Bruised? That’s not it, Knute Buehler says.

Chastened? Frustrated? Disheartened?

“It’s more … introspective,” Buehler decides, 10 months removed from his resounding loss to Gov. Kate Brown in the 2018 election.

“It was so clear to me that the state needed a change in direction, and it didn’t occur. It was a lost opportunity. I have to own that.”

We’re sitting alone with coffee at the Heathman Hotel bar Friday morning. A platoon of teenagers is outside on the sidewalk, rallying for climate change. Buehler is … well, as introspective as I’ve ever seen him.

A year ago, the Bend Republican’s polling and my aging barometer had the governor’s race as a dead heat.

“Up until early October,” Buehler says. “The turning point was the Kavanaugh hearings, and Trump’s rhetoric about anchor babies and immigration and invasions from the South. That energized the Democratic base.

“Our whole strategy was build a firewall between Oregon and national issues,” Buehler says. A rampart of initiatives on foster care, the homeless, education and PERS reform. A barricade against the buffoon inside the Beltway.

It would not stand, that wall. Tip O’Neill, Speaker of the House in the ‘70s and ‘80s, used to say, “All politics is local,” Buehler recalls: “Now, all politics is national, and that’s a problem.”

Nonsensical tweets set the daily agenda. As newsrooms shrink, neighborhood disasters go uncovered. We’re too absorbed by Chris Cuomo and Rudy Giuliani to volunteer to help with the reading program at the local school district.

“People underestimate the depth of despair, the daily struggles for so many people,” Buehler says. “Trump is fueled by that despair.

“People are struggling. A lot of workers have a hard time paying bills. There’s a self-pride that comes with having a sense of purpose. When you don’t have that, it’s fertile ground for fear and anger to come into play. In elections, fear and anger are much more motivating than reason. Trump and others realize that, and the digital media makes it so much easier to push those buttons.”

Buehler, a former orthopedic surgeon and Oregon State University’s first Rhodes Scholar, never hesitated to call out Trump. He felt called to run against Brown because he believes she has no intuitive grasp of leadership.

He hasn’t changed his mind: “She has not exceeded my expectation. I’m going to leave it at that.”

Well, almost.

“A fundamental characteristic of leadership is taking action,” Buehler says. “You have the ability to marshal resources to solve important problems. That’s your job. To create a strategic vision. Align stakeholders and resources, and provide an environment for that coalition to succeed. I don’t see that occurring.”

Neither do fans of government transparency, PERS reform, the grey wolf, or a reasoned approach to the death penalty. Brown is the antithesis of Elizabeth Warren: She rarely has a plan for anything.

Yet she beat Buehler by 120,000 votes last November. She alone rejected Measure 105, which would have repealed Oregon’s sanctuary law. She won the right to rein in, or urge on, the Democrats’ super majority.

“I certainly made mistakes,” Buehler says. He has to own that.

He took six months off, he says, to fulfill a promise to his wife, Patricia. Then he signed on with a health technology company in San Diego, where he spends two weeks each month. He admits he had to get away.

“The problems I see every day wear on me,” Buehler says. “It’s become more and more painful to see what’s happening on the streets of Portland or the abject poverty in Coos County. That’s one of the reasons I took a job out of state. I like solving problems, and to see them in a state I care so much about is painful.”

While he has enlisted in the League of Women Voter’s crusade against gerrymandering, Buehler has largely moved on from politics.

When I raised the presidential campaign, he praised Pete Buttigieg: “I disagree with many of his policies, but his dedication to service and his personal story are so compelling. I always learn something when I listen to him.”

But when asked whether this country would have anything to celebrate after the next election, Buehler took a long, introspective look down the tunnel of those 14 months, then quietly said he’d pass.

-- Steve Duin

stephen.b.duin@gmail.com