Isn't Gard & Gerber, Multnomah Co / Diane Linn's PR firm too?

"I'm thinking this is sabotage," said Jason Williams of the Taxpayers Association of Oregon, which collected about 2,000 signatures for the repeal effort.

Perhaps TAO is upset that "the people" think for themselves. Isn't this McIntire's outfit? When was the last time they successfully passed a ballot measure? In this century? A friend who stood up to McIntire's 2000 ballot measure is still regarded as a hero---"we the people" DOES include those who belong to no organization. Some of us just wish there were more proposed solutions to actual problems, not just some company complaining that it is someone else's fault they didn't do quality control before handing in signature sheets.

The term initiativemeisters shows the low level of regard many of us have for those who think making a living on ballot measures is honorable work. Try living in the real world where most people don't have an ideology or political label or the names of all the movers and shakers on the tips of their tongues because they are more concerned about everyday life of work, family, friends.

"the League of Women Voters and other reformers"

The League of Womens Voters is a reform organization?

That was 40 years ago. Nobody can really tell me what their mission is today but atleast I can be thankful they are left wing and bright blue.

Charlie G, Visit these websites and let us know what you find "lefty and bright blue" about them:

http://www.lwv.org

http://www.lwvor.org

Or are you saying that anyone who disagrees with you is a lefty?

Good afternoon LT...I knew I'd hear from you darlin.

I hope you have the good sense not to insult anyone's intelligence and claim that the League is anything but solidly liberal.

Don McIntire is YOUR ally too Blue....you just haven't grown up enough yet to realize it.

Thanks, blue.

I would add one other thing. Think of the kids who were in elementary school when Measure 5 (and then 47/ 50) passed. As I recall, Measure 47 was passed 10 years ago, so anyone who was 10 that year would be 20 now. Kids born in the late 1970s-early 1980s are now young adults. Some are college graduates with good jobs. Does McInitire do well in front of such audiences? Not what I have heard. Where are the young volunteers willing to go door to door on behalf of McIntire and his anti-tax, anti-union, anti-government crusade?

There was a great test of anti-tax strength in 2002 when Tiernan ran against Devlin and Witt ran against Ringo. If anti-taxers are everyone's favorite politicians, why did those races go to the Democrats? Could it have been all the excesses of certain state senators?(The ceramic pig and the message "only raise taxes when pigs fly" may have been the last straw from people expecting serious behavior out of the state senators.)

McIntire, as I understand him, is not only a rude old guy (some friends saw him swear when his position was challenged in a debate) but also someone who wants the state (except, of course, the Sec. of State elections Division because they are needed to put measures on the ballot) to fall down around our ears because that is better than raising taxes.

The honest thing for his supporters to do is to run campaigns based on the idea RESOLVED: Taxes in this state are too high and we will defeat anyone who advocates health care, schools or public safety funding or any other government program.

and see how far they get.

My suspicion is that McIntire and his cronies have a tough time stating what they are FOR. It is so much easier just to rail on about being anti-tax and anyone who asks detailed questions must be one of them pro-tax liberals.

Terms like liberal and conservative don't cover lots of areas.

If someone cares about public meetings and politician dialogue with the public---and says Ted Ferrioli and Peter Courtney did that better than Kate Brown---which label applies to them?

Sounds to me like Burdick's friends/ fellow G & G folks refuse to take responsibility for their own actions. Blaming an unproven "conspiracy" sounds like the old saying "when they act like that, you know they know they are losing".

Blue....you have no idea what taxes I pay. To say that you say the pay the same taxes as I do is laughable.

As for Don McIntire....he obviously has been EXTREMELY effective in achieving his goals if he has this much notoriety among liberals, moderates, and conservatives. It appears his legacy is secure. You might want to begin working on yours Blue.

As for Don McIntire....he obviously has been EXTREMELY effective in achieving his goals if he has this much notoriety among liberals, moderates, and conservatives. It appears his legacy is secure.

So, you know that from the days of Measure 5 McIntire's main goal has been to annoy people? McIntire's legacy is secure, all right---as a 20th century initiativemeister. But what has he accomplished in this century?

Young people I know see him as the guy who cut spending while they were in public school, and were thrilled to see someone of their generation stand up to him at a 2000 debate.

Charlie G, if you believe in more than insults, you should try to find out some information about Max Rafferty. He died before most people had online access, so I don't know how much you could find about him online. He had McIntire's love of insults and about as much to show for all his actions, except he was a government official in California in the 1960s. He won the nomination for US Senate (defeating an incumbent) in 1968 and a lot of people who were not fans of Alan Cranston decided Cranston was the better of the two and sent him to DC so Max Rafferty would not be inflicted on the whole country.

As I recall, Rafferty died in a car accident (went off the road into some water or something) and it was barely a blip on the news. No memorials. My guess is that Sizemore & McIntire are headed in that direction--no more "legacy" than being disruptive, and famous for namecalling (Sizemore saying parents in a march for school funding were "dupes of the teachers union" likely did not win friends and influence people).

But you don't care as long as you can make sarcastic remarks, is that it?

Having survived two years of battling Gard&Gerber in the PGE service area PUD campaigns, I know that "slime" is an apropos word for Charlie Burr to use in this post's title. Anyone approaching the vicinity of these public relations professionals should wear well-sharpened golf spikes to assure firm footing.

Although Senator Burdick deserves copious chiding for going to work for these purveyors of the Big Lie, the list of civic-minded persons of note who were either bought-off, co-opted, or fooled by G&G and PGE into misleading the voters on the merits of public ownership is quite long. It includes Ellen Lowe, Kurt Schrader, Greg MacPherson, Rick Metsger, Judie Hammerstad, Jay Formick, and Martha Schrader. Then there are all those influential folks scared into silence by PGE's political clout. I won't name those who told me that was just the reason they remained silent on the PUD issue.

That's a pretty big strategic blunder, as Ginny has the most to gain by aligning herself with the League of Women Voters. My personal experience has been that the LWV is one of the most above board and respectable organizations in local politics.

Just a pet peeve and I know most other progressives will disagree with me, but Ginny's stance on gun control has rankled me as well as gunowner conservatives. The right to keep and bear arms is right there in the US Constitution's Second Amendment. Leave it alone. Same goes for George Bush and the Fourth Amendment and Fifth Amendments. The common denominator here is that Ginny has shown a Federalist tilt to her governance which is underscored by her Gard & Gerber alliance.

I'm glad to not have been the only person who experienced the idiotic petition gatherers for this initiative: mine actually told me she was there representing the City of Portland when I asked her who was behind the petition she was gathering signatures for. Nice.

There's a very interesting ongoing link of Ginny Burdick with everything G&G has ever done.

Nor is there anything "thoughtful" or "independent" about her public relations firm

Perhaps she could speak for herself on what G&G does, and whether she believes the conspiracy theories ... perhaps G&G should take a lesson from Dick Cheney and take responsibility for once.

Last I heard, it was Gard and Gerber, not Gard and Burdick. Does Randy Leonard have to be held responsible for everything the City does? After all, he works for that entity. Does every City maintenance person get held responsible for the reservoir capping?

Ginny needs to distance herself from G&G publicly, or at least from some of their campaigns. Until she does that, they'll continue to be an anchor to her campaign.

Just because she's against local public financing doesn't mean she believes everything anyone from G&G says about this campaign.

I'm not happy with Burdick, but her ballot initiative did nothing but mandate background checks at gun shows. I think that is a common sense step that does not infringe on the second ammendment, unless one supports an absolutist reading of the Constitution, an approach that the Supreme Court has not taken with any part of the document.

G&G:"What I do know is that something is fishy here. Unfortunately, we're going to run out of time before we can get real answers."

Here's a real answer: you ran an incompetent campaign.

could it be that the drive failed because the signature gathering companies hire folks with little to no understanding of the issues they're circulating petitions for? could it be that most of them do it not out of any desire to see some initiative pass but because they have a financial incentive?

i would submit that Occam's Razor would suggest that we look at the possibility of incompetence first before we go fishing for some conspiracy.

From today's Oregonian story: But in the First Things First count, the state system did not report some signers as registered voters, even though they were.

Also that whether signature gatherers properly signed sheets of signatures they collected is being investigated.

Hardly evidence of a plot to have people sign twice!

Which means if it does get on the ballot now, advocates will have to explain why they insulted potential supporters. "Oh, you mean the people who screamed CONSPIRACY claiming their political opponents had an organized effort to have people sign twice? And those characters want my vote for their measure?".

Is it any wonder the initiative process is so screwed up? Here's a person who signed this petition three times:

"I sign a lot of petitions, because I like to help out the people doing it. They're out there in the cold or in the rain, and they're just trying to make some money."

So, this guy signs any petition, whether or not he things it's a good idea, because the petitioner looks cold. Maybe that's how measure 37 got on the ballot: they collected signatures in cold weather.