May 08, 2004
Endorsement: None Of The Above For Commissioner No. 4
Conscientiously Objecting To A Foul, Uninspiring, And Disappointing Race
Inevitably, the headline on this item will prompt some readers to view this endorsement as something of a cop-out. Our job here it to bring to bear the best of our ability upon the task of explaining why this is the only call we can make.
Certainly, this race will be considered something of a historic one, given the unique strategy employed by neighborhood activists in an attempt to unseat the incumbent. In essence, these insurgent candidates seek to split the vote enough to force a November runoff between the incumbent and whichever of the insurgents receives the most votes.
And, unlike the incumbent who seems to take an odd sort of umbrage with the very idea of his opponent' approach, we don't see it as much different than a normal primary. Think of the incumbent as being from one party, and the insurgents as being the candidates of another party competing to see which of them will run against him.
Unfortunately, in addition to being something of a historic campaign, it's also been one of the dirtiest and most personal we've seen in the admittedly-short time we've been watching Portland politics.
Given the unique nature of the race, and the unique nature of our endorsement (which itself is not quite what you might expect), we're going to take a slightly different approach this time, and try to dig down into each side of this campaign.
The Insurgents
There is certainly no shortage of talent or intelligence amongst the insurgent candidates and other opponents. For our own purposes, we had managed to narrow down our consideration to three of them: Frank Dixon, Mark Lakeman, and Paul Leistner.
This is not meant to disparage the others, but with the possible exception of long-time community activist Bonny McKnight, we're not convinced that the others are ready for elected office. McKnight failed to make our short list mainly because her frequent focus on the accomplishments of other women (Betty Roberts, Vera Katz, etc.) rather than her own made it difficult to get a clear sense of McKnight herself.
Amongst the candidates on our short list, Leistner was the first to be crossed off. While we were particularly drawn by his history as research director for the City Club of Portland -- certainly a worthwhile background for a potential member of City Council -- he was the first candidate we saw exhibiting a focus not on what he would do if elected, but on sometimes positively shrill attacks upon the incumbent.
Now, this is an election, and there's nothing wrong with drawing distinctions between oneself and one's opponent. But the nature, manner, and character of some of Leistner's attacks were enough for us to drop him from consideration early on.
Perhaps the biggest disappointment turned out to be Lakeman. In essence the guiding force behind The City Repair Project, Lakeman brought to the race some of the most creative ways of looking at the City's problems.
Then we watched his performance at the Friday candidates forum sponsored by Southeast Uplift.
Prior to the event, we had thought that Leistner's personalization of the attacks against the incumbent were unseemly, but they pale in comparison to how badly Lakeman managed to damage his own character on Friday night. As we said, it's one thing to draw distinctions. But it's altogether something different to repeat ugly characterizations made by City staffers, or to question whether the incumbent needs to assistance of helpful graphics in order to understand something.
No matter how much Lakeman has going for him, no matter how creative his approach to issues, this compulsion to demean himself, the campaign process, and his opponent eliminated him from our short list in the course of a single hour.
In many ways, the insurgent to which we had been paying the most attention was Dixon. Outside of Lakeman, he had seemed to be doing the most to present a campaign that was more about himself than about the incumbent.
But then we received a report that at a recent forum, he was the one going on the attack -- almost as if the insurgents take turns. And then his performance at this past Friday's forum struck us in three ways: It utterly failed to inspire us; it, too, seemed to slight the incumbent rather than draw distinctions; and much of it seemed unfocused and oddly mechanical.
We only had three people on our short list of the insurgent candidates -- and we managed to eliminate them all. That leaves only one side of this race left to consider.
The Incumbent
Our own view of Randy Leonard is a bit more complex than the one held by his opponents.
On the plus side, we appreciate how well he has articulated Constitutional issues on matters such as parks exclusions, the PATRIOT Act, and the Joint Terrorism Task Force. His change of opinion on Dignity Village after visiting the community is also commendable. We also, unlike his opponents, support his pilot project involving "mini City Halls" in Portland's neighborhoods to make accessing services easier for more people.
On the other hand, in a broader sense, we do feel he is a poor fit for the culture specific to the Office of Neighborhood Involvement, which simply cannot be handled like other bureaus. And in the focus on "customer service," the reason for the bureaus very existence -- Portland's ongoing experiment with institutionalized neighborhood involvement -- has gotten lost in the shuffle.
There are also the continuing controversies over his handling of the Bureau of Licenses and the Bureau of Development Services. Here, our position is trickier than that of his opponents, because we simply believe that the jury is still out, and the story not fully told. Much of these conflicts remain bogged down in a "he said, he said" state, and the end results of all the reviews, appeals, and lawsuits that have yet to play out will, unfortunately, not be known until well after the May 18 primary election. So, in many ways, it's more difficult to factor in these controversies one way or the other than both Leonard's supporters and detractors would have us believe.
We are also concerned with Leonard's campaign finances. Overwhelmingly, a massive numbers of the contributions to his campaign have been in the range of $1,000 and more -- more than several of $5,000 to $10,000 -- and many of those from developers and real estate firms.
We won't assert that there has been a direct influence upon his performance on City Council, but the utter imbalance present in his campaign finance reports is an exact example of what makes politics seem to corrupt to so many people. The appearance alone sullies the process.
But for us, much of the above in the end was irrelevant. For us, more important was that for all of the ugly and personal attacks of his opponents, Leonard himself crossed a line which no politician or elected official should ever be permitted to cross.
What follows below are three paragraphs from a March 9 story in The Oregonian which discussed the campaign for the Commissioner No. 4 position:
Leonard also bristled at the new candidates' implied criticism of his appointment of a childhood friend, Jimmy Brown, to head up the Office of Neighborhood Involvement.
He said Brown brought a long history of work with the city and Multnomah County in Portland's neighborhoods, and only generates skepticism because he is African American.
"These are a group of people that will clearly say anything and do anything," Leonard said. "I think that they'll find in the end, they will marginalize themselves."
Further, here are two paragraphs from another Oregonian story, this one from a month later, on April 9:
Last year, Leonard appointed Jimmy Brown to replace David Lane as director of the neighborhood office after Lane announced he was moving to Hawaii. Lane, who said he loved working for Leonard, left at a time when neighborhood activists were fuming at Leonard for trying to create neighborhood service centers.
Several of those critics are now running against him and question Brown's qualifications. That leaves Leonard livid. He said Brown has 30 years' experience with the city and Multnomah County, and that the director would not face those questions if he weren't an African American.
We ourselves have heard Leonard make this contention at least once. It should be blatantly clear what he's doing when he makes it: In the face of criticism (be it legitimate or not) of one of his decisions, he opts not to make a counter-argument, but to accuse his opponents of being racist.
(Not only that, he then has the gall to accuse his opponents of being "people that will clearly say anything and do anything" -- thereby compounding the first sin with the additional one of rank hypocrisy.)
There are few things in politics which we consider to be of the "one strike and you're out" variety, but this is one of them. Make a cynical political use of race such as the one Leonard has employed more than once in this campaign, and you are automatically removed from consideration.
This is not just another example of Leonard's penchant for shooting off his mouth. In general, we've grown accustomed to that, as has much of the City.
This is different. This is ugly. This is damaging to politics. And this is wrong. And just to spread our disgust around: The Oregonian, Willamette Week, and The Portland Mercury should all be ashamed of themselves for rewarding it.
All of which means we are left with what in the world to do with our endorsement.
None Of The Above
When we say we're endorsing None Of The Above for the Commissioner No. 4 position, we are not arguing that people should not cast a ballot in this race. We don't believe in encouraging people to not vote.
We mean this endorsement in the most literal way possible. In every race on your ballot, there is a write-in slot. What we intend by this endorsement is to encourage voters to tell these candidates that we deserve better than they have given us during this campaign.
Mark the oval next to the write-in slot, and then write "None Of The Above" in that slot.
Readers may be asking if this is legitimate, and what it means in terms of counting the votes. Well, looking at the City Code, 2.08.040 City Offices simply says, in part:
B. The Mayor, Auditor and Commissioners shall be nominated at the Primary Election and elected at the General Election, subject to provisions in Charter Section 2-206 and Chapter 3, Article 1 concerning filling vacancies in office and provisions in Chapter 2.08.160 concerning absence of a nominee after the Primary Election. A City candidate who receives a majority of the votes cast for that office at the Primary Election shall run as the sole nominee in the General Election. If no candidate receives a majority, the two candidates receiving the most votes for that office will run in the General Election. In case no nomination is made at the Primary Election, nominations may be made at the General Election, and any candidate receiving a majority of votes shall be deemed elected at the General Election.
"If no candidate receives a majority," it reads, "the two candidates receiving the most votes for that office will run in the General Election."
In other words, a write-in vote for None Of The Above must necessarily count against any candidate managing to receive a majority of the votes in the primary, and in essence is a vote in favor of a November runoff.
It also, unlike a simple vote for one of Leonard's opponents, would send the message that voters in Portland do not support the type of campaign so many of the candidates in this race seem insistent upon running.
And so, because this campaign has combined an inability to clearly inspire with a trend into an ugly and foul form of politics, we endorse a write-in for None Of The Above for the Commissioner No. 4 position.