Jeff Merkley

Jeffrey Alan "Jeff" Merkley (born October 24, 1956) is the junior United States Senator from Oregon. A member of the Democratic Party, Merkley was a five-term member of the Oregon Legislative Assembly representing House District 47, located in eastern Multnomah County within the Portland city limits. He also served as Speaker of the Oregon House of Representatives.

He defeated two-term Republican incumbent Gordon Smith in the 2008 U.S. Senate election and easily defeated Monica Wehby in the 2014 U.S. Senate election.

Early life, education, and early political career

Merkley was born in Myrtle Creek, Oregon, the son of Betty Lou (Collins) and Darrell Philip Merkley. His paternal grandmother was born in Calliope, Queensland, Australia. He attended first grade in Roseburg before moving to Portland with his family. He graduated from David Douglas High School, obtained a bachelor of arts degree in International Relations from Stanford University in 1979, and earned a Master of Public Policy degree from the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University in 1982.

Bernie Sanders

Bernard "Bernie" Sanders (born September 8, 1941) is an American politician and the junior United States Senator from Vermont. He is a candidate for the Democratic nomination for President of the United States in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. A Democrat as of 2015, Sanders had been the longest-serving independent in U.S. congressional history, though his caucusing with the Democrats entitled him to committee assignments and at times gave Democrats a majority. Sanders has been the ranking minority member on the Senate Budget Committee since January 2015, and previously served for two years as chair of the Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee.

Sanders was born and raised in the New York City borough of Brooklyn and graduated from the University of Chicago in 1964. While a student, he was an active civil rights protest organizer for the Congress of Racial Equality and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. After settling in Vermont in 1968, Sanders ran unsuccessful third-party campaigns for governor and U.S. senator in the early to mid-1970s. As an independent, he was elected mayor of Burlington, Vermont's most populous city, in 1981, and was reelected three times. In 1990, he was elected to represent Vermont's at-large congressional district in the U.S. House of Representatives. In 1991, Sanders co-founded the Congressional Progressive Caucus. He served as a congressman for 16 years before being elected to the U.S. Senate in 2006. In 2012, he was reelected with 71% of the popular vote. During the 2016 presidential primaries, Sanders became the first self-described democratic socialist and first Jewish American to win a presidential primary of a major party, namely the New Hampshire primary.

Andrea Mitchell

Andrea Mitchell (born October 30, 1946) is an American television journalist, anchor, reporter and commentator for NBC News, based in Washington, D.C.

She is the NBC News Chief Foreign Affairs Correspondent, and reported on the 2008 Race for the White House for NBC News broadcasts, including NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt, Today, and MSNBC. She anchors Andrea Mitchell Reports airing from noon – 1 pm ET weekdays on MSNBC, has appeared on and guest hosted Meet the Press, and is often a guest on Hardball with Chris Matthews and The Rachel Maddow Show.

Early life, education and early career

Mitchell was raised in a Jewish family, in New Rochelle, New York, the daughter of Cecile and Sydney Mitchell. Her father was the chief executive officer and partial owner of a furniture manufacturing company in Manhattan; he was also the president of Beth El Synagogue in New Rochelle for 40 years. Her mother was an administrator at the New York Institute of Technology in Manhattan. Her brother Arthur moved to Canada in the 1970s, becoming a member of the Legislative Assembly of Yukon and the leader of the Yukon Liberal Party in the 2000s.

Ben Bernanke

Ben Shalom Bernanke (/bərˈnæŋki/ bər-NANG-kee; born December 13, 1953) is an American economist at the Brookings Institution who served two terms as chairman of the Federal Reserve, the central bank of the United States from 2006 to 2014. During his tenure as chairman, Bernanke oversaw the Federal Reserve's response to the late-2000s financial crisis. Before becoming Federal Reserve chairman, Bernanke was a tenured professor at Princeton University and chaired the department of economics there from 1996 to September 2002, when he went on public service leave.

From 2002 until 2005, he was a member of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, proposed the Bernanke Doctrine, and first discussed "the Great Moderation" — the theory that traditional business cycles have declined in volatility in recent decades through structural changes that have occurred in the international economy, particularly increases in the economic stability of developing nations, diminishing the influence of macroeconomic (monetary and fiscal) policy.