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On the left is how Pacific Green Party candidate Michael Meo appears in this year's Oregon Voters' Pamphlet. On the right is a a shot of him from his earlier runs for Congress in 2008 and 2010.

Amid the sea of smiling political faces in the Oregon Voters' Pamphlet, Congressional candidate Michael Meo stands out.

His lips are firmly set in a grimace. He appears to be wearing a plain T-shirt and his left eye is covered by a black patch. The stark lighting accentuates the lines in his face.

This was no casual snapshot, says Meo, the Pacific Green Party candidate for the congressional seat held by Rep. Earl Blumenauer.

Instead, he says, a lot of effort was taken in "a conscious effort to be unattractive."

Meo, a retired Portland math teacher, says he wants to focus attention on the major issues, which he describes in the Voters' Pamphlet as taking on "the endless global war to maintain corporate interests."

He says he also has an artistic point to make given that his photo wouldn't look out of place on a Wanted poster.

"You could be sending me to prison for looking bad or sending me to Congress," he says. "They're both similar environments...Congress is full of crooks and liars."

He has the same photo on his bumper stickers, which say, "Send the old man to Congress," explains Meo, 67, who actually wears the eyepatch regularly to exercise his legally blind right eye.

Meo's photo has been a shock to some readers, who have asked The Oregonian if someone has been playing a trick on the candidate since a Google search quickly turns up a much more pleasant politial portrait of Meo on the national Green Party website.

That photo was taken during one of his earlier races for the same seat - he ran in both 2008 and 2010 - and didn't mind blending in with all of the other smiling politicians.

-- Jeff Mapes