If you did a double-take when you opened the Clatsop County Voter’s Pamphlet, you are not alone. The photos of candidates for District 3 of the county commission appear to be an aging hippie and a banker. But the real people playing these roles seem to have them backwards. The photo of John Raichl, our former sheriff, could be confused with someone at a Woodstock reunion. Next door, the photo of Peter Huhtala, the longtime anti-establishment environmental activist, could be confused with a television spokesman for H & R Block, or perhaps Prudential Insurance.

This riff on pop culture and identity is actually pertinent to the choice these candidates present to the voters. Like, are they both having midlife identity crises? And just who are they, really?

Raichl was appointed to the county commission in May 2008 to fill the vacancy created by the recall of Richard?Lee. When County Sheriff Tom Bergin and Women’s Resource Center Executive Director Pat Burness threw cold water on Lee’s collaborators, scaring them away from appointing James (Ace) Neikes to the vacancy, they turned to Raichl. The former sheriff was the safe choice.

Raichl seemed like a breath of fresh air. But on the issue of the decade – whether to site a liquefied natural gas terminal at Bradwood – Raichl drank the Kool-Aid and went along with the gang. Commissioner Dirk Rohne was the only commissioner who chose principle and inquiry over delusion. And now the position that Raichl took on Bradwood has been ruled out-of-bounds by the state Land Use Board of Appeals.

Huhtala’s leadership on Columbia River issues precede the Bradwood LNG question. He led opposition to deepening the shipping channel. He and others, such as Don West of the Cannery Pier Hotel, have formed the Columbia River Business Alliance to enlarge the local private sector consciousness about concerns that are environmental and global, but which have direct impact on Clatsop County.

It is relatively easy to predict what four more years of Raichl would be. He would not likely break new ground.

Huhtala has defined himself over two decades by opposing the inertia of elected bodies such as the Clatsop County Commission. Is there more to Huhtala than his opposition to the Bradwood proposal, this position? He says so, but we’ve never seen him in public office.

The most practical effect of Huhtala’s election, or Scott Lee’s, would be to move the commission’s center of gravity toward Commissioner Dirk Rohne, and that would be a good thing. To this point, Raichl, for instance, has not brought the commission the kind of insight and wake-up call it needs. Thus Rohne has been a lone ranger.

Both Raichl and Huhtala are well-known commodities in this county, but both are attempting some sort of personal change. The question is which of them has the ambition to improve things. Our bet is that Huhtala has that drive to succeed.