Senator Jeff Merkley

Jeff Merkley looked at a presidential race. He went to Iowa, he went to New Hampshire.

He didn't need a weatherman: He is running for re-election. Good.

CLICK: Jeff Merkley chooses Senate re-election

Jeff Merkley is running for re-election to the Senate. He called me on the phone yesterday, doing what he needs to be doing: telling his story and raising money. 

He has a story to tell. One is he says America has problems. Working people are getting less of the pie and are finding it harder to get the elements of a secure middle class life including affordable housing, health care, and education for themselves and their children. He is working to fix that.

The second is that he sees problems with our democracy, including gerrymandering, voter suppression, dark money campaign contributions, all of which show up in the US Senate, where "good ideas go to die." He wants to be in the Senate so he can fix those as well.

The third is climate, which he says is affecting our forests, fisheries, and farms. He wants to stop the degradation to our planet.

And the fourth is pure political realism of the kind this blog describes. He has a campaign to run.

His exploration of a presidential run put him at a disadvantage. Merkley has been unapologetic in taking a liberal/progressive stances politically. That puts him into the cross hairs of the national Republican Party and its PAC allies who may consider him "too liberal" for Oregon. Merkley also realizes he is late to the re-election game, which has the potential to encourages and emboldens potential Republican opponents. A Republican aspirant might consider that Merkley is distracted and has sent mixed messages on his intent, and could therefore be easily defeated. While Merkley was spending money and time looking at the presidential race he did not fill up a bank with funds for a re-election campaign.

So he is playing catch-up. He wrote a mass e-mail sent to prior contributors and friends, and put the following words in bold: 

     "I am getting a delayed start on 2020 Senate fundraising and will be working to catch up.  I have to prepare for the massive resources the Koch brothers cartel will unleash to attack me.  They came after me in 2014 and will surely do so again." 

Is Merkley in trouble?  I think not, not in 2020 at least.

The 2018 midterm election results should give Merkley a basis for confidence, and it should serve to scare off a strong Republican challenge.

   ***The results for Kate Brown showed that any election that references Trump hardens partisanship. There are more Democrats than Republicans in Oregon, and Democrats turned out. Trump firms up the Democratic base.

   ***Even a "moderate Republican" with a message that might sound acceptable to educated voters who long for "bipartisanship," get identified as Republicans, part of the Party of Trump, and the label sticks and hurts them. Knute Bueller tested the notion that a moderate could win significant votes in Multnomah County, especially against a Democrat with areas of political weakness. It didn't happen. He was blown out.

   ***There was room on Brown's left to be sabotaged by a Green candidate, but it didn't happen. The political left voted strategically. If they did that in 2018 with Kate Brown, they will do it in 2020 with Merkley.

From Merkley's video, announcing re-election

   ***The Brown race showed a Democrat can raise sufficient money to be competitive.

Someone will fun against Merkley. A self-funded Republican multi-millionaire candidate can ignore all those signals and run for the office out of political conviction, vanity, and Hail-Mary hope, but a political practitioner who looks at the race with a realistic, practical eye, will see that the likely result is a either a loss or a humiliating loss. No fun there.

Jeff Merkley is where he ought to be, a US Senator, running for re-election.

Tomorrow:  A look at the Merkley brand and why it makes him a weak presidential candidate, and simultaneously why it makes him a very strong Senatorial one. 

Hint: he is a humble, decent and unpretentious man, who didn't get all DC uppity and full of himself. A GOP attack campaign will have a hard time making Merkley look like an out of touch swamp-dweller.