It's absurd for Willy Week and the Bus Project to lock out two of the five publicly-financed candidates. Even if this particular online popularity contest hadn't been so close, every one of those candidates passed the "seriousness" hurdle by qualifying for VOE. Talk to any of them -- it's hard work getting 1,000 people to give you $5. Besides, if my taxpayer dollars are funding someone's race, I expect to be able to see them at all of the debates being put on by various organizations. Excluding them is a stain on both WW and the Bus Project, as well as this event.

I bet there are a huge number of undecideds at this point.

I haven't gotten a single door knock or mailing from any of them, and only Amanda Fritz and Jeff Bissonette seem to have any lawn signs around town. I'd be interested in others' take, but I don't think anyone but Amanda Fritz is doing any sort of real field work.

This is a really important job in this town, and I like and respect most of these people, but I'll remain undecided until I see one of them coming out here to Felony Flats and talking to voters.

John

The headline should read: This WAS a razor-thin race, until the WW and Bus Project screwed it up with their stupid debate. Branam missed the cutoff by 39 votes. I bet he's steaming mad, and he should be. If this race is so close, excluding serious candidates from a high profile event like this is pretty crappy.

Full disclosure: I'm supporting Amanda Fritz in this race, but like her, I believe in a good, democratic process.

The more run offs the better. It's probably a disappointment for Fritz who considers herself the dominant candidate, but she's still the favorite. Being married to a prominant local physician doesn't hurt, even if her claim to be an RN is a bit unhonest, since she has worked as an RN since marrying rich.

Bissonette is a nice guy, but he needs to do a better job with body language. His constant slouching at events makes him look like a little kid who has to stay after school. Chin up, jaw tight, shoulders square, back straight...!!! In that respect, Adams is top notch. He's always aware of how to project presence. I'm surprised Jeff has gone anywhere in his career. He doesn't seem to have any high profile experience.

As for Branam, I'm not sure why he thought having Phil Busse as his campaign manager would be a good idea. He's being sunk by Busse and paying (oh, that would be we the taxpayers are paying) for it.

Lewis became a bit of a joke by using VOE to fill potholes, which I think is total BS, but he seems to have Jack Bog's endorsement (a major rebuke of Fritz whom he used to fawn over).

Willamette Week is such a joke. Do they really think their motives aren't transparent? John Branam was officially in one minute and out the next. After watching the WW endorsement interview, it's obvious that Zussman has a problem with Branam.

Now we don't get to see the person voters wanted originally (and I didn't even vote for him!). We'll have to suffer through Charles Lewis talking about Ethos and saying things like he can solve racism because his grandpa was native american and how he is only running so he can get back at PDC for not giving him millions of dollars no strings attached. Give me a break!

Speaking of Charles Lewis, this evening he has an infomercial about himself airing on cable access. (Don't they honor the fairness doctrine anymore?)

If anyone would like to hear an hour of the most humorous anecdotes from the life of Mr. Lewis, the program is being repeated Saturday at 10 am on Comcast22 and Monday at 4:30 pm on Comcast11. Believe me, this one's a must-see.

John

My favorite candidate did not make the cut. That's too bad. He would have been great in the debate.

Still, it's not that big a deal because compared to the size of the electorate, hardly anyone will see the debate or even read about it. This will probably be what I call a "voter pamphlet" election. Most voters will read the voters pamphlet, look at the endorsements and cast their vote.

Participation in the debate won't make much of a difference.

John, when I visited the Brentwood-Darlington Neighborhood Association meeting this month, I was informed firmly that "We don't like it when people call this area Felony Flats". And for sure, like all 95 of Portland's neighborhoods, people love living there. Like many other areas, outer SE needs more attention to basic services like public safety, streets, and sidewalks. I will prioritize the budget for that, improving our local economy, and supporting schools.

Anonymous, thanks for the laugh to send me on my way for this beautiful Saturday. I will be campaigning in East Columbia, South Portland, Woodstock, and deep SW. I will be sure to tell my husband that his union job on a forensics unit at Oregon State Hospital in Salem qualifies him as a "prominent local physician". We fell in love when he was 16, I was 19, and we lived below the poverty level for four years while I worked overtime to put him through medical school. My biography is posted under "About" on my campaign site.

I intend to post my assessment of the CGW process on my campaign blog, sometime this week. I believe all Public Campaign Finance candidates should be invited. Willamette Week is a private entity which has the right to pick and choose, but the Bus Project is supposed to be dedicated to democracy in general. Excluding any of the candidates doesn't make sense to me. For now, I'm off to talk with voters face to face.

Don’t get me wrong, Amanda. I love this part of town. If I won the powerball, I’d still live where I do right now.

I was informed firmly that "We don't like it when people call this area Felony Flats".

Lol! I guess I didn’t get the memo.

For the record, I live on Foster in the 50s, so not quite the Lents/New Copper Penny region, but we’ve still got our issues: sirens every night, drunks going to the strip club, dudes yelling at their girlfriends at 4 in the morning --not to mention the crappiest bike lanes in the city. By Portland standards it’s a crappy neighborhood; by any other city’s, it’s pretty tame.

There are actually a lot of great things going on out here, because it is still affordable for businesses and people.

I guess I use “felony flats” because I enjoy poking a stick at the realtors, etc, who want to come in here and give the place some catchy new idiot buzzword name and turn it into another N. Mississippi Ave. I love the diversity, economically and ethnically, and I’d hate for this part of town to become as homogenized as the rest is fast becoming.

I don’t expect you to have an answer to that… probably nobody does, let alone me.

John

John Branam was a serious candidate going into this race. He has decent name recognition, is very personable and loves to get out in public and campaign. From what it sounds like, John may not be most detail oriented person and from my experience a candidate like that needs a campaign manager who focuses on the details, fills in the candidates weaknesses and above all has a coherent strategy and delivers. What prompted John to hire Phil Busse will be one of the most enduring mysteries about this 2008 race. First and foremost John's campaign has made multiple errors that have not only left John with egg on his face but also have distracted him from actually being out there in the public and campaigning. It's Phil's responsibility to make sure his campaign executes and is firing on all cylinders. City hall races are not as fast paced and high pressure as statewide or federal races but its also not amateur hour either. Take the Candidates Gone Wild mess for example. It’s obvious that John's campaign wanted to do well in the voting given his campaign’s numerous web ads, a print ad in Willamette Week and various pushes from the campaign itself. And yes its true that voting process was screwy but given that the readers of the Willamette Week seem to be one of the target demographics of John's campaign, the failure of the campaign manager to deliver on the last day of voting for Candidates Gone Wild is absolutely inexcusable. Compound the fact that John's campaign has given a huge amount of money to staff for salaries, which will in the end include $25,000 to Phil, it leaves very little money for direct mail or TV advertising to make up for any exposure they had hoped to get out of Candidates Gone Wild. People can complain all they want about the process but if a campaign manager fails to deliver one of your core voting constituencies in a big test leading to the primary, something is seriously, seriously wrong and heads should roll. If John Branam wants to be taken seriously for this campaign and any future political plans by the “powers that be” and Portland's kingmakers he needs to send a signal to these folks and institute a major shake up of his campaign.

Can someone explain to me why using VOE money to fill potholes is a joke? Would you rather have that money going towards lining the pockets of an inexperienced campaign manager, a push poll or junk mail? Lewis' pothole event was a stunt for sure, but it worked. He got more media attention in one day than the rest of the candidates have put together and he was successful in highlighting the fact that many Portland are getting shorted while we continue to pour money into the Pearl.

Whatever may actually have happened during the Bus Project and Willamette Week's "network error" and the re-opened voting for a few hours after, this debate now appears rigged. The Bus Project and Willamette Week won't say, of course, so we'll never know.

Regardless, because of the perception of electoral fraud, all 6 candidates should decline to participate in this promotional event for the Bus Project and Willamette Week. Failure to handle this properly is going to make the Bus Project and Willamette Week look bad. Really bad.

Failure to handle this properly is going to make the Bus Project and Willamette Week look bad. Really bad.

I kind of doubt that the publisher and editors of WW could give a rat's ass about how they look to readers of this blog. Their primary audience consists of self-defined hipsters, the "creative class", etc. Their Own Private Electoral Manipulation is never going to be known to anyone who doesn't read Blue Oregon, Bogdanski's blog, or a few other blogospheric sources.

I don't think you can call CGW a "debate". It's not. It's just a fun time where you can get a little drunk and act goofy. I thought it was a lot of fun, even after getting booed. I may have picked up a couple votes due to my harmonica playing (at least that's what a couple inebriated audience members told me), but I don't think it contributes anything substantive to the races at all.

I would participate again, if I were ever a candidate, but I wouldn't lose any sleep over not being invited. Those of us who read these blogs and watch this stuff closely are very engaged, but I think we are a very thin minority. The bulk of the voters sit down with the pamphlet and make their decision at the kitchen table.

"Seriously?" wrote: "... it's obvious that Zussman [sic] has a problem with Branam."

Maybe so, but Zusman's publisher, Richard Meeker, doesn't seem to have any problem taking Branam's (voter owned) money in exchange for advertising space. Branam is the only candidate in this race who is buying advertising in Willy Week, so it's somewhat ironic that he got excluded from WW's Candidates Gone Wild event.

<h2>BTW, I've attended CGW before, and it's not much of a debate. It seems to be more of a feel-good drinking party for hipsters who want to pretend they're "involved" in local politics.</h2>