September 11, 2004
Campaign Update On Polls, Housing, And Money
So We Don't Spend The Entire Weekend In The Reader Comments
Over in Friday's Oregonian, the "City Matters" column reported on a poll conducted by the Sam Adams campaign during the first two days of September:
The survey of 400 likely voters interviewed Sept. 1-2 had Adams at 27 percent, Fish at 25 percent, with the rest undecided. The sampling error in the poll conducted for Adams by Decision Research, a firm with offices in San Diego and Washington, D.C., is plus or minus 4.9 percent.
The column also offered a "cautionary note" on the poll: "A survey for Adams in February, with a similar margin of error, had the race at 40 percent Fish, 37 percent Adams. Actual results from the seven-candidate primary in May: Fish, 47.7 percent, Adams, 37.1 percent." That note about the previous poll was picked up by the Nick Fish campaign in its newsletter this week, but they referred to it as "the last time the Adams campaign pulled this stunt."
Meanwhile, local housing policy gadfly Richard Ellmyer recently conducted interviews with three of the four City candidates. In the City Council race, Ellmyer has harsh words for Fish and gives Adams good marks, while after the Mayoral candidate interviews he came away with favorable impressions of both Jim Francesconi and Tom Potter.
Finally, while not strictly related to the current elections, a few items on the draft "clean money" campaign proposal from City Auditor Gary Blackmer and Commissioner Erik Sten.
Friday's edition of the Portland Tribune offered two views of the proposal -- one in favor by the executive director of the Money in Politics Research Action Project, and one against by a freelance writer with a libertarian angle which seems (to us) to argue that the real way to clean up elections is to clear out all the regulations that stand in the way of business doing what it wants, so that business won't have to try to buy politicians to get what it wants. Go figure.
Finally, on the same subject, the City Club of Portland announced on Wednesday that its board of governors had passed a resolution endorsing the Blackmer/Sten proposal. In its resolution, the board in part stated that since the proposal "proposal retains the basic features of Ballot Measure 6" -- a campaign reform measure from 2000 that was turned down by voters, but unanimously endorsed by the City Club board that year -- it was supporting this latest local measure.
Comments (5)
Betsy on 11 Sep 2004
I just finished a post where I claim that telephone polling as a reliable predictor will soon go the way of the dinosaur.
Don't know what will replace it - but in the interim, I'm viewing all telephone polls with extreme skepticism as a result...
The One True b!X on 12 Sep 2004
Ignore this. I'm testing installation of the new MT-Blacklist.
Janice Thompson on 12 Sep 2004
Additional information on the Portland clean money/voter owned elections proposal is also on the website of the Money in Politics Research Action Project - www.oregonfollowthemoney.org
MattW on 13 Sep 2004
Not surprising that Fish refused to talk to Ellmyer in light of Ellmyer's longstanding jeremiad against the Housing Authority of Portland, where Fish is (or was) a board member. From Ellmyer's perspective, he and Fish are longtime adversaries, and he probably should have noted that when he did his candidate analyses.
The One True b!X on 13 Sep 2004
I should have also mentioned some of that context here, but failed to do so.