Power Shortage

The mean geographic center of population in the United States, calculated every 10 years by the U.S. Census Bureau, has been moving steadily westward ever since those who got here after the Pilgrims set foot on dry land decided things were just as crowded here as back home and kept walking toward the sunset.

That center, calculated as the place where an imaginary, flat, weightless and rigid map of the United States would balance perfectly if all 308,745,538 residents counted in the 2010 Census were of identical weight, is currently parked in Missouri, about 170 miles southwest of St. Louis.

That western states have more people crowding our highways and subdivisions is evident to anyone who has tried to navigate Southcenter or Alderwood on a weekend. But is that greater share of the national population matched by greater influence in business, finance and politics?

In business, at least, the sprint westward has been even more pronounced than in population. The recent discussion in this space of the dominant companies in the consumer-tech realm might have noted that the five companies in the discussionGoogle, Apple, Facebook, Amazon and Microsoftare all West Coast residents. Influence throughout business is not limited to Silicon Valley or to high tech. Even with the loss of Boeings corporate headquarters, the Seattle area has long punched above its weight for the nationally significant companies based here.

Finance is a trickier matter. Wall Street and businesses and citizens of the West have long had a testy relationship, going back to fights over railroads and utilities. We might have needed their capital; we didnt like the remote decision making and political power that went with the deals. While many businesses out here would be happy to be rid of Wall Street, the West doesnt have the financial instruments of size and number to saw off the Eastern Seaboard just yet.

And then theres the political realm, in which the West still endures a dearth of national sway. One wouldnt think that should be the case, not with California being the most populous state in the union, not with Washington and three other western states picking up one congressional seat each at the expense of states like New York, Pennsylvania and Ohio.

But the West isnt seen as a significant player in national politics. With the exception of Ronald Reagan, California hasnt had a credible player in presidential races in decades. Washington hasnt had a national-scene political figure since Scoop Jackson. (Spokanes Tom Foley rose to Speaker of the House in the 1990s, a status that so impressed the locals that they voted him out of office in 1994.) Wouldnt it be nice to have a strong voice in the nations capital weighing in on issues of importance to the West, including energy policy, water management and trade with Asia?

Part of the problem is one of definition. People have been trying to figure out for years if theres such a thing as a West, or if theres any large, unified, coherent body of political belief to it, the way one can be made out in places like the South, the Northeast, the Midwest or Texas. So far, the answer seems to be no.

Its also a matter of what sports fans would recognize as the dreaded East Coast bias. The McCain-Palin ticket of 2008 was an all-West proposition, but it baffled much of the punditry, which was only vaguely aware of Alaskas statehood, never mind who was governor of it.

And some of this situation is self-inflicted. When a states highest-profile offerings to the nations political scene are Nancy Pelosi and Barbara Boxer, as is the case with California, the other 49 states have good cause to question just how seriously anyone is taking the proposition of government. For that matter, Seattles performance in administering the city and its schools inspires neither confidence nor imitation.

The West has people and is adding more all the time. It has brainpower, ideas and the entrepreneurial drive to translate those strengths into job- and wealth-creating engines. It even has nice scenery. What it may spend the rest of this still-young decade doing is figuring out what this entity known as The West is, what it wants to be and how it might use its many attributes to achieve it.

BILL VIRGIN is the founder and editor of the subscription newsletters Washington Manufacturing Alert and Pacific Northwest Rail News.