Two Democratic Senators

Oregon has two Democratic Senators.   They are both liberal.  They are both guys.  They are both in their 60's.  

 

Two apex species, but not in competition.

They get along just fine.

Imagine grizzly bears and tigers, both apex species in the same forest, coexisting with a common enemy but not in competition.

Senator Ron Wyden 

Wyden won a House seat through a primary election challenge against a well respected Democratic incumbent in 1980.  Wyden was the young liberal upstart, age 31, and a champion of the Gray Panthers, an advocacy group for seniors.   He got his start from the left side of the Democratic Party.

He was elected to the Senate in 1996.    Liberal interest groups score Ron Wyden very highly.  Environmental and women's groups who assign numerical ratings call Wyden nearly perfect.  He is one of the more liberal members of the US Senate.

Yet somehow Wyden doesn't come across as a liberal ideologue.

Wyden presents to the public as unusually bi-partisan and goal oriented rather than ideological.  He appears to be a can-do liberal legislator, not a spokesman for liberalism.

 He openly worked with Republican members of the Senate to find alternatives to the ACA--to the political peril of Senator Bob Bennett of Utah who lost a Republican primary caucus in part because he appeared to be cooperating with a Democrat--a fatal heresy there.  He doesn't use harsh or nasty language about Republicans in Town Meetings.  It is as if he expects some significant number of people in the room are Republicans and he doesn't want to offend them.

Because of his tone and legislative efforts,Wyden presents as a moderate, establishment, legislative workhorse Democrat and seems more generally agreeable and cooperative, he appears more moderate than an objective look at his voting record would show.  He gets grudging praise from Republicans.   They say they can work with him.  But he is undeniably liberal.

Senator Jeff Merkley 

Openly liberal in votes and tone.

Merkley was elected to the Senate as a Democrat in 2008 after 5 terms in the Oregon legislature including being Speaker of the Oregon House.  Jeff Merkley has a voting record that is mostly similar to Wyden's, yet he presents very differently.  Merkley presents as a progressive liberal environmentalist feminist, and recently stepping up his role as an outspoken leader.  Merkley presents as a force pushing the progressive envelope.  Merkley now appears frequently on MSNBC, soft spoken but clearly adamant.  Merkley, like Wyden, does not use the harsh language coached by Newt Gingrich's suggested word palate that is common on Fox: traitor, disgusting, outrage, feckless, suicidal, etc.   Merkley is earnest, not angry; committed, not outraged.  

Both Wyden and Merkley are not good foils for Trump and talk radio tone of adamant and insistent bombast.  They dial the anger way, way back and neither fit the ratings-grabbing mold of cable news and its high drama outrage.  Merkley may wish to be share the spokesman role played by Elizabeth Warren or Bernie Sanders but he lacks their emotional spikes and intensity.  Merkley seems conversational.  Wyden is even more so.   It might be good politics but it is less good TV.

Wyden draws criticism from the left

I have seen Wyden and Merkley in public together multiple times.  They are kind and supportive of each other, praising the other for their wisdom and political courage.   I have seen them in private settings, one on one.   Again, they are supportive and complimentary of one another.    I have met with their staffs publicly and privately.  The staff's praise each other.   

At anti-Trump rally, a Wyden protest

Their supporters fight each other sometimes, echoing the Sanders/Hillary split in the party.   Merkley supports the most progressive positions on forestry and environmental issues while Wyden is more moderate and accommodating to forest and fossil fuel interests.  He sets a standard Wyden does not meet.   Wyden appears to be more establishment, in the mode of Chuck Schumer, so the most aggressive Sander-oriented progressives openly scorn him. Some call him traitor.  A young progressive Democrat filed against him in his senate primary election in 2016 and received 13% of the vote.

Wyden and Merkley seem actually to need and appreciate one another.   The presence of the other provides political cover and balance.  Wyden can praise Merkley's forthright stances without having to share them.  Merkley can praise Wyden's institutional power in the Senate without having to make the compromises that help Wyden achieve it.   

It is Merkley's strength, and his vulnerability.

Merkley pays a price for his politics. Merkley could get defeated by a Republican.

Oregon is currently a blue state but this is in large part due to the self-destructive behavior of Republicans.   The only statewide elected Republican, Dennis Richardson, showed the problem and the solution for Republicans.  In a governor's race in 2014 he ran against a wounded Democrat but presented as an anti-abortion, anti-gay scold mostly interested in an agenda that would be well suited to Alabama churchgoers.  He lost.  In 2016 he adopted a more inclusive, good spirited tone of tolerance and good government. He won.

Town Meetings in Prineville, Madras, Bend

 Such a candidate could perhaps beat a Jeff Merkley, but would be unlikely to beat a Wyden.  Wyden is popular statewide.  He aggressively courts the red-state eastern portion of the state.  He visits every rural county at least once a year with a Town Hall.  

So does Merkley.  Merkley presents as earnest and a spokesman for working people.   He seems populist, not elitist.  He wears jeans and a flannel shirt and it looks like what he wears all the time when he is not on the floor of the Senate.   His father was a mill worker.  Merkley presents as very genuine, but also as clearly liberal.  It gives him some political problems in the more conservative portions of the state, but his style works against the image of the precious Portland-area liberal dilettantes, whose "Portlandia" style rural voters resent.   Merkley is finessing very progessive politics with everyday lunch bucket practicality.

Merkley and Wyden are succeeding as apex leaders in a very dangerous environment.  Each have staked out different niches.