Tim Trickey, owner of Oregon’s most prolific signature-gathering firm, is leaving the business. Trickey sold his Democracy Direct shop to an undisclosed buyer and is joining a group called Lights On Oregon, which promotes “responsible energy projects.” Democracy Direct gathered signatures for seven measures on the November ballot. Union lawyers recently deposed Trickey as part of a contempt proceeding against Bill Sizemore. Union-backed Our Oregon’s director, Kevin Looper, wonders if that spooked Trickey. “Looks like the aptly named Tim Trickey finally figured out he was Sizemore’s fall guy,” Looper says. But Trickey blames an “onerous” 2007 law that tightened ballot measure rules for creating excessive liability for his company.

Campaign-finance reports show Multnomah County Commission candidate Carla Piluso with some strange bedfellows for somebody who’s backed by the local Democratic Party. On June 26, Piluso took $700 from former House Speaker Karen Minnis (R-Wood Village), who’s come under scrutiny for donating her own campaign funds to committees that then hire her as a consultant. Piluso spokesman Seth Prickett says Minnis gave the money to Piluso so Piluso could pay for a poll by Chuck Adams, a GOP consultant used by Minnis and reviled by Democrats. Prickett admits the campaign took some heat from Democrats for the move but kept its distance from Adams. “I never even talked to him,” Prickett says.

Some people donate money to their favorite candidate, or go door to door. Then there’s Bob Williams, a 65-year-old Hood River resident who prints bumper stickers. His latest creation features the rallying cry “Honk if you know how many houses you have,” along with John McCain’s photo. Williams says he’s sold about 20 of the stickers for as little as a quarter and given away at least 180. He says it’s not about the money—he hopes to remind voters of McCain’s inability to remember how many homes he’s got.

The New Axis of Evil and Good.

Last week, Democratic National Committee chairman Howard Dean, the front-runner for a time in his party’s presidential nomination chase of 2004, visited Portland to cheer up local Obama volunteers and to headline a $5,000-a-head fundraiser.

Political nerds will know that Dean’s “50-state strategy” helped the Dems win Congress in 2006, but most people better remember his famous rallying cry, “YaaAARGgh!,” that killed his White House hopes four years ago.

So where does Dean rank on our X-Axis of Ongoing Relevance for presidential hopefuls who never won their party’s nomination?