Francesconi Surrogates Slam Pro-Potter PAC
Allege PAC's Negative Ad Tactics Are Potter's Responsibility
Yesterday afternoon, pdx_reporter posted about a press release from supporters of Jim Francesconi, who were agitated about a video clip that had been posted to the website of the GoPotterGo! political action committee.
According to pdx_reporter, the press release was headlined, "Housing advocates and community leaders decry Potter campaign's negative attacks, distortions and hi-tech hits." Apparently the release itself read, in part:
The blatant distortions of Commissioner Francesconi's record on helping the homeless on the GoPotterGo website are in direct contradiction to Chief's Potter's repeated pledge to run a positive campaign. The material should be removed immediately and Chief Potter should repudiate the use of attack ads or dirty tricks for the balance of the campaign.
That video clip, posted earlier this week, is a snippet from comments Francesconi made during an August 30, 2001, hearing on a Dignity Village resolution (scroll down), which at the time also unsurprisingly caused some brief consternation on Portland Indymedia.
Today's Oregonian also has a short bit on the controversy (scroll down):
The last-minute tension of a campaign's homestretch surfaced Saturday from the Francesconi camp, angry about a video clip of their candidate on the Web site of a pro-Potter political action committee organized by a former Potter campaign staffer.
The clip takes part of Francesconi's remarks in the council on the Dignity Village homeless camp to make him appear unsympathetic to poor and homeless people. Sam Chase, executive director of the Community Development Network, said he wished Francesconi had voted on the council to support Dignity Village but that not playing the full comments mischaracterized Francesconi's views.
PAC organizer Adrian Russell-Falla said the abbreviated clip stands on its own and that he was pleased to know a small group is "getting under the skin of a million-dollar candidate."
At a news conference held this morning at the Salmon Street Fountain, the Francesconi camp had surrogates make their case. Robin Plance, president of the St. Johns Neighborhood Association, said of Tom Potter that the independent PAC's use of the video clip "reflects on his campaign."
The above-mentioned Chase argued that use of the clip "does a disservice to trying to solve the problem of homelessness" and "doesn't bring people together to have a conversation."
Also present was Val Polk (youth advocate with Portland OIC, Inc.), who readers may recognize from one of Francesconi's campaign ads (mpg). Plance, Chase, and Polk all discussed their own experiences of and perspectives on Francesconi both as a member of City Council and as a community organizer.
"It doesn't help to belittle the issue the way the PAC did," Plance said before stopping himself to add: "I want to say Tom's camp, because I assume they support it." He indicated that the Francesconi campaign had called him to see if he would be willing to offer some statements in support of their candidate and in opposition to the PAC's use of the video clip.
They presented, in essence, two arguments: That the clip is out of context and unfairly misrepresents Francesconi, and that the Potter camp is responsible for the PAC's tactic of using the clip.
In order to support their first argument, they provided an audio clip of Francesconi's fuller statement (mp3), which includes a wider explanation of his views on the short-term and long-term challenges in solving the homeless problem.
We're going to leave it to the reader to judge the context issue, if only because we find it difficult to compare a video clip of the tail end of the statement to an audio clip of the fuller statement. Part of the power the video clip has -- rightly or wrongly -- is how Francesconi's manner appears arrogant. Without the actual video of the fuller context, it's tough to judge what that apparent manner might actually be, because we can't actually see him building up to the end of his statement in an audio clip.
It's certainly clear that the intent of the PAC's use of the clip is to offer a negative portrait of Francesconi, but we're not comfortable making a determination as to its unfairness. In the fuller audio clip, Francesconi obviously talks at length about what he feels are the real solutions to the homeless problem, so it's not as if he dismisses the concern out of hand. As we said, without a video clip of his entire statement, it's difficult to determine the cause and intent of the peculiar manner he displays in the short version used by the PAC.
As to their other argument, one of the items they distributed this morning was a copy of the Potter campaign's 1st Pre-Election Cash Expenditures and Loan Payments (pdf) report. In this report, they drew attention to the fact that between January 31 and March 14 of this year, Adrian Russell-Falla (organizer of the GoPotterGo! PAC) received a total of $6,153.60 from the Potter campaign for "management services."
Russell-Falla also, according to the Potter campaign's 2nd Pre-Election Cash Expenditures and Loan Payments (pdf) report, received $703.24 on April 25, but this is labelled as a reimbursement expense for software and online service, and doesn't indicate his being on the campaign staff.
In other words, their argument is that because Russell-Falla worked for the Potter campaign itself prior to launching pro-Potter PAC, the activities of the PAC must somehow be more directly tied to the actual Potter campaign.
That seems a little thin to us. It's not particularly a secret that Russell-Falla isn't especially interested in Francesconi becoming Mayor (he registered anyonebutfrancesconi.com the day after he registered the domain for the PAC), the fact that he previously worked for the Potter campaign doesn't mean he's operating at the behest of the Potter campaign.
All told, what this little storm appears to consist of is more than a little over-reaching on the part of both parties.
On the one side, we have a pro-Potter political action committee which clearly intended to offer an out-of-context video clip of Franesconi which makes him appear a little... well, manic and over-bearing as he talks about having money. Regardless of whether the full context supports the characterizations of Francesconi's supporters or opponents, the clip is nearly the very definition of a negative attack ad. It shouldn't have any place in this campaign, and we say that as someone who (as our readers know) is sympathetic to the "anyone but Francesconi" mindset.
On the other side, we have the Francesconi campaign making use of thin evidence and intentional rhetoric to try to tie the PAC directly to the inner reaches of the Potter campaign itself. Of course, they're doing this through surrogates (remember, they called Plance to ask him to speak to the press about this), which tends to suggest they know how flimsy is the evidence being presented. At least when they tried to raise a stink about Potter campaign contributions, they did so through their campaign spokesman. Then again, perhaps the fact that it was a non-story taught them a lesson about being directly involved.
In our estimation, the only possibly-legitimate complaint the Francesconi campaign might have is with the apparent absence of any repudiation of the tactic by the Potter campaign. There's nothing from them in today's Oregonian mention of this flap, and as of this writing, we are still awaiting their return phone call.
Disclosure: PORTLAND COMMUNIQUE accepts political advertisements, and currently runs ads from candidates mentioned in this item.
May 16, 2004 at 03:09 PM
Francesconi sounds like the Bush Administration. Complaining when its opponent who has less money but more diverse support manages to do something that might level the playing field a little.
MoveOn, the Media Fund and other 527s play the same game that GoPotterGo is playing. Of course Rusell-Falla--whom I know personally--is trying to circumvent Potter's strict campaign rules, much the same way Francesconi circumvented them when he used Ball, Janik--and his office at City hall--to make phone calls, had cronies' secretaries donate a month of salary. Russell-Falla can do anything he wants to support any candidate so long as it falls under campaign finance law. My guess is that Potter doesn't actually approve of the PAC.
This is politics, my friends. It's too bad that the Francesconi camp is so pathetic that they openly blunder when criticicising Potter. Couldn't the "war chest" buy a more coherent criticism? There's plenty to criticize Potter about (less than Francesconi, though). Why are they nitpicking them on campaign finance? It seems idiotic.
May 16, 2004 at 03:46 PM
And, of course, if we're allowed to blame candidates for the actions of independent supporters of candidates, then that mystery push poll trying to plant negative thoughts of Potter in the minds of voters must be Francesconi's responsibility. At least, that would be the extension of their own logic here.
May 16, 2004 at 08:18 PM
Francesconi did the "push poll". Look at his comments in Friday's Oregonian. He simply says "I didn't push poll," and then refuses to take any more questions. Clearly, he is depending on a Clintonian definition of "push."
He may in this instance be trying to distract the voters from the push poll by accusing his opponents of being negative and trying to distract from his high-paid negative tactics.
If you see the whole Dignity video, it's as bad as the small piece on Go Potter Go. They ought to just post the whole thing.
May 16, 2004 at 08:51 PM
b!X: Someone posted the "because I've got money" quote in the comments pretty recently. Unfortunately, your search tool doesn't search comments, but maybe you could dig up who quoted it and when? It would seem odd that that particular quote would be cited just before this happened.
May 16, 2004 at 09:02 PM
It was mentioned in the comments to Thursday's campaign update.
May 16, 2004 at 09:02 PM
Oh, nevermind. It was just someone pointing out that it was on the Go Potter Go website.
May 16, 2004 at 09:21 PM
FYI, for future reference, comments now have their own permalinks. If you add #comment and the comment number to the URL of the item itself, the link will take people directly to the comment being referenced.
This is new. I added it to the site's templates today. So, for instance, this link would lead directly to that comment which reference's the video clip.
May 17, 2004 at 08:38 AM
I'm a Tom Potter fan and have talked to many people about why they should vote for Tom.
But let's not paint Jim Francesconi as a bad man. He's a good man, I believe he does the best job he can. But, I believe there is a better candidate, that's Tom Potter.
May 17, 2004 at 11:32 AM
Scott, thank you so much for your kind words. We at the Tom Potter for Mayor Campaign believe as you have stated that Tom's merits stand on their own. We believe in clean campaigning and do not condone dirty, mudslinging tactics.