Ah, yes, Gard & Gerber: shell game barkers to the rich and famous of Oregon. I was sad to see Ginny Burdick throw in with these well-paid obfuscators who will ignore no sleazy tactic in their efforts to mislead the public.

"Then there's Burdick vs. Sten. Is there a clothespin big enough to seal my nose so that I could actually cast a vote in that one?"

The notion that Burdick would represent Portland "business" is a prime example of the Keep Portland Weird mindset.

Weird is putting it kindly.

No, Jack, ideas are not wrong because Gard & Gerber promotes them. Gard & Gerber will likely work on any issue that pays properly. Their tactics, though, are uniformly repulsive.

As to "socialism or corruption", it's an easy choice for me. Maybe your preconceptions set up false dichotomies.

Great to see you posting, b!X.

I think folks should look at Burdick's record. Casting her as a business type is oh so wrong. She slapped down the Oregon Restaurant Assn last session when they fought to overturn Portland's time, place and manner legislation that finally makes bars and taverns accountable to the neighborhood they are operating within. She has also fought the NRA on guns like no one else you can name in Oregon politics.

As far as this voters concerned, she will do what the enitire current city council has been unable or unwilling to do- represent Portland citizens, not just downtown interests.

Great post and thank you, b!X.

Ginny Burdick is my state senator and I'm disappointed to see her ally herself with the anti-clean money forces. Maybe we need to pay legislators a living salary so they don't get tempted by these lucrative shilling jobs??

I'm sick of PGE and the downtown money interests telling me what's good for me. Having ordinary people not tied to the money trough be able to run for office is a good thing. And contrary to all the propaganda, collecting $5 from a 1000 people is no easy task--you have to be serious, dedicated, and organized to do it.

Ginny Burdick will be fighting downtown interests?? Ha!!

She WORKS for Gard & Gerber, the company spearheading the fight ON BEHALF of the Portland Business Alliance, Qwest, PGE, and Goldschmidt, Inc.!! Who's running her campaign? The same crowd that ran Francesconi's.

Is Gard & Gerber paying her to run? I can't imagine how anyone could be more in the pocket of big money.

Not living in Portland, I don't know all the issues involved.

But I this should end once and for all the broad generalizations like "what liberals believe" and "what conservatives believe".

It was painfully obvious during the legislative session that Minnis and Ferrioli were very different in their approaches to the public and to issues in the state.

As I understand it, this is to be a contest between Sten the incumbent and Burdick the challenger.

But only one of them is a "liberal"? What nonsense. I understand that people in the rest of the state call Portland legislators "liberal" due to where they represent. But who defines liberalism, or is it a 20th century term which should be declared outmoded and removed from discussion. If liberals are the forces of new ideas and reform, then it would seem Sten would be the liberal in this situation.

But can we knock off the labels and discuss the specifics?

Your observations, b!X, echo what I said in my post "Run, Eric, Run". And Jack even supplied the same comment- "socialism or corruption."

Joe Uris tried unsucessfully to get Brian Gard, a classmate of mine at Cleveland High School, to appear on his KBOO talk show to discuss the Gard and Gerber campaign against public power. Too bad.
It would have been entertaining- maybe even enlightening- to hear an advertising man defend an indefensible ad campaign.

What's that word that describes the character of a person like Jack, who thinks he's always the only person who's right?

Oh yeah...rectaltude.

You object to giving the voters a choice because G&G is taking a role in the campaign?

Is it also appropriate to boycott Katrina relief because George H.W. Bush had a role in that?

Just trying to get the Progressive Playbook straight.

Really though, it's too bad G&G is involved, because this should be first about whether it is morally appropriate for city government to force taxpayers to make political contributions, and second about whether there aren't better uses for the money.

With G&G involved it will be all about the second question, meanwhile you pinkos...err. sorry...progressives, will try to make the whole thing about G & G, Neil Golschmidt and Homer Williams, as if somehow they are more than just symptoms of the problem.

They aren't. Those symptoms were created by the likes of progressives, and taxpayer-financed campaigns won't fix anything about them. Nothing short of stripping Portland City government of the power to play speculation games with massive amounts of taxpayer dollars will halt the abuse (and progressives will never admit that government is fundamentally unsuitable for most of their menu of dreams and wishes).

Taxpayer-financed campaigns will just provide another punchline to the joke that begins "Did you hear about the latest out of Portland Oregon..."

Some of the posters here wonder how Democrat Senator Ginny Burdick could throw in with G & G?

Pay attention - she's been part of their leadership team for the last two years.

http://portland.bizjournals.com/portland/stories/2004/02/16/daily34.html

PanchoPdx sez: "...because this should be first about whether it is morally appropriate for city government to force taxpayers to make political contributions, and second about whether there aren't better uses for the money."

yeah, like that tram. how's that coming agin? a $45 million boondoggle? that's a GREAT use of public money, eh?

I have yet to hear an argument making a convincing case that public-funded campaigns are a bad thing. if it succeeds in brining more players onto the scene- candidates committed to their communities and ALL constituents, not jsut the special interests that fund their campaign- the city of Portland would only BENEFIT, not be a punchline.

since when did "pinkos" have a stranglehold on rationality?

Regardless of what you think about Gard and Gerber, publicly financed campaigns, Burdick, Sten, etc.--Is anyone else sick of hearing about how bad it is for the "downtown business community" here in Portland?

Oregon has some of the lowest business taxes, companies like PGE are making a record profit, I don't think any developers are starving, and how about all those b.s. property tax abatements on condos and lofts downtown? I'm sure with a little research, any of us could come up with dozens of reasons why those "downtown businesses" shouldn't be whining.

Boo-hoo.

Gard & Gerber becomes the center of things when they transition from running campaigns for people who want to buy elections to buying elections for themselves. What's next, Brian Gard for soil & water conservation district?

It's true, George H, that Burdick is not a "business type." Neither have been many of the Oregon Democrats who have kowtowed to big business over the years. The investor-owned utilities have seen very little resistance from elected officials, regardless of party. How many Democrats supported the PUD's, or opposed Enron's purchase of PGE, or for that matter, opposed allowing PGE to profit from the defunct Trojan plant after the voters made that illegal. How many Democrats objected to the shocking giveaway of the Cascade hydro generation plants? A Democrat needn't be a "business type" to give the utilities what they want, or to carry water for the downtown mafia.

They simply need a hunger for big campaign contributions, which brings us back to the topic of this post: big money's alarm over competition from the public in buying elections.

since when did "pinkos" have a stranglehold on rationality?

Since never.

Taxpayer-financed campaigns are not a rational solution to anything unless you buy into the simplistic notion that City Commissioners are just victims in a tug-of-war between voters and special interests.

Every progressive who supports skimming property taxes from schools and city GF purposes to fund massive urban renewal money pots are to blame for the erector-set aspirations of Portland's planning elites.

Why raise money privately when the PDC will give it away?

You elected this city council and you gave them all that money to fritter away on non-essentials. Now you claim indignance that they are being gamed by special interests?

You set up the game, the special interests are just playing it better than you.

Now the player-haters want to change the rules to their own game. Their solution to all the wasteful skimming of public funds for development boondoggles is to skim more of it to pay for political campaigns.

Not enough irony yet?

Well, the solution is presented to us by some of the same city commissioners who were complicit in the previous boondoggles.

In essence they are saying, please help us do the right things, you know we would have made better decisions if it wasn't for all those contributions we took to get elected...

Wise up progressives. You are being gamed by your leaders.

What happens in a runoff election where both sides have the same amount of money to campaign?

The one with the highest name ID (incumbent) has a massive advantage.

Who can organize to generate bulk donations for candidates better than anyone else?

The trade unions hired to work on overpriced public projects and the public-private boondoggles.

The term "Progressive" is a misnomer in Portland politics, they should be called the "Status-Quo'ers".

Pancho's judgements on campaign funding run counter to the evidence. Under traditional rules, incumbents almost always raise and spend more money than challengers. In areas where public financing has been instituted, the success of challengers has increased.

Pancho might benefit from researching the issue here: Voter-Owned Elections, that is, if he wants to be well informed.

Pancho's judgements on campaign funding run counter to the evidence. Under traditional rules, incumbents almost always raise and spend more money than challengers. In areas where public financing has been instituted, the success of challengers has increased.

Pancho might benefit from researching the issue here: Voter-Owned Elections, that is, if he wants to be well informed.

Pancho's judgements on campaign funding run counter to the evidence. Under traditional rules, incumbents almost always raise and spend more money than challengers. In areas where public financing has been instituted, the success of challengers has increased.

Pancho might benefit from researching the issue here: Voter-Owned Elections, that is, if he wants to be well informed.

Pancho's judgements on campaign funding run counter to the evidence. Under traditional rules, incumbents almost always raise and spend more money than challengers. In areas where public financing has been instituted, the success of challengers has increased.

Pancho might benefit from researching the issue here: Voter-Owned Elections, that is, if he wants to be well informed.

Sorry about the multiple posting. I got several time-out messages when I attempted to post. Then....

Sorry about the multiple posting. I got several time-out messages when I attempted to post. Then....

Pancho doesn't seem to be familair with recent Portland politics.

It appears, at least, not to be familiar with Portland mayor Bud Clark. A no-name tavern owner who took on the incumbent, Frank Ivancie, backed by Portland politcal machine- and won. And this isn't even an example of a run-off between two candidates that had equal funding- Ivancie's funds dwarfed the amount Clark had at his disposal.

Point being, incumbency adds a slight edge. In the hypothetical situation Pancho raises, in a run-off between two candidates with equal funding, it would be the one who runs the best cmapaign who'd win. Period.

And I love this double-talk against progressives. We never have any "new ideas" and continually parrot "tired" rhetoric. Whenever progressives do, however, propose new ideas, what lable befits us?

"Status quo"-ers.

Thanks Pancho, for providing the punchline....

Pancho doesn't seem to be familair with recent Portland politics.

It appears, at least, not to be familiar with Portland mayor Bud Clark. A no-name tavern owner who took on the incumbent, Frank Ivancie, backed by Portland politcal machine- and won. And this isn't even an example of a run-off between two candidates that had equal funding- Ivancie's funds dwarfed the amount Clark had at his disposal.

Point being, incumbency adds a slight edge. In the hypothetical situation Pancho raises, in a run-off between two candidates with equal funding, it would be the one who runs the best cmapaign who'd win. Period.

And I love this double-talk against progressives. We never have any "new ideas" and continually parrot "tired" rhetoric. Whenever progressives do, however, propose new ideas, what lable befits us?

"Status quo"-ers.

Thanks Pancho, for providing the punchline....

Related to this process of taking PGE 'public,' so to speak, (Burdick contra Sten is forgone futility, sorry Ginny, sucks for you G & G), and in relation to other news over the next 24 X 365 that comes our way, from another thread Blue Oregon posted, in each case you think to test it, see how these three simple laws could treat whatever pains campaigns give you:

• Ban broadcast political advertising, leave print advertising as is, just like we ban broadcast cigarette advertising. And for the same reasons: it's addictive, and it's a public health deterioration. In public funded campaigns, there would be nothing for the public to fund -- campaigns cost zilch after broadcast ad buying is eliminated.

• Prohibit monopolies from advertising. (Except maybe at point of purchase.) I don't know who would back me up on this, but in the olden days (first decades of television), convention if not law prevented ad spending by sole sellers in a 'market.' The electric utility could not advertise (because you only had one source for electricity). Nor the phone company. (If cable TV had been then, it couldn't advertise.) No post office ads. No DMV ads. No public school ads. No military ads. (There's only one Marine Corps to buy into, if you're in the market.) No water bureau advertising. No public transportation -- bus, rail ads. Reserving the right to revise and extend my list ....

• Tax advertising. Say ten percent 'surcharge' on any ad expense. Then shake it out in consensus whether print or performance or broadcast ad mediums get different surcharge rates. And the thrust is not so much about the revenues from it, which might simply cover regulatory oversight, (although it sure could change the complexion of political campaign donations to have an effective tax on them), but it does the main 'damage' in recording the transaction for tax requirements so 'public record' knows who bought what advertising service from whom, when, for how much. The tax rate is picayune, the transaction records keeping is humongous. The first time I heard of a bill to tax ad spending was back in the first years of TV. The men in the grey flannel suits from Madison Avenue were so all over Congress like white sheets on klansmen -- nobody knew who was behind it, and everyone stayed in formation. It has come up in Congress from time to time since. Without dwelling on the details of the ad 'industry' regalia, from my years of considering it, I recommend enacting a tax on advertising. (Nobody knows: The biggest invisible chunk of Portland 'economic' activity goes on involving the world-class ad agencies in town, and because they are world-class is why whatever chunk they are, is invisible.)

And b!X: Thx.