Portland City Council Candidate Jesse Cornett turns in 1250 signatures
Carla Axtman
Blue Oregon co-founder and Portland City Council candidate Jesse Cornett turned in 1250 signatures (and proof of an equivalent number of $5 contributions) to the City Auditor’s Office today. After his signature sheets are scrutinized, he'll need at least 1000 of those to be valid for him to qualify for public financing for his campaign.
From Cornett's letter to supporters:
This afternoon my campaign reported and submitted over 1250 contributions to the City Auditor’s Office. We need 1000 of those to be valid and I will qualify for public financing. I have every confidence we’ll have more than enough.I wanted to take a moment and just say thank you. Some of you have been supportive from afar, while others have dedicated immense amounts of your lives to make sure that we got to this important milestone to enable me to engage the city in a conversation about our priorities and how we can move Portland forward.
The only other candidate that appears to have been somewhat close is Jason Renaud. However, I spoke with Renaud just a few minutes ago and he informed me that after having some sheets thrown out today, he was going to come up short.
If Cornett indeed qualifies, he'll receive $150,000 in public money to run his primary campaign against sitting Councilor Dan Saltzman. Saltzman has elected not to use public financing. But if Saltzman spends more than $150,000 the publicly financed opponent may be eligible for matching funds.
The primary is scheduled for May 19.
 |
More Recent Posts | |
Albert Kaufman |
|
Guest Column |
|
Kari Chisholm |
|
Kari Chisholm |
Final pre-census estimate: Oregon's getting a sixth congressional seat |
Albert Kaufman |
Polluted by Money - How corporate cash corrupted one of the greenest states in America |
Guest Column |
|
Albert Kaufman |
Our Democrat Representatives in Action - What's on your wish list? |
Kari Chisholm |
|
Guest Column |
|
Kari Chisholm |
|
connect with blueoregon
5:30 p.m.
Jan 29, '10
Yeah Jesse! Portland badly needs people like you on City Council. Congrats on this big step, and now comes the fun part -- looking forward to watching your campaign from afar...and helping out if/when I can!
Jan 29, '10
Dan Saltzman vs Who? What's His Name? Right. Let me place some dots on the page for the reader to draw a picture: Hellfire, Snowball, Chance. Here are some more words for association: Data Driven, Shrewd, Methodical, Established Record vs. Some Guy who started a Website. Heck, Jason Renaud would be a more competitive candidate.
Jan 29, '10
I guess he found time to start a website in between his stints as PSU's director of government relations, serving in the army, serving as a sheriff's reserve deputy, helping to found the Bus Project, almost beating the ancient Rod Monroe for a senate seat a few years back...
Jan 29, '10
I think the man is overreaching. However, you certainly do have to give him credit for his efforts. You can post your snide-ness after the election with the tack on. ....almost beating the ancient Rod Monroe for a senate seat a few years back...and almost beating Dan Saltzman for a council seat more recently...
Jan 30, '10
Cool. I've always wanted to move back to Chi-town. Wonder if it would be gauche for me to send HIM a marriage proposal instead of the old-fashioned way: make him wait?
Jan 30, '10
Just to be clear ... "almost beating the ancient Rod Monroe for a senate seat a few years back" refers to a Democratic primary election in which Monroe received 4,150 votes and Cornett received 3,983 votes.
Jan 30, '10
I don't know if I would vote for Jesse if I were in Portland, however I think it is cool that he appears to have qualified for the public financing. Experiements such as this Portland one are important if we are to maintain a representative democracy for regular folks.
Congratulations to Jesse for getting to this point in his campaign.
Jan 30, '10
Rock on Jesse, and best of luck! I'm confident your campaign will have successes to be proud of whatever the results of the election.
10:58 a.m.
Jan 30, '10
Re. Renaud: This from the City of Portland notification service, dated 1/30/2010:
"Jason Renaud filed a Request for Certification (public campaign financing). With this Request today, Renaud has submitted a total of 1045 $5.00 Qualifying Contribution Receipt forms, including 338 forms he submitted on 1/12/2010."
Jan 30, '10
Politics in Portland just started to get more interesting.
Jan 30, '10
-Has he ever had a job in the private sector? -Does he say "Beaverton" without a sneer? -Does he support making all street parking in CoP metered? -Does he support more condos, infill and the streetcar all in the name of "density" with all the tax breaks er... abatement to developers? -Does he believe the south waterfront development a good idea? -Will he push for the HIT squad to follow due process? -Does he believe the soccer "deal" with son of Goldman Sachs is a good one? -Does he see a problem in unfunded police and fire pension liabilities?
Jan 30, '10
Oh good, we get to subisidize someone who makes Saltzman look good.
No real world experience, but I'm sure he'll take Sam/Vera's threadbare promise to work for the people and bring more jobs.
Jan 30, '10
Mike H. seems to miss a little fly in the ointment. It's a vote. SE is the heart of Portland. What percentage of the people there would answer your questions in the keyed direction? What you really want is a candidate that doesn't represent his consituents? Exactly. And why? Because you're right, and they're all wrong!
No real world experience, but I'm sure he'll take Sam/Vera's threadbare promise to work for the people and bring more jobs.
They just get their prepositions mixed up. Vera worked on the people. Sam works under the people. The lie in the standard phrase is "work". Sam never had a real job. These "chief of staff" positions are about how well you can lick an ass clean. They are also the most vicious. Jesse's record speaks for itself, in that regard.
"Portland, The City That Works"...you over! It's all just a matter of getting the preposition right.
Jan 30, '10
Jesse is a great guy, known him for a bit and he's all about results. Good team player, smart & funny to boot. He can be a policy wonk at times, but it's offset with a good sense of humor.
Jesse's got my support and I for one am delighted that he decided to go the public financing route.
Jan 31, '10
By going the public financing route Cornett has ensured an even money race against an incumbent and he has no chance of winning.
He might be thinking down the road, like Fritz, to build his name recognition and try for an open seat at some point in the future. But make no mistake. Our "VOE" is an incumbent insurance plan, which is precisely what Erik Sten had in mind when he conned Blackmer into going along with it.
Saltzman gets four more years on a walk. And Cornett, well maybe he gains something from it. But more likely he will be relegated to the political dust bin.
3:52 p.m.
Jan 31, '10
Robert, there weren't a whole lot of incumbents getting taken out by first-time runners before VOE. Doesn't that undercut your point a little? Taking out a sitting incumbent in a Portland race strikes me as next to impossible, independent of VOE.
Recently, Tom Potter defeated near-incumbent Jim Francesconi (moving from City Council to a race for Mayor) while voluntarily limiting contributions. Fairly similar to VOE. Francesconi had over $1 million; don't know Potter's figures offhand, but since he limited contributions to $25 (primary) and $100 (general), I'm sure it was far less.
But Potter won.
Incumbency is a huge advantage. Money is one way to overcome it; another is making a more genuine and wider connection with the voting public through other means than outspending one's opponent.
That's what VOE aims to do.
Jan 31, '10
You dream, Forsyth. You dream.
12:41 a.m.
Feb 1, '10
Thanks for the invitation Robert, and I'll get right back to the dreaming in a sec.
But first, I'm wondering if you'd be interested in showing some cards. You imply on the on hand that it's a problem that Saltzman is unassailable. But at the same time, your words appear designed to undercut the candidate who, as best I can tell, has the best chance in this cycle to unseat Saltzman. (Most of the other declared candidates seem to have attempted, and failed, to earn public financing, and I'm not aware of any major private funding source for any of those candidates.) So, what's your goal here? To ensure that Saltzman stays put? Or are you trying to keep the field open for some other candidate?
Anyway, since Oregon -- and apparently Robert Collins -- love dreamers, I'll get back to doing what I apparently do best.
According to this page, here are the numbers of the only case I'm aware of in recent history where an (all but literal) incumbent was taken out by a relative unknown: Francesconi vs. Potter, 2004.
primary election expenditures: Francesconi: $972,579.07 Potter: $87,820.87
general election expenditures: Francesconi: $439,237.80 Potter: $155,623.60
So, the (more or less) incumbent outspent the (relative) unknown in both cycles, vastly. But the unknown won.
Isn't that what you were saying was impossible? Or was I dreaming?
Feb 2, '10
I don't particularly give a crap if Saltzman stays or goes. Potter was an anomaly. He entered the race with huge name recognition from being police chief. Francesconi ran a lousy campaign. He took all the big business money he could get his meat hooks on, which made him look like he was bought and paid for, and then came off as a squeaky, mealy mouthed moron. No surprise he was beaten. Plus, he wasn't an incumbent... not an incumbent mayor. It was an open seat.
Feb 3, '10
Jesse's number of signatures is highly impressive to say the least. Some might assume that in liberal Portland, getting over 1,000 $5 donations is easy for a Democrat, but it's not, as shown by the failure of other candidates to meet that threshold. To get those donations in less than a month and a half took a great network of volunteers working hard for a popular candidate. Jesse and his team displayed that kind of organization and popular support in his last minute campaign and near win in ‘06 for the state senate against a well known long time office holder.
Portland is clearly a city of Democratic activists where people power means as much or more than money. Others have mentioned Potter's win in '04.
Tavern owner Bud Clark's surprise win over Mayor Frank Ivancie in 1984 is an even better example.
And, yes, Neil Goldscmidt. We can't ignore Goldschmidt's crime, but we should never hesitate to look back at his amazing public record in Portland. In 1970 Goldscmidt was a young legal aid attorney who had only lived in Portland for a few years and was running against a former four term state rep, Shirley Field, who had almost won two years earlier. Goldschmidt and his manager, Ron Buel, put together an amazing grassroots network that ended up with Goldschmidt winning 60% of the vote in his city council district. I wasn't even born then, but just read about it in Jewell Lansing's book, Portland: People, Politics and Power 1851-2001..
I have no doubt that Jesse Cornett has the skills, experience, and passion to govern, the drive and campaign smarts to win, and the grassroots network to make it happen.
10:19 p.m.
Feb 3, '10
Robert:
OK. Since this was a thread originally about Jesse's candidacy, not the public financing program, I was assuming you had a position one way or another. If that's not the case, fine. (Though I do find it a little hard to understand how someone who cares so passionately about one local issue doesn't give a crap about 1/5 of City Council.)
On the comparison: I don't know about Potter's name recognition being "huge." He had some, no doubt; but I moved here in 1991 while Potter was (evidently) police chief for a total of less than 2.5 years. When he ran over a decade later in 2004, I had never heard of the guy, and didn't recognize his face. Neither did most in my peer group (I was 31 at the time and not deeply politically engaged.) Francesconi, however, had been on City Council for 8 years; we all knew who he was, he was in the paper every day.
Grant makes some great points, too, about other well-known races.
Anyway, my main point is the same. I believe that it's tremendously difficult to beat a sitting incumbent on City Council, with or without the public financing program. I believe the public finance program strongly mitigates that, by providing the opportunity for a candidate to do the kind of campaigning that will both connect them to the populous, and help them win, without raising tons of money.
<h2>The things Sten had to say when he was initially promoting the program, about how many hours he had to spend during his campaign asking wealthy interests for campaign contributions, still resonates for me. It's that behavior, more than any specific kind of candidate, that I would like to see wane in its presence in Portland politics.</h2>