By editorial board • 

Return Wyden for another term

Oregon’s senior U.S. senator, Democrat Ron Wyden, began his political career by upsetting veteran Bob Duncan in Oregon’s 3rd Congressional District in 1980. He was just 31 at the time.

He cruised to overwhelming re-election in the House until 1996, when he edged Gordon Smith for the right to succeed Republican Bob Packwood in the Senate. He has since accumulated seniority to the point he is now chairing the powerful Senate Finance Committee.

A tireless campaigner, famous for holding town halls in every county in the state, he has proven so formidable that he has never faced a serious challenge since the Smith race. And Jo Rae Perkins certainly doesn’t figure to give him one this year.

Wyden was born in Kansas to Jewish refugees uprooted by the Nazi takeover in their native Germany. He grew up in Palo Alto, California, where he went on to earn a degree in political science at Stanford University.

He came north to earn a law degree at the University of Oregon. Afterward, he became a champion of the elderly, using that as a springboard for public office.

A financial adviser, Perkins holds an A.A. from Linn-Benton Community College and B.A. from Oregon State University.

A vocal election denier and QAnon advocate from Albany, she operates on the Oregon Republican Party’s extreme right fringe. She was among Jan. 6 protesters in Washington, D.C., but says she did not enter the Capitol and blamed the violence on Antifa infiltrators.

Perkins has become something of a perennial candidate, mounting campaigns for U.S. Senate in 2014 and 2020 and 4th District Congress in 2016 and 2018.

Upon winning the GOP Senate nomination in 2020, she said, “I stand with President Trump. I stand with Q and the team.” Five days after losing badly to Jeff Merkley, she announced her 2022 Senate campaign at a “Stop the Steal” rally in Salem.

Perkins’ personal life has been as checkered as her political life.

She filed for bankruptcy in 1997 and 2009. In 2008, she was fired by an investment firm for violating company policy. In 2010, she was stripped of Certified Financial Planner status by the issuing agency.

She was arrested in 2005 on charges of harassment and hindering prosecution. Allegedly covering up for a son attempting to evade law enforcement after being stopped for speeding, she pleaded no contest, an admission the charges could likely be proven at trial.

Perkins is an embarrassment. She is not remotely deserving of a seat in the U.S. Senate.

Comments

BigfootLives

I completely agree with that last sentence. It shows how difficult it is to unseat an entrenched politician. Why would that be? It can't be the great job he has done, he is tied to most of the problems that plague the USA right now and has been a rubber stamp for everything that Biden has done to kill the energy sector in this country, drive inflation through the roof and pour billions into another corrupt globalist war.

Wyden has been their far too long. He doesn't live in Oregon, splitting his time between DC and New York where his wife is from. He has completely enriched himself by being a career politician, entering public life as a pauper and now sitting pretty as a multi-millionaire, and that is not the way it should be.

Here is what his own son said about his tax scheme of un realized capital gains he tried to push through now that he is "chairing the powerful Senate Finance Committee."

His son is replying to a Tweet from Elon Musk -

"Why does he hate us / the American dream so much?!?!?!?!"

"Reality is: most legislators have never built anything… so I guess it’s easier to mindlessly and haphazardly try and tear stuff down."

"Thankfully, I think I can compound faster than my dad and his cronies can confiscate it…"

Sounds like a ringing endorsement.

Bill B

While I agree with the last line, what has Widen really done for Oregon?

Lulu

Well, for one thing, he can spell names correctly.

MR. S

@Lulu, no, it was spelled correctly. He's widened the divide between rich and poor.

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