Yeah, it's true. We are big fans of Senator Merkley.

Kari Chisholm

The Oregonian's Jeff Mapes has a lengthy story this weekend headlined, "How Jeff Merkley of Oregon became a favorite senator of the activist left".

Of course, here at BlueOregon, lots of us have been fans for a long time. For just one example, I remember the 2007 profile written by Jeff Alworth, just before Merkley announced his run for the Senate.

You should read the entire Mapes piece, but here's a few choice cuts:

"Our members know who he is and see him as a real leader," says Anna Galland, executive director of Moveon.org. "He is a thoughtful progressive voice on almost all of the issues. I can't think of one he is bad on." ...

But when he gets rolling in conversation, Merkley will show a certain relish in the list of antagonists he's poked in five years in the Senate: "I've upset big oil, big coal, big Pharma, big agriculture." Merkley is firmly in the camp of populist Democrats who think their own party's leaders haven't been tough enough in taking on the financial establishment.

Merkley also makes himself a big presence on the activist circuit. More than almost any other member of Congress, he uses the Moveon.org website to propose petition campaigns to the group's 8 million members. His most popular: Urging support for his attempt to repeal a law that allows Monsanto to skirt a federal court order blocking the sale of some of its genetically modified seeds. That one's garnered 80,000 signatures. ...

"He gets the value of an inside-outside partnership -- of really using pressure from around the country to get Washington, D.C., to pay attention," says Adam Green, who heads the Progressive Change Campaign Committee. ...

This kind of grass-roots fundraising has become a big deal for Merkley. He's raised a whopping $1.8 million through ActBlue, a fundraising website used by activist Democrats to tap small donors. Only three other senators have raised more through the website.

"His votes and rhetoric tend to be left of center," says Tim Carpenter, national director of the Progressive Democrats of America. "When he was running, people didn't expect him to be quite as progressive as he turned out to be."

Of course, being a strong progressive doesn't preclude bipartisanship. In fact, this weekend, the Register-Guard hailed Merkley's work on ENDA - particularly citing his partnership with the Senator he ousted, Gordon Smith, to win over Republican votes.

Five of the Senate’s seven Mormons ultimately supported the anti-discrimination act, including three of the five who are Republicans. Most notably, Orrin Hatch, a Republican who has represented Utah in the Senate since 1977, shifted his vote after opposing earlier versions of the act. Merkley enlisted Smith’s support in persuading Hatch and other Mormons to support the bill. “He can speak from a perspective I might not be able to replicate,” Merkley said of his one-time rival.

Merkley was widely credited with winning 10 Republican votes for the bill, and rightly so. It was a rare bipartisan achievement in the Senate, and it came on an issue that remains divisive.

Now, that's my kind of bipartisanship -- winning over Republicans to support progressive legislation.

By Kari Chisholm Nov. 17, 2013