OR-Senate: Merkley at Senior Housing

by Matt Stoller [courtesy of Open Left - Front Page]

The drive from Seattle to Portland is beautiful when the weather is crisp and sunny.  I arrived at the Rose Schnitzer Senior Home, a privately funded Jewish retirement home for senior citizens.  Merkley spent his ten minutes of remarks on Social Security and Medicare, and the questions are about the negative campaign and the financial crisis.  I learned from Steve Kofahl, an AFL-CIO rep who represents Federal government employees that work on Social Security and Medicare cases that the Bush administration has gutted the case worker workforce who deal with the administration of Social Security as a backdoor way to destroy and delegitimize the program.  Kofahl is working to help Merkley beat Gordon Smith, which is now a dead-heat.

The photo above was taken on the highway.  I'll have more soon, including video and an interview.