Dinosaurs Stumble After the Meteor Falls

Decisions, decisions, decisions--and local media is no help.

Flummoxed by the new charter, which they tacitly promoted by ignoring what the charter commission was up to when it counted, our city’s dinosaur media are now stumbling toward the city’s wildest, weirdest election.

By any sane measure, the ranked choice/single transferrable vote barreling toward us is a joke…on average voters. (Who might be suspicious that the progressive machine wants to keep the voters, tiring of three decades of progressive rule, a trifle confused.)

Wasn’t the press given protection in the First Amendment to—as that despicable slaveholder Thomas Jefferson said—“Our liberty depends upon the freedom of the press, and that cannot be limited without being lost." But what if the press limits itself?

And here we offer Exhibit Numero Uno; the case of Vivia Las Vegas v. Oregon Progressive Broadcasting (aka OPB).

Gobsmacked by 19 somebodies clotting up the ballot for capon-mayor of Portland, OPB’s editors decided that Liv Østhus hasn’t raised enough money to share the stage with the usual, money-grubbing candidates. It makes one wonder if OPB news editor Anna Griffin¹ ever heard the expression, “You get what you pay for.” (Probably not, since OPB is a nonprofit with net assets (as of its 2023 federal form 990) of $137,168,320 and a payroll of $22,258,994.²

Østhus (don’t you yearn for a mayor with a “slashed Ø”?) has been fighting back. with meandering protests on Instagram…

liv.osthus

A post shared by @liv.osthus

…with the pitch, “She’s not making her campaign about money.” Which is an indication that she has a lot to learn about politics in Oregon.

It’s not fair to pillory OPB (well, then again…); everyone else in Portland’s dinosaur media is somehow—telepathy?—identifying just three or four “leading” candidates. One suspects that’s because after layoffs and tightened post-Covid budgets, they lack the staffing to give anyone else a fair hearing. More importantly, it fits with their self-image as oracular determinators of the city’s political culture. Which they cling to like someone tossed overboard from a dragon boat by a speedboat’s wake on the Willamette.

And so we have the spectacle of the Oregonian, like the tuba in the media band, unleashing Shane Dixon Kavanaugh and front-paging their favored political beasts.

And, outta nowhere, Kavanaugh gives a former nobody named Keith Wilson the nod; and just like that, he’s one of the Fabulous Four…

Wilson, 60, has steadily built a base of support and emerged as one of three top candidates in the final weeks before Election Day, observers say.

Who were the “observers?” Unnamed—although Kavanaugh gives that washed-up guy named Miike Schmidt lots of ink to say really nice things about Wilson. Kremlinologists might wonder if that’s a sneaky kiss of death—although that kind of subtlety is alien to the O.

All this leaves 15 other candidates who didn’t meet the rigorous OPB/Oregonian taste-test. Obviously, OPB has no issue with nutty pols such as Wilson, who vows that as the essentially powerless mayor he will end homelessness in one year, which leads you to wonder why any of the others won’t even get a walk-on at the Big Deal Debate. If you parse the list of cast-off candidates, you’ll find some minor-leaguers who sound…well…sane.

For example, “Michael O’Callaghan wants to be Portland’s first mayor who is living unsheltered.” He started one of the oldest, most tenacious bum-dumps, Right 2 Dream Too, which was kicked out of Old Town, where it was scaring the tourists, to a spot tucked behind the Moda Center, which the organizations says is “a little tricky to access the first time.” OPB last reported on them in April…

…and you’d think, as one nonprofit to another, they might want to give Right 2 Dream Too a little publicity.

No such luck.

Maybe because O’Callaghan says…

I am not beholden to any one cause nor seek celebrity. I am not a member of any union, invested in any business or any political parties…

…which disqualifies most of his competitors for good reason. Plus…

My record speaks of competence, openness to ideas and the ability to learn. With that, I am smart enough to hire someone who is more learned to teach me what I don’t know. I am not a financial expert but I would like to see where the money is going, and where it is coming from.

…which gets our nod for self-awareness and a strangely charming modesty. Can anyone else on the ballot say the same?

Then there’s Shei’Meka (BeUtee) As-Salaam, who responded to the questionnaire…

We will immediately take an honest look at the preexistent budget and ensure we are getting an optimal return on our current investments. Is every dollar doing what the budget “says” it should be doing? Stop funding the same “well-known” CBO’s (Community-Based Organizations) in the absence of any system of checks & balance, or expectation of providing proof of any specific measurable improvements to the health and well-being of the city.

…which sounds more detailed (and sane) than, for example, Mingus Mapps’s eyewash…

My approach will prioritize protecting essential services — public safety, housing and infrastructure — while cutting inefficiencies. I would explore public-private partnerships to enhance revenue streams and look at restructuring administrative costs to free up funds for critical programs.

If you had five-bucks for every pol promising to balance the budget by winkling out “inefficiencies,” you could pay for next year’s city budget shortfall.

Then there’s a candidate from distant, neglected, rough-n-tumble St. Johns, Alexander Landry Neely, who—believe it or not—isn’t on a public or dodgy nonprofit’s payroll. The guy makes Libertine Wines that are “neo-natural, non-interventionist experimental wines from the Willamette Valley.” If that doesn’t sound properly Portland, what would?

As opposed to pols yapping about “small businesses” (in a city that seems to want to cripple them), Neely is an actual guy running an actual business. It would be safe to say he’s probably the only guy, outside of Wilson (who inherited TITAN trucking), who meets a payroll.

Here’s what Neely answered on the OPB questionnaire about homelessness…

Jailing people for non-violent offenses is never the answer. If we build homes without conditions, most people will choose to sleep in them. There will be some people who refuse initially, but we can start building a community where it would never be more desirable to live in a tent.

…and here’s what Wilson, said…

We cannot arrest our way out of our homelessness crisis, and I do not support jailing individuals for simply refusing shelter. We can, however, provide enough emergency nighttime shelters to legally enforce our existing laws on tent encampments, RVs, car camping, and illegal dumping.

Care to tell us what’s different, particularly when OPB sniffed that Wilson…

…argues that building enough new shelters to accommodate the city’s unsheltered population will erase tent encampments, an idea that has drawn light skepticism from longtime homeless advocates.

…but, hey! Wilson’s raised money and he’s rich and he’s got a trucking company and the trucks are electric…

You would parse the OPB/Oregonian questionnaires in vain to find the answer to the one essential query…

The charter commission engineered the office of mayor to have no real power in comparison with the city council. No vote or veto. And an “administrator,” approved (and removable) by the council will actually run the city bureaucracy. Why the hell do you want this job?

A stripper for mayor? You get the feeling that Liv Østhaus kinda understands…

In Portland’s new form of government, the mayor’s role is largely ceremonial…. I want a mayor who is a storyteller and an artist, NOT a veteran politician or a policy wonk. I am a storyteller and an artist. At Mary’s Club, a dancer’s job is to connect with, listen to, and ultimately inspire EVERY person who walks through the door, regardless of political allegiance, color or creed. I want exactly those skills in our next mayor.

…which grasps something that has eluded the clods who want to—god help us—”run on their records” to keep the mutt’s game of Portland city government going. It could be that the electorate that took the flyer of voting for a city charter that might best be called “experimental” might also go for broke.

The bizarre new voting schemes might help that impulse along. To which we must repeat the mantra handed down by county elections director Tim Scott…

If you don’t want someone to win, don’t rank them.

The choices aren’t as obvious as dinosaur media would have you believe…

1. As her OPB bio says, “Anna spent 11 years as a reporter and editor at The Oregonian...” She gets our award of the coveted Dinosaur trophy, a Tyrannosaurus Rex stuck in a swamp.

2. Ms. Griffin took home $179,593 of that figure. Former Oregonian colleagues must be green with envy.