That’s just flatly untrue.

In a radio interview before the primary election, Jeff Merkley was explicitly asked if he’d support single-payer health care. Here’s what he said:

I would love to vote for single-payer on the floor of the Senate. I think that we all recognize significant inefficiencies that occur from the paperwork system and insurance system we have.

But here’s the thing: We need a bridge from where we are. One of the things I’ve said is that I would support Senator Wyden’s Healthy Americans Act. It creates an affordable, portable, comprehensive, high-quality, equal-to-what-members-of-Congress-have, health plan for every single American.

The challenge is that once we do that, and fill in all these cracks, between our various health care programs then we have to focus on making a much more affordable, cost-effective system. And that means we need to strengthen clinics, which are the front door to the health care system; a very cost-effective front door.

It means we have to take on Medicare Part D, in which we are completely ripped off – by being the only country in the [world] that has to pay any price that a pharmaceutical company asks. It’s a big irony that these drugs were invented largely with our tax research dollars and then we’re paying more than any other country – and that’s simply outrageous.

[Full disclosure: My firm built Jeff Merkley’s website, but I speak only for myself.]

A prime example is Merkley’s position on capital gains in the primary: In fact, Merkley is a Bush Republican on this one. He repeatedly stated in the campaign without hesitancy that he agreed with the Republican and pro-corporate Democratic position that taxes on capital gains shouldn’t be raised so they are taxed like the earned income of working people. You’ll find a lot of people here spun themselves into dizziness during the campaign to distract attention from this whenever it came up, mainly by attacking anyone who brought it up as being uncivil, negative, and a Novick hack. Of course, for many of us who judge candidates by their deeds and depth of their positions, this was simply evidence of the self-centered, navel-gazing, immaturity of Merkley’s activist base, but those are the facts.

The issue with Merkley for thoughtful, informed, progressives and liberals is not what Merkley’s superficially informed supporters claim he believes. Smith is bad, but that is not moral sound to argue that simply because “he is not Smith” justifies a vote for Merkley, particularly when Merkley’s track record is not what people here represent it to be and we have a third choice in Frohnmayer that we need to find out more about.

It’s not like Merkley is just an average guy doing the best he can shaping his equivocal political positions. He graduated from Princeton’s graduate schoo in Public Policy, after all, so it’s not like he doesn’t know exactly what he’s doing to advance his own political career. The products of the 2007 regular legislative session and the 2008 experimental legislative session were only progressive in the spin of many partisans such as those who spoke here.

Those of you who don’t understand the Oregon or NW political landscape probably don’t know that the Democratic party here is very much the stereotype of the privileged (read elitist) white liberal, so much so that before Obama fully 1/3 of Oregonians were non-affiliated voters, and a large percentage of those are working people who would be Democrats elsewhere. (Washington doesn’t even have party registration so the situation is even more mixed up there.) Despite what Merkley says, his legislative record in Oregon is one of quite comfortably playing ball with the corporate interests that have real power. This specifically includes his positions to date in support of the the private health insurance industry to the detriment of working people.

Merkley’s position at this time is that he supports the DSCC/DLC consensus position, along with Hillary and Wyden’s proposed plan, that we should reform our health care system by abolishing most of Federal public health plans and by law force everyone to buy private health insurance. Hillary at least gives lip service to a public plan option, Wyden and Merkley to date haven’t. In fact, both actually explicitly espouse McCain’s position that if we eliminate employer sponsored health insurance, employers will give their employees raises to buy private health insurance from private health insurance companies. When pushed into a corner or asked to take a stand when it actually counts, such as in a state level reform process going on right now in Oregon under SB-329, Merkley has gone past refusing to endorse single-payer style plans and spoke out forcefully against such reforms — the SEIU endorsement here reflects that.

I have nothing to do with John Frohnmeyer or his campaign. I do know that John Frohnmayer came out for single-payer reform the day he announced. Nor do I know Novick or his campaign, but heard him late in the campaign also come out for single-payer (I believe it was after SEIU poured on the support for Merkley because of their negative but politically cagey position on single-payer.)

I just know that progressives here know Merkley has done nothing that wasn’t first selfishly calculated to help his own career and that he won by running a childishly negative campaign funded by the pro-corporate wing of the Democratic Party. Which specifically includes the private health insurance and health care industry. Wednesday AM progressives started looking hard at Frohnmayer to see if he actually is the progressive/liberal in this race that represents working people. That remains to be seen, but FDL owes it to your readership to get the real story on Merkley, Frohnmayer, and how interests actually line up in Oregon for the fall.

Now that Merkley has won the primary, I’m 110% behind him. I’ve already volunteered with the campaign and asked Carla what it is I can do to help out. Money’s pretty tight, but time is something I have to give.

Some Novick supporters are doing the same – doing whatever they can for the campaign. Others are having a hard time coming on board. They’ll vote for Merkley, but aren’t ready to give all their time and such to the campaign. We’ll work on them, it’s just going to take some time after some of the nastiness between supporters on each side. Sometimes it just takes some time for things to calm down.

But we’ll definitely be out there working to ensure we send Smith home to Pendleton and not back to DC.

After Merkley worked for Congress and at the Pentagon, he could have had any job he wanted. He returned to Oregon and became director of Habitat for Humanity where he created affordable housing programs. One thing I’ve come to believe during the Bush years is that the most important personality trait a legislator must have is compassion.