Thanks for the post--the guy talks sense to power.

Thanks, Jack.
Apparently the Portland Business Alliance wants Max Brumm to jump through some hoops for nothing. Check out this series of emails. I took out the contact phone numbers and email addresses.

On Wed, Oct 5, 2011 at 11:26 AM, Mirabai Vogt wrote:

"Dear Candidate,

Just a friendly reminder that the deadline for responses to the Alliance candidate questionnaire is this Friday, October 7th. You should have received an email on September 13 with a link to submit your answers online via a survey tool called Zoomerang. I've attached a PDF copy of the questionnaire for reference but we ask you to please enter your responses via the Zoomerang survey. If you need us to resend the survey or if you have any difficulties completing the survey, please let me know ASAP.

If you have any questions regarding the questionnaire content/issues, please contact...

The questionnaire responses will be posted on October 14th on the Alliance website.

Thank you,
Mirabai Vogt | External Relations Representative
Portland Business Alliance"

"I saw the survey on Oregon Live this week. I'm just curious as to why my respondes were not inculded?

-Max Brumm"

"Hello Mr. Brumm,

Thank you for your interest in our candidate questionnaire. We have established a qualification for mayoral candidates that we send the questionnaire to. That qualification is that you must have raised at least $10,000 for your campaign. According to the online funding raising records, you haven't reached that level yet.

Thanks again for your interest and please keep us updated on your campaign.

Thank you,

Mirabai Vogt | External Relations Representative
Portland Business Alliance"

I think Max might be on to something with these 501(c)(6) nonprofit organizations denying him an equal platform to talk to voters. My understanding of tax law is that yes, they can support individual candidates (or a group of three "major" candidates), but that doing so triggers a ton of other restrictions and requirements.

This is the second time a group has denied Max equal access (VOIS was the other one I believe). My understanding of the tax law is that if they are conducting the exercise as a forum, not a political event, they must invite every "legally qualified" candidate. That is much different than the "viable candidate" threshold many nonprofits (including the Portland City Club) use to weed out candidates from forums.

I wish there was a tax law professional somewhere that knew these regulations really well. Maybe a tax law professor or something? Jack?

At the very least you could say to the candidates upfront: "Before you spend a couple of hours or whatever thoughtfully answering our questions, please remember, we'll only post them if..."

It might be good to have someone in the office for a while who isn't old enough to sign a promissory note.

I wish Max the best of luck, I suspect the odds are long, but we can hope can't we?

Talking about promiscuity notes, could Beau Breedlove run for Mayor?

Would Sam Adams campaign for him?

I read some of the interview, and frankly I don't see much to be impressed by. His comments about Republicans tells me that his political sophistication doesn't extend far beyond his family's kitchen table. The Mayor's office is non-partisan and there are lots of Republicans and Independents who won't cotton to his "Progressive" boiler plate. He should consider getting a summer job before running for office. Seeing his paycheck after deductions might temper some of his ideology.

I concur with CBB. Wasn't too impressed.

Well, you guys go ahead and vote for one of the other three. Meet me back here in two years and we'll see if you have any regrets.

No newsflash here; in the Portland political arena there are no regrets for Republicans because there is never, nor will there ever, be any hope.

If I could vote in Portlandia,, Max would get my vote, just to get the goat of the powers that be. Unfortunately this nice kid would most likelynbe eaten alive shortly after the election.
Make 'em sweat Max!

Vote for:
Brady
Hales
Smith
x Anybody else

I'd really like to vote for someone that thinks you don't need any leadership experience to hold an elected position. I bet he's not a CPA either Jack...maybe he can do your taxes?

For you Oregon history buffs, the young man's grandfather, Tom Brumm, was in the inner circle of Senator Wayne Morse, famous for opposing the Vietnam War.

"Morse was one of only two Senators who opposed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, which authorized the president to take military action in Vietnam without a declaration of war. He continued to speak out against the war in the ensuing years, and lost his 1968 bid for reelection to Bob Packwood, who criticized his strong opposition to the war." -Wikipedia

The boy comes across as a narcissistic, well, boy.
Insulting potential voters in a nonpartisan race isn't terribly bright either.

'an idealism and purpose, even a genuine sweetness—that seems to be missing in the country right now. '

In other words, the childishness that got us where we are now.

Who are these 'making up stuff' lying Oregon Republicans he refers to?

No newsflash here; in the Portland political arena there are no regrets for Republicans because there is never, nor will there ever, be any hope.

No, but there are enough (1/3 of the electorate) to deny this pipedream. Really dumb on his part, alienate 1/3 of the electorate when you already need every vote you can get. Go ahead on, vote for the latest iteration of the Goldschmidt/Sten/Adams wunderkind parade.

One third of Portland voters are Republicans? You, sir or madam, have got to be kidding.

I would need a whole lot more information about his positions and process before my pencil marks his square.

Re: "one of only two Senators who opposed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution"

Bill McD,

Thanks for the observation regarding Mr Brumm's forebear, who died nearly two decades before Mr Brumm first gasped upon the planet. The WikiP bio also includes this description -- which does not appear to be family lore -- of Sen. Morse's concern for character and honesty:

"Feud with Richard Neuberger

Toward the end of 1950s, Morse's relationship with Richard Neuberger, the junior senator from Oregon, deteriorated and led to much public feuding. The two had known each other since 1931, when Morse was dean of the University of Oregon law school, and Neuberger was a 19-year-old freshman. Morse befriended Neuberger and often gave him advice, and he used his rhetorical skill to successfully defend Neuberger against charges of academic cheating. After the charges against him were dropped, Neuberger rejected Morse's advice to leave the university and start fresh elsewhere but instead enrolled in Morse's class in criminal law. Morse gave him a 'D' in the course and, when Neuberger complained, changed the grade to an 'F'.

According to Mason Drukman, one of Morse's biographers, even after the two men had become senators, neither could get past what had happened in 1931. 'Whatever his accomplishments,' Drukman writes, 'Neuberger was to Morse a man flawed in character' while Neuberger 'could not forgive Morse either for propelling him out of law school ... or for having had to protect him in the honor proceedings.' Morse later helped Neuberger, who won his Senate seat in 1954 by only 2,462 votes out of more than a half-million cast, but he also continued to give Neuberger advice that was not always appreciated. 'I don't think you should scold me so much,' said Neuberger, as quoted by Drukman, in a letter to Morse during the 1954 campaign.

By 1957, the relationship had deteriorated to the point where, rather than talking face-to-face, the senators exchanged angry letters delivered almost daily by messenger between offices in close proximity. Although the letters were private, the feud quickly became public through letters leaked to the press and comments made to colleagues and other third parties, who often had trouble deciding what the fight was about. Drukman describes the feud as a 'classic struggle ... of dominating father and rebellious son locked in the age-old fight for supremacy.' The feud ended only with Neuberger's death from a stroke in 1960."

The other senator who stood against LBJ's fraudulent war resolution, btw, was Ernest Gruening from Alaska. Both were defeated in their 1968 re-election campaigns, Morse by GOPer Mark Hatfield and Gruening by Mike Gravel in the primary. Gruening's grandson ousted Gravel -- subject of some of the most curious tv ads during the 2008 presidential campaign -- in the 1980 primary but lost to Frank Murkowski in the general, which has proved most unfortunate.

Re: "Morse by GOPer Mark Hatfield"

Sorry, got that wrong. Morse supported the late Mark Hatfield -- who was similarly opposed to the Vietnam War -- in his 1966 election but, in doing so, lost the allegiance of many Dems. It was, as Bill McD stated, Bob Packwood who took the seat:

"In the 1966 U.S. Senate election, he angered many in his own party for supporting Oregon's Republican Governor, Mark Hatfield, over the Democratic nominee, Congressman Robert Duncan, in that year's Senate election, due to Duncan's support of the Vietnam War. Hatfield won that race, and Duncan then challenged Morse in the 1968 Democratic Senatorial primary. Morse won renomination, but only by a narrow margin. Morse lost his seat in the 1968 general election to State Representative Bob Packwood, who criticized Morse's opposition to continued funding of the war as being reckless, and as distracting him from other issues of importance to the state. Packwood won by a mere 3,500 votes, less than one half of one percent of the total votes cast."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wayne_Morse

How different would Oregon be had Wayne Morse served as senator during the final six years of his life rather than trying to restore his standing among Democrats? Nixon, it should be recalled, was elected in 1968; he spent those six years expanding the war and moving toward his unprecedented resignation.

Max Brumm might have a better chance running for mayor of Eugene than Portland, which desperately needs to recover from its current, divisive Eugene product.

Boycat, Jack already straightened you out on GOP plurality in Portland, but allow me to elaborate. Republican bashing is inculcated early, as this young candidate's comments show, and remains the rock solid mind-set for the majority for life. The fact is, berating Pubs is more a prerequisite for running in Portland, hardly a negative. Portland politicos don't even bother with the kind of tongue-in-cheek bipartisan lip service used in other precincts.

A one party town, accept this. The battle for hearts and minds is elsewhere, most particularly now on the Clackamas County line.

Portland Republicans could probably fill every metro area Shiloh Inn though.