Children chapter. "What I can tell is our tax structure is destroying Oregon."

The mothers emerged skeptical about Westlund's chances but encouraged by his message.

"It seems like he at least wants to change the discussion, this mythical idea that you can do more with less money," said Gaelen McAllister, a mother of four in Salem-Keizer schools.

"Ben's never been one to do the tried and true," said Dan Driscoll, a buddy since their high school days.

An upbringing in the Mojave

Westlund grew up a child of privilege in Southern California's Mojave Desert, although he started working in a nursery at age 9 or 10.

His father and a business partner, with money earned from their oil and gas company, bought a 50,000-acre spread in Apple Valley, an arid ranch where no apples grew. They developed it into a resort and, ultimately, a town.

The family moved to affluent Lake Oswego when Westlund was 16, enrolling him in an Episcopalian boys' school called Bishop Dagwell Hall. It later merged with a girls' private school to become the elite Oregon Episcopal School.

Westlund wanted to study at the University of Oregon, where his best friends Driscoll and John Flowerree went. But his father was wary of war protesters and other goings-on there and sent Westlund to Whitman College, a private liberal-arts school nestled among the wheat fields of Walla Walla, Wash.

Westlund rejoined his two buddies in an MBA program at the University of Oregon but left midstream to take a job as a business consultant in Portland. Later, he rejoined Driscoll and Flowerree's startup company in Christmas Valley, in Eastern Oregon. American Fossil mined and processed the remains of tiny aquatic animals, converting it to kitty litter and oil absorbents.

Westlund handled the marketing end, mostly working in the Portland area.

"When we would get into disputes, he'd be the one that would come in and get it resolved," Flowerree said. "That was one of his great strengths."

After a successful run, the three sold the business and went separate ways. Westlund used the cash to buy a 6,000-acre ranch in Mitchell, between Prineville and John Day.

"I'd always wanted one, the mystique of the West," he said.

Westlund built fences, fed the cows, planted crops and made very little money after three years.

Learning the salesmanship ropes

So he decided to put his marketing skills to work, apprenticing himself out to learn the cattle-breeding trade.

"It's 'my cow is better than your cow,'" Westlund said, a form of salesmanship that came in handy later in politics.

At a cattle show in Denver, he was entranced with Reggie, even though the bull's namesake had defeated Westlund's beloved Los Angeles Dodgers in that 1977 World Series.

The purchase was more of a statement that he was a force to be reckoned with, Westlund said.

"It was not a conscious decision to go into the semen-selling business."

"Ben's approach was completely different ... almost going for star power," Driscoll said. "He ended up making the old-timers stand up and take notice."

Folks began calling Westlund with requests to replicate Reggie.

Westlund made a fortune by selling "straws" of bull semen in a one-man business called High Country Herefords.

Reggie is dead, but he still is making money for Westlund.

"To this day, I have 25,000 straws of Reggie on ice," he said. He also retains about 475,000 straws from other bulls.

Getting help to kick bad habits

Westlund was known as a heavy partier and hosted big blowouts with his buddies in Eastern Oregon. In a bit of irony, he credits the help of a sympathetic police officer who arrested him on suspicion of drunken driving and cocaine possession. The officer was John Minnis, who later became a Republican colleague of Westlund's in the Legislature.

Westlund got help and kicked his drug and alcohol habits.

At 37, he fell for a high school classmate who once went to a Jimi Hendrix concert with his brother. Libby and Ben Westlund now have a son and a daughter, both teenagers.

The family relocated to Tumalo, near Bend, in 1991. Five years later, Westlund was independently wealthy and looking for a new career that would give back to the community. He seriously considered going to nursing school.

Lynn Lundquist, a Republican who was the House majority leader at the time and also was involved in cattle ranching, helped recruit him to run for an open House seat in 1996.

Westlund saw himself as a conservative. On the campaign trail in 1996, he recalls making disparaging remarks about "bums" on welfare. He remains a solid supporter of property rights and gun owners' rights.

However, Westlund supported women's right to choose abortion and was a rare Republican vote in the 1997 legislative session to retain Oregon's assisted-suicide initiative. He voted for a bill banning job discrimination against gays and lesbians.

Westlund rose to become the co-chairman of the powerful budget-writing committee in the 2001 legislative session. Along with fellow co-chairman Sen. Lenn Hannon, R-Ashland, Westlund pushed through the Oregon Cultural Trust bill. That provided new arts funding in a state long near the bottom of the states in that category.

Westlund raised some ethical concerns in 2002 when he became a finalist to become the manager of the cultural trust.

Later in 2002, Westlund agreed to serve as the campaign chairman for Republican gubernatorial candidate Kevin Mannix, a hero to Oregon's social conservatives. But when the 2003 legislative session began, Westlund lost his prized co-chairmanship of the Joint Ways & Means Committee because conservative chamber leaders saw him as too liberal.

He later parted ways with House Republican leaders to champion a tax-raising package that led to a budget deal and ended the deadlocked 2003 session. That ultimately was rejected by voters in the form of Measure 30.

When an opening emerged in the Senate late in the 2003 session, Westlund won the appointment. He moved from the conservative-dominated House, where he was on the outs with GOP leaders, to a Senate where liberal Democrats shared power with Republicans.

Westlund was known as someone who worked well with Democrats as well as Republicans. But his move to the independent column has seemingly freed him to advocate more progressive positions and to openly woo Democrats.

That could make the maverick ex-Republican more of a threat to Democrats in the general election than to his former GOP colleagues.

It's an unlikely path, from kitty litter to bull semen to Mahonia Hall, but some people said the same about Jesse Ventura, the outspoken former wrestler who went on to become Minnesota's governor.

"It is likely? No," Hibbitts, the Portland pollster, said about Westlund's chances to win the governorship. "Is it possible or plausible? Yes."

slaw@StatesmanJournal.com or (503) 399-6615.