Speculating out loud: Who will run for Mayor of Portland in 2016?

Kari Chisholm FacebookTwitterWebsite

In just 20 months, Portlanders will vote for mayor once again. While Mayor Charlie Hales is expected to run again, he told the Oregonian last week that he's "not ready" to announce his plans. Curiously, he has less than $4000 in the bank -- and only raised $500 in 2014.

Meanwhile, the former mayor, Sam Adams, has taken a new job in Washington DC working on climate change. While Adams says he's plans to keep his Portland residency, one assumes his new employer is expecting him to stick around for a while. So, an Adams for Mayor comeback seems unlikely.

So, BlueOregon readers, let's speculate out loud. Who might run for mayor? Who should run for Mayor?

I'll start: I think Congressman Earl Blumenauer would make a great mayor. He ran for the job in 1992 and, even in Congress, clearly spends a lot of time thinking about urban places in general, and Portland in particular. He declined to run in 2012, but winning back the majority in the House seemed more plausible then.

Oh, and Pink Martini's Thomas Lauderdale mused aloud recently about running for mayor himself -- a prospect that would delight just about everyone, even if they wound up voting for someone else. From Artslandia:

I feel like I have the right temperament to put together the right sort of staff that’s really representative. I just don’t see anybody else in the city that has that … even though I think that sounds weird as I say it. But I think that I do have the right temperament for it.

But that would require the band to retire.

...The thing is, I make a great living with the band. I would be taking a huge pay cut. I have a mortgage to pay and a construction loan to pay off. And 20 people rely directly on the band as a source of income. So you look at it from the standpoint of … do I want to travel around the world, play in every major city, get applause every night, get lots of love and make people happy and then flitter away to the next place, and have enormous flexibility in all ways? Or do I want to work under fluorescent lighting, facing angry constituents every day and hostile people who have no sense of anything? Looking at it that way, obviously … but still, for me, I still would love to run the city.

What do you think? Who do you hope runs for mayor? Who do you think will run?

connect with blueoregon