May 10, 2004
(Updated) Time For Another Quick Campaign Update Item
Note: This post has been updated. Any and all updates appear at the end of the original post.
First, there are a couple of articles from today's Oregonian on the two City Council races.
For those who might desire another perspective, there's coverage of last Friday's forum involving candidates for the Commissioner No. 4 position.
There's also a sort of point/counterpoint with the "major" candidates in the Commissioner No. 1 race -- Sam Adams and Nick Fish -- which includes this paragraph:
Adams pitches his experience at City Hall as an asset, saying it will allow him to tackle nuts and bolts issues such as permit delays and budget cuts right away. He wants voters to stack up his detailed campaign platform against Fish's -- both available on the candidates' Web sites.
Understanding that correlation is not causation, we find this amusing because it's essentially what we argued in our endorsement item for this race. The paper also offered a small vital stats sidebar on the two candidates.
Meanwhile, in a curious news release this morning, another opponent of Adams and Fish -- Jason Newell -- calls Fish "addicted to the tax and spend nature of his politics" and says "when it really relates to fiscal responsibility and priorities Nick is out to lunch, or is it cocktails." Newell calls his critique of Fish "shootin' fish in a barrel" and proclaims himself the "only candidate to promise not to create new taxes."
Speaking of Fish, he's begun airing a revised version of his television ad, which now includes a direct potshot at Adams' involvement in the PGE Park deal. To our knowledge, this is the first campaign ad of the election to directly reference an opponent by name.
Keeping with the ad wars for a moment, the Phil Busse campaign has cut a radio spot for airing on KPOJ. And local lawyer Steve Novick criticizes a Jim Francesconi ad for pandering to voters' ill-conceived belief in a free lunch.
Finally, after conducting a poll of its readership, News4Neighbors endorsed Mark Lakeman for the Commissioner No. 4 position.
Disclosure: PORTLAND COMMUNIQUE accepts political advertisements, and currently runs ads from the Busse, Francesconi, and Potter campaigns.
Update
We may have spoken too soon as far as the Adams/Fish campaign ads. Brought to our attention by a Fish campaign newsletter late this afternoon is the fact that the second of Adams' ads mocks Fish via a cartoon vaguely in a South Park style, although not by name. We don't know whether Adams' new ad or Fish's new ad was the first to air.
Update
In the final week before election day, the Adams and Fish campaigns are duelling it out via their respective email newsletters.
Late this afternoon, the Fish campaign sent out a message which first references its main opponent this way:
My opponent is pulling out all the stops. During 11 years as Mayor Katz's top aide, he built up a huge rolodex -- which he is now using to raise money for his own political ambitions. He claims to have a poll that puts him up by 7 percentage points (though the Tribune poll tells a different story). And he and his partner have put $50,000 into his campaign.
After asking for contributions, the newsletter goes on to further characterize the Adams campaign:
He has already sent three separate mailings to Portlanders -- not ONE of which mentions the words City Hall, Mayor Vera Katz, or gives voters any idea where he worked for virtually his entire adult life.
He is on the attack in public. At the Candidates Gone Wild debate, he actually "joked" that "a dead fish rots from the head."
(This was later corrected by their campaign manager to be: "Even a dead fish smells after three days.")
His latest TV ad mocks me as a cut-out cartoon character -- the first negative ad of the campaign. And at the end of the ad, he has the gall to say that he has the experience "to get Portland back on track." As if he wasn�t one of the most powerful figures in City Hall for the last decade.
Then later this evening, the counter-volley came in from the Adams camp, saying, "There is always a candidate who gets a little bit desperate when things don't go his or her way." Fish, they say, is that candidate. "For weeks," the Adams newsletter says, "Nick has been launching attacks on Sam Adams."
Referencing the revised Fish television commercial (in which the candidate says, "[Sam] now admits he didn't do his homework on the deal [PGE Park], costing us millions.") the Adams camp offers what it calls the "real facts" on the PGE Park deal:
Sam did not negotiate the PGE Park deal.
But, Sam did make sure that 70% of the costs of the PGE Park were paid for by a tax on hotel and car rental users -- a financial partnership supported by the visitor industry itself.
It's true that the operations of PGE Park haven't gone the way anyone wanted but Sam's work actually saved local taxpayers tens of million of dollars.
They then go on to point to their own new television ad, which they call "a lighthearted way of pointing out what's really going on in the campaign."
We still have eight days until election day (including election day, that is). Heaven knows what's coming our way next.
Comments (11)
Sarah Ames on 10 May 2004
I'm helping out the Fish Campaign, and I wanted to add to the record.
Sam Adams has criticized Nick Fish by name in the campaign ads he's mailed to thousands of voters. And his newest TV ad, while not naming Nick, uses a foolish looking caricature of Nick to mock the Fish campaign. So while Nick is the first to name his opponent in a TV ad, he hasn't been the first to take a shot at his opponent. (And let's be clear, we're talking about a few seconds in a half-minute ad.)
In fact, I think the ad that Nick is airing is admirably straightforward. He looks right at the camera and notes that Sam Adams didn't do his homework on the PGE Park deal, which cost all of us millions. It includes the date of an Oregonian article (which includes this: "Among the lessons he learned during the past 11 years was that he should have asked for more due diligence on the city's ultimately troubled deal with PGE Park.") That's pretty much it. No ominous music, no charges made by an anonymous voiceover. Just Nick looking you in the eye and calling Sam on a backroom deal that cost taxpayers a bundle.
That's not negative advertising -- that's accountability. And that's what we need in our City Hall.
M on 10 May 2004
I received a second piece of campaign literature from Sam Adams in the mail today. It doesn't criticize Fish by name, but says:
"There are two principle candidates to be Portland's newest City Commissioner. Both talk about jobs and strengthening the economy. But only Sam Adams actually did something about it."
You say that Adams "criticized Nick Fish by name in the campaign ads he's mailed to thousands of voters." I seem to be on Adams' mailing list, but I don't remember that. Can you describe the literature? Maybe I just didn't notice it.
Also, I commented about Fish's TV ad in the previous post, and I specifically avoided calling it negative because Fish made the criticism himself, with no standard negative-ad demonizing effects. b!X avoided calling it negative, too.
Arya on 10 May 2004
I haven't seen any Sam Adams direct mailing pieces that mention Nick Fish by name.
Alexander Craghead on 10 May 2004
I'm really enjoying this. I think it's quite amusing to watch the two of them rip into each other, but I also have to half ask if I ought to be sickened by it a bit. What next, partisan Commissioner races? This is starting to resembled Presidential politics, rather than civics and statesmanship.
Well, I can sit back from outside of Portland and watch and enjoy the roast. It does not affect me... but it also does. :-\
John Bishop on 11 May 2004
Typically, Portland has extremely civil and polite campaigns. Sometimes painfully so. I think we often avoid serious, constructive discourse about the differences between two candidates because we are so concerned about whether one or the other "named" his/her opponent or actually had the temerity to say that an opponent isn't cut out for the job because he/she made lots of mistakes in their prior position. I don't understand why it's not relevant or somehow is inappropriately "negative" to look at a candidates record in their previous job(s)? And why can't people see the very obvious difference between a critique of a candidate that is focused on their views and past performance and a "critique" of a candidate that merely mocks an opponent by means of a cartoon caricature and a sarcastic, oversimplified summary of their positions. It is clear to me that Sam Adams' latest TV ads have gone way over the line as compared to the usual, constructive discourse we see in Portland campaigns. If there is any sign of "desperation" his ads are it. I most certainly don't want someone with that mentaility (partially) running this City.
M on 11 May 2004
I just got a call from "BCI," and they were doing a poll on the Portland mayor's race. They asked me if I had voted, then, when I said no, they asked if I was voting for Francesconi, Potter, or someone else. When I said "someone else," they thanked me and hung up. There was no query for demographic information, and no indication that their survey was any broader than the mayor's race. I wonder who was behind that? It seems it would have to be Potter or Francesconi. A poll for a news outlet would be interested in (a) who I actually voted for, and (b) city council races, local issues, etc. Google searches for BCI and BCI combined with poll-related words (poll, survey, research, "margin of error," methodology, etc.) didn't turn up anything definitive. I may have misheard a letter, I suppose.
Jack Bog on 11 May 2004
It's got to be Francesconi. Potter doesn't have the money for this.
The One True b!X on 11 May 2004
Could it have been PCI?
M on 11 May 2004
I realized one of my telephones has a Caller ID display. It's either one of these two numbers (I can't remember the order):
Precision of IA
515-597-4445
I looked up Precision of Iowa online, and found this website:
http://www.precisiontelemarketing.com/
Their website identifies them as a telemarketing group, and doesn't mention any polling that I found. I called up the number on the Caller ID and got a voice mailbox, but then I called the number on the website, 610-358-0964, and got a human being. He confirmed that they do do polling and surveys, and that they do sometimes identify themselves as PCI.
M on 11 May 2004
Ignore the "one of these two numbers" part. I wrote that before I called the number on their website and got confirmation. I was thinking the polling agency could also have been an "out of area" toll-free number that appears next on my Caller ID.
M on 11 May 2004
In addition, I asked whether he could tell me on whose behalf they were calling, and he said that he couldn't because a call center out of Iowa does all the calls. I then asked if he could confirm whether Jim Francesconi of Portland was a client, and he said he didn't know. I suppose you could call the Iowa number from my Caller ID tomorrow during Central Time business hours and ask.