Mayoral Madness: Vera Katz Regional Round 2

Politics is a messy business. We had all kinds of salient thoughts prepared—really profound stuff—for these second-round matchups if they'd gone according to seeding. But there is no predicting your taste, Portland voter. You could do anything. We are mildly frightened of you. The vox populi is making our ears bleed.

We kid, we kid. We, for one, welcome our new talk-radio overlords. So vote!

16. Victoria Taft, Talk-radio resentment queen
8. Timber Joey, Soccer mascot/lumber baron

Carrie Brownstein is gone, with her twee little jokes about do-goodery. Now it's just Tea Party and Timbers Army. Sheer brutality. Rational self-interest. No pity.

12. Mike Rice, Blazers TV color commentator
13. Mohamed Osman Mohamud, Accused holiday-tree bomber

Mike Rice had a great week. He won his race with the police chief; the Blazers beat the Bulls; the knees of future draft picks are intact so far as we know. If he is elected, he will fill all civic announcement with joyous, high-pitch whoops. Mohamed Osman Mohamud is just a mixed-up kid.

11. Sherri Hiner, From Mattress World!
3. Timothy Hutton, Avenging injustice

The only people who can stop the talk-radio people, we figure, are the Leverage people. There's a pretty good Hutton campaign slogan in there somewhere. Hiner already has a slogan. Mattress World! Shhh. It's not too late to sleep like a baby! Mattress World! (Now that's in your head. You're welcome.)

10. Scott Kveton, Urban Airship CEO
15. Patty, Magic Garden bartender

Kveton makes apps that send push notices to your iPhone. This might be an advantage. Patty does not know what a "push notice" is. This is definitely an advantage.