May 11, 2004
'Tribune' Reports Old Facts As New News
Possibility Of Changes To Potter Contribution Limits Already Known
Today's Portland Tribune carried a front-page story on the possibility that Tom Potter may raise his self-imposed campaign contribution limits should he force a November runoff between himself and Jim Francesconi.
Unfortunately for the Tribune, this possibility has been known for at least a month, since the April 9 edition of The Oregonian and its "City Matters" column:
With campaign finance reform moving through the City Council this week, the candidate in the 23-person mayor's race with his own $25 contribution limit is thinking about boosting his restriction if there's a November runoff and he's in it. Candidate Tom Potter won't say what he might consider for a new limit.
His closest advisers are strongly urging him to make the same point about money's influence in politics without hamstringing himself in a two-person November race. There will be a November runoff between the top two finishers May 18 if no candidate gets more than 50 percent.
"Now that I've had this wonderful experience of $25 per person, I'll consider raising it, but I'd like to stick to the principle," Potter says.
Actually, although we're having difficulty finding a citation to prove this, we're fairly certain that the Potter camp indicated relatively early in the campaign (meaning well before the above April 9 Oregonian item) that the contribution limits were in place for the primary campaign, but would be re-evaluated in the event of a general election runoff. Perhaps there's a reader out there who knows where we might have read this.
Compounding the misfortune here is that the Tribune article leaves readers -- and therefore voters -- with the impression that this potential changce in campaign policy would be some sort of sudden and entirely unexpected flip-flop, when in reality, campaign watchers already knew that this was a possibility.
Disclosure: PORTLAND COMMUNIQUE accepts political advertisements, and currently runs ads from the Busse, Francesconi, and Potter campaigns.