SPECIAL ELECTION EDITION

[May 12th, 2004] 'Tis the season to be jolly--at least here at the Rogue Desk. The final days of any election campaign yield bushels of just the sort of penny-ante human venality and self-interest we thrive on. The May 18 primary's endgame hasn't disappointed.

Start with the negative poll someone's doing on mayoral candidate Tom Potter. This poll, which at least one tipster identified as the work of an outfit called McGuire Research Services, tests reactions to a number of leading questions about the ex-police chief. One, for example, implies Potter spent nine days fiddling around on vacation in Mexico after a police shooting.

Some Potter partisans call this a "push poll," invoking the disreputable use of polling as pretext for spreading negative information. To us, it looks more like someone's trawling for negative ad fodder--for use, say, in a head-to-head November runoff with Potter. The folks at McGuire aren't talking. A spokesman for the well-funded campaign of front-runner Jim Francesconi says the campaign hasn't hired McGuire or engaged in any push-polling to sully Potter's name.

Meanwhile, the tight City Council race between Nick Fish and Sam Adams--once perhaps too chummy for its own good--has now degenerated into a full-scale bitchfest. The Adams campaign fired off a May 6 letter to the Fishfolk, demanding they stop running a TV ad in which Fish says the former mayoral aide "now admits he didn't do his homework" on the city's money-losing PGE Park renovation. Adams claims he never said any such thing. Meanwhile, Fish's campaign is up in arms about Adams' campaign literature, which rattles off the candidate's accomplishments, yet tactfully (or tactically) omits the fact that he worked for Katz.

Finally, let's zip out to Washington County. Eileen Qutub, the right-wing former legislator vying to unseat County Commissioner Dick Schouten, reportedly ripped into voters who called her with questions about her candidacy. Confronted on the alleged rudeness at a candidate forum, Qutub accused Schouten of "planting" the callers, which Schouten denies. According to Schouten's campaign staff, Qutub's husband, Abe, then fired off an angry email to the incumbent. A copy provided by the Schouten campaign bears the subject line "Lies, damn lies and lie purveyors," and is laced with ALL-CAPS FURY: "You know damn well she behaved VERY professionally as she ALWAYS does!"