The Independent Party of Oregon, the state's third largest political party, today announced its nomination of Jeff Merkley for the office of United State Senator from Oregon.

"Jeff Merkley has been a champion for public-interest public policy throughout his tenure in the Oregon Legislature. He is an honorable and capable man who is well suited to help restore Oregon's tradition of electing independent, civic-minded leaders to the United States Senate," said Party secretary, Sal Peralta.

"Jeff has been an advocate of campaign finance reform in Oregon, including limits on political contributions," said Dan Meek, a member of the party's state council. "Jeff recognizes that campaign costs in Oregon have skyrocketed out of control (more than 10-fold since 1996) and need limits, like those in effect in 47 of America's 50 states."

Jeff Merkley is currently running under the campaign finance limits that apply to candidates for the U.S. Senate. Unfortunately, the U.S. Supreme Court this July invalidated the provision of the 2002 McCain-Feingold Act that attempted to somewhat level the playing field for candidates without personal fortunes. In 1996, Gordon Smith spent nearly $3 million of his money on his first U.S. Senate campaign. Since then he has taken over $23 million in contributions (nearly all from special interests) to pay back his personal account and to spend over $7.4 million on his 2002 campaign and over $10 million on his 2008 campaign. His leading contributors include insurance companies, Wall Street firms, drug companies, electric utilities, oil companies, and gambling operators. The United States Senate should not be reserved for mega-millionaires.

Here is a graph of pretty much the same polls as shown by Pollster.com, compiled by Electoral-vote.com, that shows only the results and not any sort of moving averages.

Here are the latest poll results in the Oregon U.S. Senate race, from pollster.com. The dots are the actual poll results. The lines appear to be some sort of moving average.