Hey! This Wasn't Supposed to Happen!

A dialog on the increasingly weird Portland election.

Richard Cheverton: Well, Pamela, here we are in the new city charter’s promised land and things aren’t quite working out as promised. Just to quote from the Charter Commission’s propaganda handouts…

There is also growing evidence that Ranked Choice Voting promotes more civil, issue-oriented campaigns and decreases the incentive for negative campaigning. Rather than candidates focusing on attacking their opponents to decrease support, candidates can focus on reaching out positively to as many voters as possible…

Don’t tell that to hapless Carmen Rubio.

There are 19 people running for the office of mayor, and exactly two are getting any ink in local dinosaur media (with the pirates piling on as well…)

…and The Oregonian reassuring its readers…

…right next to Portland’s best brunch spots—which we think interests Portland people more than political spats.

Pam, what d’ya think about the latest wrinkle in Ticketgate? Rubio’s alleged hit ‘‘n’ run…against a Tesla!

Pamela Fitzsimmons: What jumps out at me about the parking ticket/driving violation “scandal” is that those court records were sitting there all along for the past many years — and only now did someone in the media look them up.

It appears that somebody (in Gonzalez’s camp?) tipped off The Oregonian’s Shane Dixon Kavanaugh to look up Rubio’s court records, and somebody (in Rubio’s camp?) tipped off WWeek to look at Gonzalez’s court records. We’ll probably never know. But those records were sitting there all along.

This latest thing — the Tesla kerfuffle — leaves me feeling slightly sorry for Rubio. I’ve watched the video several times. I don’t see her car striking the Tesla and making it move. And when she walks by and looks toward the Tesla’s camera, how could she see if there was a swipe mark on the rear bumper if she’s looking at the front of the car?

Finally, the swipe marks on the Tesla are no big deal. They are the price of driving in an urban area. Look around at how many vehicles have them. I have a few swipe marks on my car. I have no idea who put them there.

There is a crack in my bumper, and I know where it came from: a lady driving a van full of screaming kids ran into me in Vancouver as I waited to get onto the freeway. I got out of my car, and she got out of hers, and we looked at the damage. She knew she hit me. Instead of offering me her insurance information, she asked me, “How do I know that crack wasn’t already there?”

I didn’t push the issue, although she did see me jot down her license plate. I was running late, and the kids in her van were acting crazy. I could see why she was distracted. We went our separate ways.

Richard: But Pam—it’s a favorite car of the climate doomsters! It cannot be touched by anything burning—sheesh!—fossil fuels!

Pamela: It appears that Teslas are very special. They have their own private security, so to speak. If the owners of the Tesla want to keep their special car in pristine condition, they need to get a clunker to use when driving around the city. They can still park their Tesla in their driveway to impress the neighbors.

Consider for a moment, Richard, all the thievery and burglaries we deal with now on a daily basis. And I’m supposed to care that a Tesla has a swipe mark on it? And it was put there by a mayoral candidate? Had the car been stolen by an average, ordinary dirtbag, it wouldn’t even be a story.

By the way, a couple of years ago, I looked you up on the court records. You got a parking ticket on a blue Honda.

Richard: My bad! Besides, I totaled that car trying to get across Powell Boulevard. So what the hell has happened to all those other candidates in this latest kerfluffle? Everyone is ignoring the remaining 18 candidates for mayor (OK, Gonzo gets some ink, but...really?) Given what we know about the two media darlings, doesn't it make sense that at least one, maybe two of theother 16 might do a good job of filling the capon-mayor's role. The mayor won't have a veto over any dumb stuff the 25-percenters on the council will concoct, including throwing money at all of the unions and non-profits that endorsed them—something the 25 percenters will quickly understand.

Pamela Fitzsimmons: I keep thinking about the quiet, unassuming Mingus Mapps. If every black voter in Portland casts one and only one vote (or ranking) for Mapps, and gives the other candidates no ranking at all, couldn't he float to the top? The black community long ago figured out target or single-shot voting in local elections.

Richard: This is something that the well-financed, out of state backers of ranked choice voting don’t like to talk about. First, only people who vote for losers get to keep their vote alive to be counted again on the second and third rounds (while people dumb enough to vote for the media-darling “leading” candidates have their votes frozen). And if there are two contending “leading” candidates with do-or-die backers (as Rubio seems to have, if we can believe The Oregonian) then they won’t be likely to rank their main opponent but throw in some innocuous, harmless names. Surprise!

Anyway, Pam, nobody in our dinosaur media understands RCV…and as for the city council’s single transferrable vote, fugeddaboutit.