Lynn, of the OMI site, seems to think we shouldn't "be too hard" on Boyles' daughter, who is responsible for the Internet operation of the campaign. "She's only 16," she writes. "[H]ow savvy were you when you were 16?"

I'd expect her to be pretty damn savvy for $12,500.

And here's the really, really weird part: It's not going to be very effective. She'd be far better off spending her time booking her mom speaking engagements at local nursing homes, Lion's Clubs, whatever. Or even just going door to door by herself with some literature.

"Dumb and ineffective" sums it up Kari. Great line!

ron ledbury: wtf?

Because they were all issued letters of scrutiny by Blackmer, Ron. Geez. You're rumor-mongering, poorly.

OK Ron, it's ME that's guessing, not you. (!!)

Your continued assertions that this has anything whatsoever to do with First Amendment issues are perplexing and baffling. It is a VOLUNTARY program, Ron. No one's forcing anyone to do a thing. If you want the money, you have to follow these rules. End of story.

It seems that she acknowledges the prospect that Mr. Sten and Ms. Fritz are at least at risk of having to return the dollars that they received.

What's being acknowledged is that the system requires monies to not be spent in certain ways, and the way to determine that is be requiring an accounting of how the money is being spent. The auditor has already said Fritz, who I think was the first to provide that accounting, appears to be operating within those restrictions.

That all candidates receiving funds need to provide this accounting isn't an accusation of possible wrong-doing. It's actually just something called proper oversight.

Yahoo! groups are mailing lists. It's just that some people opt to read them only via the Web archive of the list. When people sign up for a group/list on trains or on Portland parks, they don't expect to receive a request from a political candidate for a free lawyer. And for those members who do treat them like the mailing lists they are -- meaning, get them via email, this was an unsolicited email.

Right now, we don't know precisely how many lists Boyles' daughter improperly and knowingly sent these messages to, we only know how many we've tracked down so far. This was, whatever you believe the numbers to be, "mailings, postings, or crosspostings of the same message" to a significant number of unrelated lists.

Does it suit some of the more delicate sensibilities if we call it "mailing list spam" instead? I mean, "comment spam" to blogs is still spam, and worthy of the name. It doesn't have to be some sort of automatic batch process to be unsolicited mass messages. And these were unsolicited, off-topic, mass messages.

I dno't treat Boyles like Karl Rove (we have Gard & Gerber to treat that way). But if we're going to talk issues, we've done that: The issue that she's blamed everyone but herself for the problems with her fundraising, problems which demonstrate either malicious intent or crappy management -- neither of which would be good for the City to elect. If we're going to talk issues, we've done that: The issue that this latest mishap online arguably demonstrates that she doesn't look into what's proper, but simply does what she thinks will help her out -- also not good for the City to elect.

Those are issues.

Oh, and if we're going to talk issues, we've done that: The issue of how she's spending her public money, seemingly in violation of very clear language in the law. If she doesn't read, or ignores, the law under which she's running for office, that doesn't suggest something the City should elect either.

All of these are issues.

I'm a strong supporter of "clean candidate" financing as most of you well know, and I was thrilled to see someone qualify in the Pos. 3 race. I was very much looking forward to seeing Boyles make a splash in the race and show the value of new voices.

And then I heard her speak at City Club. Awful, repetitive, mostly lacking substance. Well, OK--she's no Cicero. Passionate, though.

And then the Golovan troubles started, and I gave her the benefit of the doubt that she might have been misled or manipulated by this queenmaker from the Slavic community.

And then her coming-out-of-hiding press release surfaced...and that's when I began slowly stepping backwards out of the room.

Similarly, when her expense accounting was published, I was willing to believe that a 16-year old COULD do highly technical work worth 12 grand, and that 4 laptops and $750 was not outrageous for a new campaign with nothing to start.

But then when I found out she was paying her daughter for work done before she qualified, that she dropped 11 thousand on a barn of a "headquarters," and that what her daughter was doing was perhaps technical in nature but less than useless to the campaign--I hit my limit.

Emilie Boyles has no business occupying a seat on City Council. She also has no business spending public finance money, and hopefully--eventually--the public will get it back, with interest. (In that vein, one of my suggestions for the next election will be that certified candidates post some kind of bond or promissory so that they can't spend the money and then cry poor. Call it required "corruption insurance.")

If we'd been able to GET to the issues important to Boyles, we could have talked about them. We were too overwhelmed by the problems with her candidacy to ever treat her platform with any seriousness, sadly. But that's the way it goes.

The idea, as I remember it, was that we went onto sites with which we have an established relationship and talk about her candidacy. Almost as a by-the-way, a personal endorsement if you will.

Oy. That's not "amost as a by-the-way" -- that's a coordinated-by-the-campaign effort to abuse established relationships with sites, IMHO.

If people want to have support for a candidate and talk about it online, fine. But please don't run around thinking that doing so at the bhest of the campaign itself is anything other than smarmy.

But every campaign spends a lot of time trying to get supporters to talk about their candidate. They do it at churches, union meetings, going door-to-door, at coffee shops.

Well, let's see if Amanda will clarify what she meant here:

Ms. Boyles approached some friends and I to help with the whole message/blogging/mailing list thing. The idea, as I remember it, was that we went onto sites with which we have an established relationship and talk about her candidacy.

Because, especially given the Boyles campaign's general attitude and other activities, that doesn't strike me as what you're talking about, which would be, in essence, "So, if people are talking about the race, pleasebe sure to chime in about my campaign." What it sounds like to me, and admittedly I may be prejudiced by her campaign's general oy-ness, is a far more concerted effort to direct people to pimp her candidacy.

Notice what Amanda says: "Ms. Boyles approached some friends and I to help with the whole message/blogging/mailing list thing."

It's very specific, very deliberate -- or at least appears to be so, to me, when you combine the way that's phrased with what we've since seen the Boyles campaign doing.

That's not the same thing as what you're talking about.

ron, thanks for the clarification. to which i repeat: wtf? i still have no idea what you said.

and Amanda, if you are going to advocate via the English language, please use correct grammar. it's "... some friends and me..." not "and I". of course, 90% of America gets that one wrong..

There is certainly nothing illegal about spending campaign funds to promote the candidate on internet message boards.

The City-Wide Parks team, of which I'm a member, has never had any contact from Emilie Boyles, or her daughter, on any issue, let alone any Parks issues.

For her daughter to suddenly post on the City-Wide Parks team's list-serve a request for help in securing an attorney...if paying her daughter to do this is notan illegal use of public financing money, then it should be.

What's next? Using taxpayer provided campaign money to hire an attorney to defend Emilie Boyles against her rip-off of taxpayer provided campaign money?

Sounds like there might be less outrage if everyone could figure out how to use their danged "delete" button.

Like most everyone else, I'm on several different lists, blogs, groups etcetera. With all of the random exhortations to claim my nigerian fortune, satisfy my wife, refinance my house, and protect myself from gangbangers smearing hallucinogens on pay phones, I find it hard to imagine that an inappropriate email from an obviously confused candidate would engender anything beyond mild irritation.

Most of this thread has been illuminating and topical, but this email thing............You gotta be kidding........

So, Pat, because spam is common, we should forgive Boyles for spamming? And, good lord, you think this happened because her campaign is "confused'? There's no confusion here. I would find it extraordinarily unlikely that Boyles' daughter was "confused" and thought it was no big deal to spam lists about deaf students, railroads, Republicans, parks, and Celtic music about her mother needing a lawyer.

That's not confusion. It's just arrogant self-interest. And that's why it's relevant. Read and listen to how Boyles blames everyone but herself for her campaign woes, and it's a pattern of just that: Arrogant self-interest. It's hardly my fault, or that of anyone else harping on the spam issue, that said arrogant self-interest runs the gamut from large issues such as paying her daughter in advance of work done and then having part of that come back to pay for their houing costs, all the way over to spamming email lists.

It's her fault. And it's all relevant.

The idea that "well, lots of people spam, so it's no big deal if she does it, too" just baffles me. As I said, to me it reflects upon a trend on Boyles' part to not much care what the rules -- or even rules of thumb -- might be in any given environment into which she's thrust herself.

Speaking of spam, has anybody else noticed the proliferation of Dave Lister signs in public places...traffic circles, sidewalks of major intersections like 12th and Hawthorne...

Is that OK? Are there any laws against that sort of thing? Do voters actually like that, or do they generally (like me) consider it a form of littering?

-Pete

Pete, by law, lawn signs cannot be placed on public property. Legally, it is littering. I suppose we could call it lawnsign spam.

And yes, I noticed one today -- on the public property right before sidewalk on the east edge of the Sellwood Bridge. Of course, maybe the "Eastside Guy" had to drop his last one before he got to the Westside.

Yet More Steve Miller: I'm a spammer. I'm a scammer. Midnight... I'll be in the slammer. Get my lovin on the run....

FYI, their email also was posted to a group described thusly: "Families of children with Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome and other Congenital Heart Defects in the Pacific Northwest (Oregon, Washington, Idaho) unite to support each other."

Yeah, okay Pat. Boyles and daughter are just "confused" sending their email to lists like this.

Oy.

The irony, of course, being that NNW couldn't even make such a statement is this were a report from "six journalists" and not a report from the blogosphere, since those "six journalists" don't offer a place for him/her to voice such a gripe.

On edit: I should also say that I offer no apologies for continuing to follow-up on an aspect of this story (the spamming) which broke in the blogosphere, on Metroblogging Portland and then pursued on FURIOUS nads! -- not to make the normal press until later.

Is the blogosphere supposed to drop following a story once it's been picked up by the print press?

Geez, Bix, don'tcha know? Once a story is committed to paper, you're not allowed to waste electrons on it anymore!

Bix,

I have a Yahoo Group account and as the creator/adminstrator sometimes get spam if someone joins the group and then sends a message. So I've had to make it more difficult to join and send messages to others to protect my lists.

I understand what a pain spam is, my Yahoo mail account gets a large amount of spam (hundreds a week).

While I haven't seen Boyles emails, I do have to agree that what she and her supporters are doing is inappropriate. My suggestion is write a letter of complaint to the Oregon Attorney General's Office.

I'd send a copy of the letter to the Secretary of State as well.

If you feel strongly about it, you should encourage your readers on your blog to do the same. Especially those who have actually recieved emails.

Before going to the Attorney General/Secretary of State, it might be worth doing a little legwork to figure out whether any laws have been violated.

As distasteful as spam is, in the context of mailing lists and newsgroups, it's largely unregulated. Readers "opt in" to join those groups, and sometimes agree to terms of service. How the maintainers/moderators of those groups deal with violations should not be something public officials have to meddle with too much...I am not a lawyer, but that's not where I want my tax dollars going.

Switching gears for a moment: sending spam to sell a product (in many cases) has no risk; the worst that can happen is somebody chooses not to buy the product. But sending spam to sell a political candidate has a huge risk: the people who receive it might be irritated, and vote against you.

I expect that's what will happen here; the problem will take care of itself. So why waste our time discussing it to death, or (worse) waste tax dollars punishing candidates that work against their own interests?

-Pete