When you look at the résumé of Andre Wang, ’92, something quickly becomes clear. State legislature campaign manager. Immigration law. PUC Student Association president. Auburn Academy SA president. All the way back to licking stamps and making phone calls for the Gerald Ford presidential campaign—at the age of four.

“Yeah, I’ve always had political aspirations,” he admits.

After a lifetime of volunteering for candidates, managing campaigns, and serving in student government, Andre is finally making his big move. This November, the voters of Oregon’s District 50 on the outskirts of Portland will decide whether or not this PUC alum will be their representative in the state legislature.

Andre got his start in politics from his father, an immigrant from China who was drawn to Oregon in search of financial and social prosperity. He quickly got involved in his new homeland, taking an interest in local politics and even running for office himself as county auditor in 1974. Although he didn’t win that contest, he believed in the importance of participation in government, and was the driving force in instilling in Andre a love of politics and governance.

But despite this lifetime of political involvement and ambitions, Andre’s decision to run this year was a grueling process. At the end of the last legislative session, Republican leaders in Oregon’s capitol met to discuss recruiting new candidates for the next year’s open seats. As an active political campaigner, Andre’s name came up frequently in the discussions. In April, the Oregon house minority leader called Andre and invited him to represent the Republican Party in the 50th district election.

“I told him, ‘I’m gonna need time to pray about this,’” says Andre. “‘And I don’t mean a couple days, I mean months. I need serious time to pray about this.’”

His longstanding ambitions were actually a negative factor—he wanted to honestly consider whether he genuinely had something to offer the people of his district, or if his campaign would be just a vanity exercise. Finances were a concern as well. As a lawyer, every hour spent campaigning and governing would be money out of pocket, and Oregon’s citizen legislature pays only a stipend rather than a living wage.

Certainly not least in his mind was his family. He and his wife Lisa had a 2-year-old daughter and were expecting a son who would be born right in the middle of the campaign, and the busy life of a candidate is notoriously harsh on family commitments.

He kept the invitation a secret from everyone except Lisa and a handful of his closest friends and mentors, whom he asked to lift him up in prayer while he made his decision.

For months he struggled with the decision, and continued praying for God’s guidance. But he just didn’t feel that he was truly being called to run.

Finally in October, Lisa posed a question to him that he couldn’t shake. “She asked me, ‘With a young family, with Oregon in the condition it’s in with the economy, unemployment and everything, do you really want to look back on the election of 2010 and think that you really should have been a part of that?’” he says.

That was just the call he needed. “I’m thinking about the future, for my daughter and my son,” he says. “This campaign is for them, so that they will have a future of promise and opportunity and prosperity as they go through school and when they grow up.”

As a conservative candidate in an era when many voters are alarmed by what they see as reckless government spending, Andre is running on a platform of fiscal responsibility. “It’s kind of this culture of government that you have to spend every dollar you get and more,” he says. “Let’s run government the way we run our families—live within our means.”

But a sense of being called wasn’t his only condition of running. “The pledge that I made to myself, to my family, to God, to the voters, is that I’m going to be clean in a dirty business,” says Andre. “I pray that if I can restore some sense of decency and integrity to the process, that God will show me how to do it.”

In fact, voters have noticed his clean approach to politics. Both Andre and his opponent, an incumbent Democrat, have so far run remarkably civil, even amiable campaigns. “People around the community have said, ‘You know, we’re looking forward to this race, because both of you are decent, good, honest men,’” Andre says. “And if my race can be noticed for that fact alone, praise the Lord.”

 To follow Andre’s campaign for Oregon’s 50th district seat, visit his campaign website.