Jeff Merkley is on the stump

Oregon Senator Jeff Merkley isn't riding the Blue Wave.  He is hoping to create it by electing progressive Democrats all across the country.

Merkley Facebook profile

Including ones in Iowa and New Hampshire.

Merkley is creating a national brand.

Oregon's Senator Jeff Merkley is reaching out to get known nationally, not just in Oregon. We see him on CNN and MSNBC now, saying progressive things in a mild tone of voice.  Other US senators know him as a cooperative good guy, a member of the liberal, progressive wing, one who is willing to help the campaigns of fellow senators facing a tough race. 

The national public paid close attention to Merkley for the first time when he visited the US-Mexican border to inspect the places children were housed when they were separated from their parents. He did it with trademark Merkley style. He was earnest and insistent, but not flamboyant. He didn't shout, nor chain himself to a fence. They told him "no", and they looked like they were hiding something. Merkley looked like he was proactive and doing his job. But he left. He didn't get arrested. 

Merkley set a tone: serious, but not flamboyant. 

Merkley is doing more of the same, helping candidates around the country, assisting physically and in fundraising to create a Blue Wave. This includes visits to two states where candidates go when they are thinking about--tentatively, maybe, just-wondering--if perhaps they are what the country is looking for in its next president. Merkley is in Iowa and New Hampshire.

Merkley is doing it Merkley-style. He told a group of supporters last night that he is meeting with people going door to door on behalf of good Democratic candidates, that he is sitting in voters' living rooms and porches, listening and sharing a progressive message, and that he loved doing it. He is doing it in Iowa.

Click: Editorial Profile

An editorial in an Iowa newspaper described a Merkley familiar to Oregonians. "He does not exude charisma. He describes himself as a policy wonk." The editorial said Merkley stopped by the editorial office because he "was trying to get the lay of the land and temper of the 2020 presidential cycle while campaigning for legislative candidates," 

"He is advertised by others as the most liberal candidate in the ill-defined prospective field. That's because he was a prominent supporter of Bernie Sanders. He is talking about universal health care and some of the Bernie issues. But you could sense he was trying to get a handle on rural issues that will resonate in Iowa."

Merkley emphasized in last night's conference call that his current focus is on his senate work including stopping the Kavanaugh nomination, if possible, and in the upcoming November campaign, hoping to elect enough Democrats to provide a check on Donald Trump. Merkley is not running for president, not yet, maybe never. He said he and his wife will consider it, maybe, at the beginning of the year. He doesn't want to be rushed.

Still. Iowa and New Hampshire. He didn't pick those states at random.

In Medford, this May

There is a timetable for running for president. To be a bonafide candidate in the summer and fall of 2019 a candidate needs to be building a national staff and structure by March or April of 2019, so one needs to have a feel for whether they have a shot at building caucus votes in Iowa. That means you need to be in Iowa and New Hampshire. 

The winnowing is starting now. There may be twenty viable candidates on the Democratic ballot: maybe eight senators, a couple of governors, three or four present or former mayors, and a few billionaires. And maybe others. Exactly one will rise to the top.

Voters have choices of policy and style. In 2016 voters wanted high drama. I witnessed Trump's first rally in New Hampshire in September 2015. The high school marching band stood outside the gymnasium. The bass drums pounded. There was a fiery warm up speech denouncing immigrants and terrorists. Three thousand people cheered. It felt like a pep rally. Immigrants bad! Obama bad! ACA bad! Muslims bad! 

Meanwhile, Hillary spoke to 250 people about opioid addiction in a community building, and mostly listened to others. Bernie Sanders was the Democrat who spoke with passion and roused up an audience in a middle school gym.

In 2016 voters wanted passion. Republicans apparently wanted a bar fight of insults and smack downs and tweets. They had a choice of quiet, earnest Kasich, and instead chose Trump, overwhelmingly. 

The candidate who excited Democrats was Sanders, not Hillary. She was the serious policy wonk, the candidate who sought incremental realistic progress. Democrats did their duty and voted for her, but not enough of them, and not in the right places, and a lot of people didn't bother. Therefore, Trump.

The Iowa editorial noted that Merkley is voicing the politics of rural-friendly progressivism. William Jennings Bryon did that 120 years ago, with famously high drama and passion. Merkley appears to be betting that people are fed up with high drama and passion.  He is the low drama, blue jeans progressive, listening on the front porch.

Democrats are staking out their positions and broadcasting their brands. Michael Avenatti is betting Democrats need a fighter, a bulldog, someone in Trump's face. Senator Kamala Harris is the tough questioner. Senator Cory Booker puts his career on the line to get documents. Montana Governor Steve Bullock brings red state credibility. Former New Orleans mayor Mitch Landriau brings a white southerner's credibility to race relations. And so on.

Jeff Merkley isn't yet stuck in his brand. He established an Oregon senator brand, the quiet,  serious man of the people. He has a choice. Like a student who leaves middle school to start high school in a new town, Merkley could decide that now that his voice has changed and he has grown a few inches in height, that he presents a different brand. He could say that blue jeans and quiet earnestness suited who he was--and is as a senator--but as president and commander in chief he is something different, born and raised in that past but now in a new role. Decisive. Firm. Powerful. Oratorical. Inspiring. A president, not a member of a legislative team.

That is, he could if he wants to, and if that is who Merkley really is. But Merkley's strength is his authenticity, and if earnest low drama is the one and only personae inside him, then that is the one and only brand he can and should present. 

Maybe that is what American voters are ready for. They may have had enough Trump and his bully pulpit bullying. Maybe now they want a quiet guy, Merkley.