Rep. Jared Golden’s decision to step down when his fourth term ends next year, a decision that sent shockwaves around national political circles, isn’t shocking in the least to those more familiar with him.

Although the Lewiston Democrat has a firm faith in public service — as his ample military and political record shows — Golden’s disdain for politics and many of his fellow politicians has been clear for some time.

I happened to be speaking with State Auditor Matt Dunlap, who launched a campaign to unseat Golden last month, shortly before news broke that Golden would not be running again (rendering a lot of what I heard from Dunlap meaningless).

But one thing Dunlap mentioned made me wonder if my suspicions that Golden wouldn’t appear on the ballot again were valid. He said that Golden had turned down many requests to appear at public events in recent months, often not bothering to respond at all.

I told Dunlap that it could be that Golden was simply determined to spend time with his young daughters instead of politicking. I wondered, though, if Golden was just so fed up he might opt to give away the Republican-leaning seat he’d fought so hard to win and to retain. I wrote a note to myself to “ask Jared” what was going on.

The answer came in before I could ask.

I remember the day Golden was sworn in as a member of Congress in 2019. I watched him walk up an enormous set of steps at the Capitol, heading past a “Members Only” sign for the House chambers all by himself.

He talked to me about what it meant, on that day: the honor of being one of about 12,000 people ever to hold the office, how it felt to be part of a tradition that made a mark on the entire world.

Then just 36, Golden told me that as he stood for the oath, he focused on “the big American flag behind the podium” with “In God We Trust” written beside it.

Golden, who had fought in Iraq and Afghanistan as a Marine, knew all too well that decisions made on Capitol Hill could mean life or death for some, and that the prospects for many more might rise or fall depending on what he could do as one of 435 members of the House.

Golden worried about whether the new position and the responsibility he’d been tasked with could go to his head. He desperately wanted to remain the man he had always been.

“I’m just kind of a matter-of-fact person,” he said. “It’s not about me.”

I’ve been around politics for a long time. And most of the men and women who go into it start out with similar instincts … but eventually wind up as a puffed-up versions of who they once were. When you’re treated as a VIP everywhere you go, it can be hard to avoid.

Golden, though, never gave in. I’d see him regularly in his flannel shirt standing back quietly while others hogged the spotlight in a room full of suits. In public settings, he usually glommed on to union guys instead of the ones with fancy titles.

And this week, with the words he used in announcing his decision to bow out of politics, he showed us that the guy who came back from war to work in a pizza shop hasn’t lost that common touch.

The ugly and mean-spirited nature of today’s politics simply never suited Jared Golden. Since he could do his job when real bullets were zinging by and real bombs exploding, any challenge posed by metaphorical ones weren’t that hard for him to shrug off.

But he didn’t like doing it.

Golden said he didn’t worry he might lose a difficult, costly reelection fight. What he dreaded was something more alarming, “the prospect of winning.”

“Simply put, what I could accomplish in this increasingly unproductive Congress pales in comparison to what I could do in that time as a husband, a father and a son,” Golden said in his Bangor Daily News op-ed.

I believe Golden could leave the Capitol for good next year and be happy riding around cutting grass at his parents’ golf course in Leeds, playing with his children and steering clear of pretentious politicians, at least for a while.

While that’s understandable, even commendable, there’s something very unsettling about his decision. 

It’s hard not to look upon it as indicative of a sad reality: a reliable, considerate, middle-of-the-road politician, squeezed by extremists on both sides, feels like his best option is to hand in his credentials and hand over his office.

Whatever forces have conspired to turn our nation on itself, and our elected representatives on each other, it isn’t going to help to have leaders like Golden, who ache and work hard for compromise, giving up and going home.