[October 15th, 2008]

Jeff Merkley

Oregon is a decidedly blue state, and it’s not coincidental that, save for U.S. Sen. Gordon Smith, there are no Republican statewide officeholders.

Those Republicans who once represented the entire state include former U.S. Sens. Mark Hatfield and Bob Packwood.

Hatfield was one of the Senate’s class acts, a somewhat pompous lawmaker who was nevertheless a pacifist at heart after being one of the first U.S. soldiers to go to Hiroshima after America dropped the bomb. He opposed the Vietnam War. And during his 30 years in the Senate, he maintained his principles and rose to a position of real influence.

Packwood was a different sort of animal. He was completely without principle. But he was shrewd. And he was such a cagey dealmaker that he served 27 years before a series of sexual improprieties forced him to resign and made his name a national laughingstock.

As for Smith, he’s a two-term senator and successful businessman whose family-owned food-processing plant in Eastern Oregon generates millions in income for him. As WW reported in September, Smith Frozen Foods hires undocumented workers, the same people Smith seeks to banish from this country by building higher walls and talking tough about illegal immigration.

Smith suffers from having neither Hatfield’s principles nor Packwood’s aptitude for political maneuvering. Add to that his connections to the least popular president in memory, and he is a vulnerable incumbent.

Smith has been accused of being a solid Republican vote until he comes up for re-election. Then, he swerves to the middle to mollify voters who are finally paying attention. It’s a legitimate charge, and it’s easy to believe his eventual opposition to the Iraq war in 2006 after four years of support was an example of this.

Aside from the fact that he has been a largely loyal supporter of George W. Bush’s reign of terror and error, Smith simply has not amounted to much as a senator. He doesn’t have much clout and is considered somewhat disengaged.

It’s also hard not to make mention of Smith’s TV campaign ads. They represent a kind of execrable venality that would make Karl Rove proud. Smith may indeed prevail in this election. But the way he has conducted the race has cost him something more important—his dignity.

Jeff Merkley wasn’t our choice in the Democratic primary. We backed Steve Novick, who charmed us with his wit and his unique feistiness.

Merkley is a more traditional pol (Constitution Party candidate Dave Brownlow is also running but totally out of sync with our views). A Stanford grad who has served in the Oregon Legislature for nine years, most recently as speaker of the House, he is an earnest—if somewhat charmless—workhorse. He presided over one of the more successful legislative sessions in recent history and he would work well with an Obama administration to reform our nation’s healthcare system and help lead the way on bringing us some semblance of energy independence.

We don’t expect Merkley to transform himself into a superstar. But we endorse him fully, expecting he will honorably represent us based on his principles.