For younger Oregonians, meet Maverick Wayne Morse

The younger generation of Oregonians may not remember Wayne Morse, our Senator for 24 years and nationally prominent as a maverick who switched parties and fervently opposed the war in Vietnam.

Morse was the 44-year-old Dean of the University of Oregon Law School when he beat Democrat Edgar Smith by a 61%-39% margin in the race for an open Senate seat in 1944. Six years later, he won his second term with 75% of the vote against Democrat Howard Latourette, the House Speaker.

(For extreme political junkies: Latourette was unhappy with the lack of support from Oregon Demcorats, who largely supported Morse's re-election. When Morse left the GOP in 1952, Latourette became a Republican.)

But in 1952, to protest Dwight Eisenhower's selection of Richard Nixon as his running mate, Morse left the GOP and became an Independent. He campaigned for Adlai Stevenson and became a Democrat in 1955, and won re-election twice as a Democrat, both by 54%-46% margins -- against Republican Douglas McKay, a former two-term Governor, in 1956 and against Republican Sig Unander in 1962.

In 1960, Morse sought the Democratic nomination for President. He entered the race late, after John F. Kennedy had already beaten Hubert Humphrey in early primaries in West Virginia and Wisconsin, and lost the Oregon primary to Kennedy.

Morse lost to Bob Packwood, a 36-year-old State Representative from Portland, by just 3,445 votes (50.2%-49.8%) in 1968.

He made two attempts to regain his Senate seat: in 1972, he beat former Congressman (and 1966 Democratic Senate candidate) Robert Duncan in the primary (by 42,000 votes, 44%-33%), but lost to Republican incumbent Mark Hatfield by 70,000 votes, 56%-44%; and in 1974, seeking a rematch with Packwood, he defeated former Senate President Jason Boe by 30,000 votes, 49%-39%, in the Democratic primary. Morse was leading Packwood in several polls when he died of kidney failure on July 22.