May 05, 2004

Digging Around In Other People's Endorsements, Part II

'Portland Mercury' Makes Their Picks

Continuing our coverage of other people's endorsements while we wait for the proper moment to make our final pick, we turn now to the endorsements of The Portland Mercury. For starters, check out the statements of their panel of endorsers, and what they have to say about each of the four "major" candidates. In the end, the panel of four had two votes for Phil Busse, one vote for Tom Potter, and one undecided.

Then, the present the candidates' responses to questions about Chief Foxworth, local small business, sewage overflow, and funding the arts. Note the chicken sounds standing in for Jim Francesconi who refused to participate.

There's the rather bizarre lightning round on a variety of issues. We feel the need to make a remark about this one, since the Mercury continue the disingenuous mention of a "Sit/Lie Ordinance" which doesn't actually exist.

As we've explained previously, the Council never bothered to enact an official sit/lie ordinance, prompting the Mayor instead to issue new enforcement guidelines for the existing "obstructions as nuisance" ordinance, making it into a kind of sit/lie ordinance. The problem with constantly referring to it as an actual sit/lie ordinance is that when asked if they support or oppose it, candidates like Francesconi can get away with simply saying "there is no sit/lie ordinance" without expressing an opinion on the actual existing "obstructions as nuisance" ordinance and its current enforcement guidelines -- as he did at a City Club of Portland forum.

Get off it, guys. Call it what it really is so politicians can't weasel out of commenting on it. Let alone that it's just piss-poor journalism to constantly refer to a law which doesn't exist.

That said, the piece also asks the candidates about access to police records, Council resolutions on national topics, the Portland Business Alliance, instant campaign finance reporting (which the item quotes Busse as saying he's doing it, when, in fact, he still isn't), that Mel Gibson movie about Christ, the Joint Terrorism Task Force, and having national parties pay for police protection at local fundraising events.

There's also an entirely separate Mayoral endorsement from Wm. Steven Humphrey, in which he backs Busse but also urges people to at least not vote for Francesconi (a pair of sentiments with which, it should come as no surpise, we agree).

Finally (for our purposes), there are their City Council endorsements. Two items of particular note are the range of issues upon which Jason Newell expresses all the wrong positions, and the fact that Brian Smith -- who has been running around lamenting not being included in things -- did not participate despite being invited to do so.

We also found it interesting that the Mercury asked them who on the current Council they would kick off if forced to do so. Both Sam Adams and Nick Fish said Commissioner Dan Saltzman. For what it's worth, the paper went on to endorse Adams, and their take on the controvsery of his being Katz's chief of staff is worth a read, as is their brief analysis of Fish.

For the Commissioner No. 4 position, they endorsed Randy Leonard, but did give a shout out to Mark Lakeman. As we indicated in our item on the Willamette Week endorsements, we can't yet comment on this, since we have until this Sunday to make our own pick for this race.

Lastly, unlike Willamette Week, they make the right call on Measure 26-53, and toss in some support for instituting instant run-off voting. For what it's worth, Portland once had a form of IRV, and it was used in the first election we conducted under the then-new commission form of government which we still have today.

Disclosure: PORTLAND COMMUNIQUE accepts political advertisements, and currently runs ads from the Busse, Francesconi, and Potter campaigns.

Posted at 10:27 PM | PermalinkComments (4) | TrackBacks (0)
More In 2004 Mayoral Campaign, Metro-Area Politics

« Previous Next »