CAMP CREEK — Behind the remodeled farmhouse, a s’mores-colored cat basks on a stack of “Rick Dancer Secretary of State” signs, piled, it would appear, for future burning.
To the victor goes the spoils, to the defeated the leftover campaign signs.
But shed no tears for Dancer.
Five weeks after his unsuccessful bid to become Oregon’s secretary of state, the former KEZI news anchor seems absolutely invigorated by the experience. Not that it was easy — “toughest thing I ever did” — nor that it necessarily primed him for another run at political office, but that it freed him in some way.
Is it his relaxed demeanor? The beard? The story about getting soaked in the snow the previous day while cutting a Christmas tree and driving home in his undies?
No, it’s something deeper. More complex. About taking the biggest risk of his life, giving up a cozy, longtime anchor job — “there was no Plan B” — and, as he puts it, “getting out of the boat.”
“It was absolutely the best thing I ever did in my life,” he says as a gas fire flickers in the family’s country-accented house, “and the worst thing I ever did.”
If Dancer’s “goodbye-TV-news/hello-politics” farewell on KEZI last February was a tad over the top, you can’t question the man’s courage. It’s easy to write a letter to the editor or, for that matter, a column about the way things should be. It’s another to jump in the fray and fight.
At 49, Dancer, running as a Republican, did so with no political experience, and came within five percentage points of Portland Democrat Kate Brown.
“I’m tougher and stronger than I thought,” he says.
Other lessons learned?
“I don’t have to be understood by all people,” he says. “I’ve spent my whole life trying to get people to understand where I’m coming from and nine months in politics cured me of ever having to be understood. I don’t care as much about what people think about me. And that’s OK.
“Second, as a UO philosophy professor taught me, life is not about being comfortable, it’s about being comfortable with discomfort. Before doing this, I realized I was bored. I could do my job with my eyes closed. I wanted to do something outside the box. And did.”
Later, in our conversation, he comes across a third lesson: “I don’t fit in. People can’t put me in a box.”
Republicans worried that he played the nonpartisanship card too often, Democrats that he was too Republican, consultants that he answered questions with knee-jerk honesty instead of going back to the stump speech.
For some, the “R” in front of his name proved to be the proverbial scarlet letter.
“We’re so busy putting people in pro-life, pro-choice camps and liberal and conservative camps,” he says. “People in the media would say: ‘What should we call you?’ I’d say, ‘How about ‘Rick Dancer?’ They’d say, ‘Are you a Tom McCall Republican or a Mark Hatfield Republican?’ They didn’t know what box to put me in.”
Now, the question is not so much what Dancer is going to do with his life than what he’s not going to do. “I’m not going to go back in the box,” he says.
In a perfect world, he would do some TV news consulting, some foundation work, some TV special reports. Already, he’s knocked on some doors. For now, he’s content with enjoying the stuff that nine months, 32,000 miles on his car and eight-event days took out of him.
“Listening,” he says. “That’s a part of me that got lost in the process. Why? Because I was afraid of what people might say: ‘Pssst, there’s Rick Dancer. I heard he’s a Republican.’ The other day I was in Full City and it was so fun to listen to people again.”
He won’t rule out running for office again. For now, he’s exhaling. “I feel free again,” he says.
Bob Welch is at 338-2354 and bob.welch@registerguard.com.
