News It's almost election time, which means WW's conference rooms have been busier than usual, with all the candidates coming for endorsement interviews.Last week, WW hosted the leading candidates for mayor, State Rep. Jefferson Smith (D-Portland), former City Commissioner Charlie Hales and businesswoman Eileen Brady. (The other candidates on the ballot were interviewed separately.)Yesterday, we posted ...   More

News Steve Novick, the environmental lawyer and former U.S. Senate candidate who is running to replace Randy Leonard on the Portland City Council, laid out his platform yesterday in a lengthy BlueOregon post.The post went on in what Novick calls "mind-numbing detail" about his proposal for a city-backed health care clinic targeting workers who have disproportionately high health care expenses, modeled on ...   More

Dr. Know Can I change my party preference to Republican just so I can vote in the primary, and change back before the general election? Is it legal? I can’t stand to see Republicans having all the fun.&n   More

News Wednesday's WW described Portland mayoral candidate Jefferson Smith as "famously scattered and frenetic."Today, we got the following email—filled with gibberish—from Smith's campaign. It might seem to provide  evidence to support the above description. Then again, it was evidently not Smith who clicked the "send" button, as the email came from the account of Democratic Party of Oregon marketing ...   More

News Tom Chamberlain, a former Portland firefighter and current president of the Oregon AFL-CIO, tells WW he is strongly considering running for mayor of Portland."I have had a number of people call me in the last two weeks about running," Chamberlain says, "and I haven't said no."Mayor Sam Adams announced this month he would not seek re-election. Chamberlain would enter a mayoral field currently dominated ...   More

News The biggest single infusion of cash so far in any of the 2012 Portland City Council races came late last week from a surprising source: Commissioner Amanda Fritz.On June 9, Fritz loaned her reelection campaign $25,000, her campaign finance records show. Fritz, who worked as a psychiatric nurse before joining the City Council, was not immediately available for comment. Fritz was a key booster and beneficiary ...   More