Jeff Merkley on Principles & Values

Democratic Senate Challenger; member of State House

I've lived a pretty unconventional life

In his mid-20s, Jeff Merkley hopped a bus with a friend in Los Angeles and headed south for what would become a hairy, life-changing journey through revolution-torn Central America. Merkley raced midget motorcycles as a child, and once owned--and crashed--a Harley. He roomed with an impoverished family in Ghana as a teen, hitchhiked across Israel as a young man and went on, as he puts it, to help shut down one of Portland's worst crack alleys. "I've lived," he says, "a pretty unconventional life."

Yet for all that, he has become best known as the "establishment" candidate in a field of less-experienced upstarts. "I started this race unknown to Oregonians," Merkley says. "What they hear is 'speaker of the House.' That sounds pretty uninteresting. There's no way to convey in a 30-second ad the history of your life."

Source: The Oregonian, "Oregon House speaker" May 1, 2008

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Page last updated: Aug 15, 2008