April 14, 2004
The Problem With Jim (And Ed)
Does The Francesconi Campaign Not Understand, Or Do They Just Not Care?
Today's Oregonian offers details on the two complaints filed against Mayoral candidate Jim Francesconi, both of which we recently referenced while discussing Francesconi's apparently-bogus allegations against opponent Tom Potter.
While the article also mentions those allegations against Potter, The Oregonian continues to avoid any attempt at researching Oregon campaign finance law to see if there's any obvious indication of their veracity. We've tried to do some research of our own (scroll down to the updates), which thus far has yielded nothing but state law which actually appears to directly contradict the Francesconi campaign's allegations.
However, while The Oregonian neither presents any such research, nor offers any quotes from campaign finance experts who might be able to offer an informed opinion, we do find the final paragraphs of the article to be revealing:
Lents neighborhood activist Vicky Rise said a Francesconi campaign staff member called her Tuesday asking whether she wanted to file an elections complaint against Potter. Rise, who supports Francesconi but likes Potter, said she declined after concluding that the contributions did not violate state law.
[Ed] Grosswiler, Francesconi's campaign spokesman, said the campaign "called two or three people just to see if there was anybody interested" in filing a complaint.
"I don't think a final decision has been made," he said.
Here's our observation: When a mainstream newspaper reporter -- more restricted from weighing in with an opinion or analysis based upon their own research than we are here -- concludes a political story such as this one with three paragraphs such as those quoted above, it isn't unusual for it to be intended as a message in and of itself.
Looking at those paragraphs -- which paint the picture with which the reader is left, coming as they do at the very end of the article -- the message is clear: No one who's paying attention believes that the allegations out of the Francesconi campaign bear up under scrutiny, and the issue is going to disappear unless the Francesconi camp artificially attempts to keep it alive.
In fact, we've challenged Grosswiler (at least twice since he appeared in the reader comments here to make these allegations against Potter) to return to this site and provide us with an explicit legal citation that clearly designates the Potter campaign's fundraising and reporting methods to be in violation of the law.
Given how much attention he lavished upon the matter when he first brought it to our attention, one would think he'd jump at the opportunity to prove our analysis wrong. But so far, no such luck. That can't help but make us even more confident that this never was anything other than a smear campaign.
A couple of remaining things continue to bother us, however.
It would seem -- presuming that our own analysis of campaign finance law turns out to be correct -- that either the Francesocni campaign doesn't understand how to read campaign finance manuals and Oregon Revised Statutes, or they are perfectly comfortable with misrepresenting these things in the name of damaging a political opponent.
And neither of these options should make Portland voters especially comfortable with the prospect of electing Jim Francesconi as Mayor.
Comments (1)
myrln on 14 Apr 2004
Or making the charges and then not responding to the apparent untruth of them is a tactic intended to keep folks from looking at real violations in their own campaign. Cynical? Yes, but what else can one be about politicians?