THE CANDIDATES: Brady (Left), Hales (Center) and Smith (Right)
From speeches in swanky bars to parties with aerial dancers, Portland’s three leading mayoral candidates are still pleading for your attention—and your money.
But with 3½ months before the May 15 primary, a clear pattern in the way the mayoral candidates are collecting money—and how fast they’re spending it—is already taking shape.
So, too, are the ways special-interest groups are lining up behind candidates Eileen Brady, Charlie Hales and Jefferson Smith.
Developers, construction firms, bankers, lawyers, health-care companies, high tech—people involved in these and other interests are giving big dollars to the candidates.
All told, the campaigns have hit the $1 million mark, and one candidate, Brady, accounts for more than half of that.
The million-dollar milepost is also notable, however, for what’s missing: union money.
Many unions have stayed out of the race so far. The International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 48 has backed Brady, while the union that represents most city workers, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, has endorsed Smith. But meaningful financial support from unions hasn’t yet shown up in the candidates’ finance reports.
Smith held a big fundraiser last week before state law shuts him down for a month: State legislators are prohibited from accepting contributions while in session, and Smith will be in Salem for a four-week session starting Feb. 1. (The ban will also affect Rep. Mary Nolan, D-Portland, in her campaign against City Commissioner Amanda Fritz.)
WW crunched the numbers in the candidates’ campaign reports. Here is some of what we found.
Stay up-to-date with the campaigns' finance data at our election page, PDX Votes.
In my opinion, Jefferson Smith stands above the rest of the candidates. I believe his integrity, his intellect, his vision for moving Portland forward, and his leadership abilities will make him the next great mayor of this wonderful city. I wholeheartedly support his campaign!
Smith's campaign is "100% Portland" as I saw his campaign say. Unless you are an individual from out of state. It disappoints me that Smith started making promises of what his first donations would consist of, but when he didn't like how far behind he was with limits he started removing restrictions. Note that corporate money is OK to Smith if they are "from Oregon". We all know how easy it is to incorporate in Oregon. At least Hales said that it would depend on the corporation rather than make an arbitrary rule with a loophole that makes it meaningless. Does anybody else get the feeling Smith is running for the Democratic primary for the non-partisan seat? Anybody with as much Party backing as Smith has should be a concern. Has he been involved in local issues as a champion of livability or was he focussed on state and federal issues? Does the rhetoric he spouts sound a bit hopey? Not a lot of substance from his campaign have I seen. Smith helped run get out the vote for Democratic institutions regardless of their progressiveness. Do we really need party hacks setting policy? Smith hasn't come out for election reform other than public funding, which is great for machines like his. Does he have a real vision that has detail? At a recent forum I was more impressed by Hales' understanding of the city and answers than Smith, who seemed more like another Sam Adams quirky visionista without a real grounding of what it takes to involve others in realizing their own self actualization rather than pushing your agenda and views upon others. Can Smith deliver his ideology of inclusiveness by just talking about the East Portland he moved to to run for office? He is a career politician who seems to say what it takes to get elected, but is he really going to tackle the important issues of the day? Can he handle the PPB effectively unlike the current leadership? Hales is big on community policing and has a history of solid administration. Does Smith have any experience running something like a bureau? As far as I can tell, his administrative acumen is not high, he is easily distracted, and he is a True Believer in the Democratic Party as salvation for progressives. Brady seems sold out to the far right and I question her value in even making New Seasons successful. I have no clear idea of what her role even was and how that would inform her administration of the city, especially the PPB. Tough call but Hales seems like the smartest one in the field, but maybe I lean technocratic. More investigation is needed. We need more like Amanda Fritz, but this race doesn't have anybody like her that I can tell. I also like Mark White, too, so far. He seems to be much more community-minded than Novick. Why do the Democratic Party insiders like Nolan, Novick, and Smith think they can walk into a city seat without addressing all the local issues people really care about? Please don't use us to run for governor. It gets old.
For what it's worth, I'm one of Smith's out of state donors. As I suspect is the case for quite a few of us, Jefferson inspired me when I was younger (both to do good things and to take interest in Oregon). I'm away trying to do good for now, but still consider Portland home, and hope I move back sometime soon.
Wow, a fairly stark contrast: big-money interests like developers and bankers are putting their faith and trust in the other candidates, but Smith is getting the support of what look to be, y'know, regular people of Portland who don't control much more than their vote and their tightened pocketbooks. And as someone who has developed something of a national reputation as an in ovative and true progressive,he's getting help from regular folks outside the city as well. 500 donors in two weeks, and the fastest to 1500 in history I believe. He's only been in the race for four months! And I understand with yesterday's big raise he now has MORE money than Ms Brady. There's a real difference in who's giving to whom in this race, and I like the people who are supporting Smith the best.
Uh, Joe. You clearly haven't used your political acumen to look ... his out-of-state contributors are huge donors. Ms. Brady's percentage of small donors is lower than Mr. Smith's only because she has so many more donors (really basic rule of skewing statistics, which WWeek has clearly done here).
Even before Tuesday Brady and Smith had roughly the same number of donors, and I think as a result of his huge week he actually has more donors and more cash on hand than Brady--so the idea that statistical skew is afoot doesn't wash. Spinning the graph on her behalf makes it seem like you know that's a big strength for Smith to have a more grassroots donor base.
Isn't that interesting? A better headline could have been "How to buy" a Mayor in the City of Portland.
What is wrong with this picture? Well, 99.9% of the voters are not lawyers, bankers, Union Bosses, etc.
Now, a normal intelligent person must at some point think. How are these "bought politicians and wannabes" represent the interests of the 99.9%? How? What is in for them? Altruism? Ha!
See what a lie this process is? What kind of Democracy is the one you can buy a candidate?
Here is my favorite word that describes their looting system and their pawns.... Cleptocracy!
Look it up!