October 11, 2004

Endorsement: Tom Potter For Mayor

Open The City To Unexpected Possibilities

It's possible that readers might have taken our recent slam of both Mayoral candidates as an indication that we would not be making an endorsement in this race, especially since we established something of a precedent for that approach in one of the City Council races during the primary campaign.

But general elections are different enough to require us to endorse a candidate. Since we did recently criticize both candidates, however, it's even more incumbant upon us to justify our selection.

To some very real degree, our endorsement in this race was preordained by virtue of our clear and never-hidden bias against Jim Francesconi, so our pick in this race will have come as a surprise to absolutely no one. Nonetheless, even if our endorsement falls at least partly into the category of a default, some effort must be made to express what he hope to see from a Mayoral tenure of Tom Potter, even as we must necessarily reiterate some of our concerns while doing so.

What distinguishes a possible Potter administration from a possible Francesconi administration, for us, could perhaps best be summed up by a sense that under Potter would come a great potential for a more accessible and less beholden City Hall.

We call it a potential mainly because while Francesconi repeatedly has demonstrated that the instinct of the political animal often overtakes better sense, Potter has outlined few specifics as to just how he intends to more fully engage the larger community in the City's public policy discussions.

But we find it to be fairly evident that when comparing and constrasting the performance of each candidate over the course of the primary and general election campaigns, Portland would be better served by the near-idolatry of Potter's approach to public involvement than it would be by Francesconi's more paternalistic and judgemental attitude towards new ideas.

Our observation of the Mayoral campaign has revealed one thing we find especially worthy of note. While debate-format candidate events often seem to leave people wishing that Potter had better communicated some of his specific approaches to the City's problems and opportunities, attendees at single-candidate discussions seem to come away with a much surer sense of Potter's ability to be Mayor.

To some degree, then, the problem isn't one of a lack of specificity (although even we would not suggest that this problem doesn't exist at all), but one of poor communication. Readers still reticent to consider Potter should take some time before casting their ballots to read the various position statements (and similar documents) that are posted to his website.

In the course of this campaign, Potter has often put ideas into the conversation that don't necessarily signal a firm position as to an outcome.

He has opposed demolition of historic buildings at the Centennial Mill site in order for the community to have the chance to determine the ultimate fate of the property. He has insisted that a public takeover of Portland General Electric remain on the table at the very least in order to make it clear to the private interests involved that the City is serious about ensuring there be public benefit to whatever plan for the company finally is approved. He has suggested that at some point Portland may have to embark upon a decades-long project to bury overhead utility lines.

We make use of these three because they are the items most often misrepresented by Potter's opponent, who doggedly insists that they indicate Potter's clear and inevitable intention to spend millions if not billions of dollars on these projects. In reality, what Potter has been doing by discussing these possibilities is offering an active model for what he expect from Portlanders if he is Mayor.

Namely, he wants each and every one of us to be unafraid to pitch any new idea they have, without fear that it immediately will be shouted down or dismissed.

Each and every one of these examples indeed may be unrealistic in the final analysis. Potter's point, however, is that we haven't yet had that final analysis -- and that, in fact, in some instances we haven't even had an initial analysis and public debate. Potter is not announcing a firm intent to develop a $60 million arts complex, condemn a public utility, or start a multi-billion project to bury utilitity lines.

Instead, he's demonstrating that even if in the near-term we have to focus on the basics about which his opponent is so fixated, we still have the right -- if not the obligation -- to continue having conversations about the possibilities.

We're talking about conversations here, not commitments, no matter what Potter's opponent continues to allege. While conversations certainly can run amok if not properly structured and maintained, they are certainly not something we should view as some kind of inherent distraction.

By contrast, however, throughout the campaign Francesconi has exhibited behavior which damages the public's ability to constructively engage in honest debate.

His decisions to try to drown the primary campaign in cash, distort the general election through negative advertising, continually misrepresent his opponent's positions, and tie his final month of campaigning to a lobbyist for interests with business before the City -- all of these things suggest an approach to governance characterized by neither leadership nor imagination.

In addition, Francesconi's nearly-obsessive inability to appreciate the value of creative and stakeholder-driven solutions to vexing problems -- exemplified by his continued indignation at the very idea of Dignity Village and the autonomy and self-empowerment it represents -- gives us little confidence that he is open to unexpected possibilities, and carries for us the scent of a kind of smug self-righteousness that we would find at least a little inappropriate in a Mayor.

While Potter may not be offering the specific strategies through which he will widen the City conversation, his Mayoralty more clearly offers the potential for such a broadened discussion not suggested by his opponent's campaign decisions.

We would rather have to rise to the ocassion of having to push a Mayor to put specific strategies on the table than have to struggle against a Mayor with a penchant for dismissing out of hand new ideas.

There is too much energy wasted on unnecessary conflict as it is, and the talents and creativity of the wider Portland community should not have to be diverted into fighting to convince a Mayor that their ideas should even be heard in the first place. Given the ways in which Francesconi has distorted or dismissed Potter's own contributions to the discussion, why should voters have confidence that he will not do the same to them?

In the end, both candidates present challenges to the community at large. Under a Francesconi administration, we would be fighting just to have new ideas and a diversity of voices allowed into the conversation at all. Under a Potter administration, we will have to fight to bring discipline and focus to the larger conversation, weeding out unsuitable ideas through the process of an honest debate.

For us, the latter choice of actually having an honest debate to begin with represents the sort of challenge most suited to the character of Portland, and the sort that leads to a more accessible and productive public sphere. And so, in the end, we have little trouble endorsing Tom Potter to be Portland's next Mayor.

Posted at 09:17 PM | PermalinkComments (5) | TrackBacks (0)
More In 2004 Mayoral Campaign, Metro-Area Politics

« Previous Next »