Seen a Rogue on the loose? Get in touch with our Roguemeister: JOHN SCHRAG jschrag@wweek.com (503) 243-2122 FAX: (503) 243-1115 SUPER ELECTION-DAY ROGUE'S GALLERY Not only did last Tuesday's elections result in the extraordinary spectacle of the presidential contest hinging on a few hundred little old ladies from Palm Beach, it generated a bumper crop of rogues--political provocateurs who deployed an impressive arsenal of dubious tactics and questionable maneuvers in an effort to stretch the truth and fool Oregon voters. Some of these tactics smacked of brilliance, others reeked of desperation. Interestingly, most of them did not pay off--a sign, perhaps, that in politics being right counts less than being forthright. The season's most egregious rogue is maverick political consultant Gregg Clapper, who was behind several outrageous whoppers. First, he produced a generic anti-government ad for conservative moneyman Loren Parks, charging that state taxes had grown three times as fast as personal income over the past decade--a distortion that Clapper obtained by comparing total state spending with per capita income, conveniently neglecting a bizarre phenomenon known as "population growth." Since 1989, per-capita state spending has risen 56 percent and per-capita income has risen 58 percent--a statistical dead heat. In another ad for the Parks Foundation, Clapper attacked the Oregon Health Plan for funding a bone-marrow transplant for a child molester from Mexico. Actually, the operation was paid for by the state Department of Corrections. Oops! Clapper also ran ads for Measure 91 claiming that Oregonians paid the fourth-highest taxes in the nation--not so. Finally, Clapper showed a certain disdain for the truth in TV and radio spots he produced for Republican Kevin Mannix, the pint-sized pit bull who challenged incumbent Demo Hardy Myers for attorney general. The ads portrayed Myers as a liberal softy dying to let Kip Kinkel and convicted rapists run amok. Our only consolation is that Clapper lost three out of the four races he took part in: M91 lost by 10 percentage points; M95 lost by nearly 2 to 1; Mannix lost to Myers 46 percent to 50 percent. Clapper's only win was in defeating M94 (see below). Clapper, so adept at manipulating images, refused to have his picture taken. Surely one of the most desperate tactics employed in this election was the pathetic effort by the Service Employees International Union, or SEIU, to siphon off Nader support by encouraging Naderites to cast a "virtual vote" for Ralph but a real vote for Gore. (Check out www.VirtualVoteForNader.com.) "Vote Gore for a safe today," the ads proclaimed. "VirtualVote Nader for a progressive tomorrow." Apart from the Orwellian overtones of this slogan, a post-election visit clearly demonstrates the website's hostility to Nader. "The American left will not forget. And will not forgive. [Nader] is a traitor to himself, and to his ideals." Adding insult to injury, the website doesn't even bother to post the results of its virtual ballot. Perhaps its servers are choking on virtual chad. Republican House Speaker Lynn Snodgrass is a former beauty queen, but there's only one word for her last-minute stunt in the secretary of state race against Demo Bill Bradbury--ugly, ugly, ugly. In the final days of the campaign, Snodgrass copied footage from Bradbury's "fishing" spot and slapped a new soundtrack to it, converting a clever and positive ad into a plagiaristic sham. Consolation: Snodgrass lost 49 to 45 percent. Academics are usually careful with their footnotes, but Mitch Greenlick, chairman of the Department of Public Medicine at OHSU, must have skipped that class. Greenlick, a Democrat who challenged conservative copier king Bill Witt in House District 7, took The Oregonian's Sept. 25 endorsement of his rival and turned it into a hit piece. The original read: "A social conservative, Witt may be out of sync with his district on abortion and gun control, but the 48-year-old incumbent is brainy and hardworking." In Professor Greenlick's hands, this became "Witt... is out of sync with his district"--a sophomoric attempt at distortion that The Oregonian labeled "wildly off-target." Witt won by about 500 votes. What were the folks at Yes on 94 smoking? The campaign distributed fliers with sympathetic portraits of three teenagers who had received long sentences for minor misdeeds thanks to Measure 11, which M94 sought to repeal. Unfortunately, all three cases were invented by a local criminal defense lawyer two years ago to illustrate the potential shortcomings of M11's Procrustean approach to justice. M94 supporters cited several other real-world examples of M11's rough justice but often omitted key details like prior convictions and loaded guns. Speaking of fiction, we look forward to the next installment of Republican state Sen. Eileen Qutub's political autobiography. In an effort to fend off a strong challenge from Demo Ryan Deckert, Qutub reinvented herself as a proponent of gun safety, an advocate for schools and a champion of the Oregon Health Plan--positions all at odds with her voting record. Deckert won 52 to 46 percent. Finally, we should mention Renee Daphne Kimball, a minor-league rogue who committed a major faux pas during Bill Sizemore's election night party at the Monarch Hotel. When TV monitors switched to Hillary Clinton's acceptance speech in the New York Senate race, Kimball displayed her compassionate conservatism by asking, "Where's Lee Harvey Oswald when you need him?"