Recently in Portland City Council 2008 Category

The Portland Tribune has a story about the vote-rigging of an online poll. The subheading of the story is "Rules broken to gain entry to popular Candidates Gone Wild event", the "rule" seeming to be something about how one person gets one vote, but the only verification is a cookie it's very easy to vote multiple times.

The Tribune got the story wrong. It's not the fake votes that is an issue, it's the use of the online poll itself! The readers figured this out in the article with comments like "Online polls are absurd... Willamette Week should commission a real, live opinion poll, and invite the top contenders." and "It's so easy to fake votes online." and "Clearly, WW should have had a more effective system. At a minimum, a vote that would require an email address, verify the email address, and allow one vote per email."

The Willamette Week and the Bus Project should have enough confidence and pride in their event to just choose who they are inviting, instead of hiding behind an online poll and complaining about people breaking the rules. And the Tribune should call them out on their bullshit instead of running a sensationalist story about rigging votes.

Candidates Gone Wild is a local Portland political event put on by the Willamette Week and the The Bus Project. Instead of a boring debate the candidates do a little more song and dance, including some cute video projects that show a little bit of what the candidates are like as people. It humanizes the candidates and is also a reminder of who is running.

In the past they've selected which candidates get to attend with their own secret formula, but likely simply based on which candidates are actually viable. This year they appear to have pawned off that duty to the masses by using a voting system. This worked well in the races for Mayor and Commissioner Seat No. 2, because it's clear which candidates are actually running and which are not. (Mayor: Sam Adams and Sho Dozono, Seat #2: Nick Fish and Jim Middaugh.)

But the race for Seat No. 1 is tricky. Early on when we posted about the viable candidates and how the voting seemed to reinforce the border of legitimate candidates and the other people running. Even then Seat #1 showed a close race to make it into the top three, and now the gap between who makes it and who doesn't is just 17 votes, and the number is changing a lot.

It's not that Candidates Gone Wild is a make it or break it event (the last one I attended was made up of mostly candidate supporters and political wonks), but they have a responsibility to present all the viable options. Making an entertaining event doesn't give you a pass on your political responsibilities. And coming from a pulitzer prize winning newspaper and a political activism group they should know better.

I'd be willing to bet money they do the right thing in the end. They can clearly see the same thing I can. The votes are too close, and clearly the people want to hear from more than just three of the candidates.

But just in case I emailed The Bus Project, and I wrote to the candidates, and now I'm posting this here. Because as an undecided voter in that race, I don't want to hear from the three of the candidates with the most MySpace friends, I want to hear from all the viable candidates.

Candidates Gone Wild has created a cheat sheet of viable candidates. In order to streamline the event, they are asking people to vote for who they want to see on stage. The results so far show are the same people that I consider the most viable candidates:

• Sam Adams 751
• Sho Dozono 626
• Beryl McNair 104
• Christopher Rich 79
• Jeff Taylor 59
• James Lee 51
• Bob Forthan 45

• Amanda Fritz 518
• Jeff Bissonnette 490
• Christopher Smith 415
• Charles Lewis 351
• John Branam 325
• Mike Fahey 253

• Jim Middaugh 675
• Nick Fish 603
• Ed Garren 243
• Fred Stewart 181
• Harold C. Williams II 149

Clearly the mayoral race is between Sam and Sho. I'm not sure what the motivations are of the other people running for that office, but they should all know they stand zero chance of winning. Seat #1 is interesting because we see early campaigner Charles Lewis (wasn't he the first to declare he was running?) out of the event by a pretty wide margin. And Seat #2 is exactly where it should be, a battle between Jim and Nick.

This event will probably greatly influence my vote. Sho Dozono only exists as an anti-Sam, and because I'm a firm Sam Adams supporter, I don't have a lot of interest in that race. But Seat #1 I'm leaning slightly towards Chris Smith, but curious about Jeff Bissonnette (I have no interest in Fritz, she scares me). Seat #2 I'm also leaning towards Nick Fish, but I find Jim Middaugh to be intriguing.

I like that my decision is based partly on a live event. It adds a compelling reason to pay attention.

Commissioner Erik Sten's resignation opened up another seat for Portland City Council. This is especially important beacuse the incumbent never loses in Portland, so new people can only get elected to City Council when someone leaves office.Jim Middaugh, Sten's former chief of staff, and attorney Nick Fish are in the "Most Likely" box.

Nick Fish has run for every open seat since 2002. He lost to Randy Leonard in 2002, and Sam Adams in 2004. Nick Fish didn't run in 2006, because there were no open seats, and only crazy* people run against incumbents in Portland (Ginny Burdick, Dave Lister, Emilie Boyles, Amanda Fritz).

The "Less Likely" candidates are those that can rally some people, but arer running because they are mad at another candidate or overly-focused on a specific issue.

Ed Garren has defined his candidacy on rent stabilization, which just isn't the right tactic to convince people you are ready to lead whichever bureau the mayor assigns.

The "Least Likely" candidates are those that will likely drop out, or have pretty much no impact in the race. It's pretty clear that they aren't expecting to win.

Harold C. Williams Too doesn't have a website, and stated his reason for filing was "Basically, just to inject some new energy".
Fred Stewart also doesn't have a website and appears to be making no effort to raise his profile.
Nick Popenuk started out running for Mayor, and on his website under Why Nick? it states: This page is under construction.

The Portland Mercury is the de facto source on getting to know the candidates, but unfortunately they have decided to treat all the candidates equally, which means you'll hear from the irrelevant (but possibly more entertaining) crazies** as much as the legitimate candiates.

Also, here is a PDF of everyone I think is currently in the race. It keeps changing, but you can print it out and cross the people off as they drop out.

*I'm not suggesting these people are mentally deranged, just that they are foolish.

**This time, yes, I'm saying that some of the people who run for politics are mentally deranged.

While it was clear he was never going to win, mayoral candidate Vladislav Davidzon withdrew from the race stating, "It has become clear that I cannot financially compete with the two front runners without taking donations from business interests, something I refuse to do."

This is a direct contrast to Slav's website where he states under the headline Why I am Running: "I believe that when others fail to stand up, it is my responsibility to do so; and I believe that there are fights worth fighting even when the odds are stacked against me."

So once the odds are actually stacked against him, he quits? I don't want to rip on the guy too much, but I wish we could an honest, "Running for mayor was a lot more difficult than I thought it was going to be, and I don't want to put so much effort into something I can never win."

PS: Is there a template for withdrawing from a race in Microsoft Word? Why do they always talk about how they are going to keep going? "This is only the beginning, not the end," says Vladislav. Well, actually, it is the end because you just quit the race.