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We sincerely hope you will find our endorsements persuasive. But we would be remiss if we didn't mention the mayor's race includes another choice.
Timothy Hutton, the people's choice.
Hutton isn't a politician, just a humble, Malibu-born thespian with a cable television show. But he cruised to victory in WW's Mayoral Madness contest.
Hutton's win marks the culmination of our absurd contest that became a genuine phenomenon: We started with a bracket of 64 candidates, and more than 74,000 ballots were cast in Mayoral Madness. Our phony election sparked actual charges of vote-buying, smear attacks on an AARP-eligible elephant, and endorsement videos featuring most of the remaining Portland Trail Blazers.
And you, the real voters, knocked everyone out until just Hutton was standing. In the final showdown, he easily defeated divorce lawyer Jody Stahancyk, 5,391 votes to 4,015.
But it's the way Hutton won that provides a compelling argument for writing him in, if you're looking for a protest candidate in the Portland mayor's race.
He attracts national attention: The vast majority of his votes came from out of state, from his army of Twitter followers—30,667 at last count—and fans of his TNT Leverage series. He could tell the country that the kids of Portland need bus passes, and they would just give us bus passes.
He's a job creator. Leverage is constantly shutting down streets to explode things. Leverage is crucial to our rapidly expanding cinematic demolitions-expert economic sector.
And Hutton knows how to keep his mouth shut. He remained nobly above the fray throughout this contest. As mayor, it is possible that we will never see him.
Yes, there are weaknesses in his candidacy. As Stahancyk pointed out in a motion filed with WW this week, Hutton lives in New York. But he has met Mayoral Madness' flimsy burden of residency by filming a very popular television show here—and then winning.
So, are we saying you should actually vote for Timothy Hutton in the Portland mayoral election? No. We are definitely not saying that.
But are we saying it would not be the worst vote you could cast? Yes. That is what we're saying.
WWeek 2015