Faithful companion wasn't adequate pedigree. Cylvia Hayes pined for the celebrity of "First Lady."

Mere green-energy activist wasn't sufficient. Cylvia was determined to masquerade as transformative thinker.

And three terms were more than enough for Gov. John Kitzhaber: Hayes sought a death grip on his fourth.

A death grip it was. Borne to the brink by unrelenting criticism of his fiancee's profiteering as a jet-setting energy consultant, Kitzhaber succumbed to resignation Friday, clearing the way for Secretary of State Kate Brown to become Oregon's 38th governor.

Whether Kitzhaber, 67, was blinded by his love or her ambition, I don't know that it matters. Kitzhaber bought wholeheartedly into the surreal fiction that Hayes was an essential player in Oregon energy policy, then went to his political grave defending her.

To the bittersweet end, he deluded himself and misled the rest of us about his partner's thoughtfulness, her transparency, and the jealous, misogynist forces that supposedly conspired against them. The governor disdained warnings from staff who believed Hayes' self-absorption was pushing him over ethical and political boundaries.

It remains a breathless blend of chivalry and stupidity.

Political scandals play out at different speeds. Unlike so many in Oregon, money rather than sex pushed this one to terminal velocity.

A month shy of his re-election, Hayes was among the least of Kitzhaber's headaches. The collapse of Cover Oregon loomed as the definitive statement on his competency and attentiveness.

But once Willamette Week's Nigel Jaquiss reported Oct. 8, that she was trading on her First Lady cachet to enhance her semi-private consulting work, Hayes took tragic command of the political stage.

As the scandal metastasized -- the green-card marriage, the 1990s marijuana grow, the belated revelation about $118,000 in consulting fees -- Kitzhaber's response was benign neglect.

He claimed, infamously, that Hayes' critics were unnerved "by strong, successful women in the public arena," redefining "success" in the process.

His staff and Hayes' bodyguards blithely ignored rudimentary public-records requests. There was a growing sense, magnified by January's pratfall of a press conference, that Kitzhaber was adrift, winging it in the absence of smarter counsel than Cylvia's.

It's tempting to suggest Kitzhaber's narcissism is as boundless as the First Lady's. It's less comfortable pondering how much the governor's personal affection for Hayes curbed his political instincts in recent years.

He turns 68 on March 5. He has long been something of a loner, frightfully loyal to sidekicks and Cover Oregon directors who don't impress anyone else. If much of Hayes' energy was self-serving, she had a radiance that Kitzhaber clearly found refreshing. They always looked disarmingly happy together.

But while the association enriched and amplified Hayes on any number of levels, it diminished the governor politically. As he aged -- and I can relate -- Kitzhaber found it increasingly difficult to focus, especially on the affairs of a troubled state. Cover Oregon stamped "Out of Order" on health care, his signature accomplishment. He gave Rudy Crew, his education czar, leave to go AWOL. He trusted Patricia McCaig to do the heavy lifting on immovable objects like the Columbia River Crossing.

Kitzhaber was distracted, engrossed, myopic. Hayes filled the screen. Her happiness became more important to him than the commonweal. She was the one trusted adviser who saw nothing wrong with that. And when it all went wrong, all the good Kitzhaber did, and all the good he still meant to do, vanished amid his pathetic stabs at damage control.

At the final curtain, someone mused that Kitzhaber's downfall is more Greek than Shakespearean, more ruthless destiny than tragic flaw. I'd argue, instead, that in love and desperation, Kitzhaber and Hayes created their own mythology, a fantasy world in which public office was available for private benefit and Hayes belonged on the grand stage.

She didn't. John Kitzhaber was the last to know. Exit, humiliated.

-- Steve Duin

sduin@oregonian.com

503-221-8597; @SteveDuin