Little Beirut lives.

I suppose they could just show up at a park and hold the debate there...

Amen.

Or, to mis-quote the Rabbi in Fiddler on the Roof: "May God bless and keep the Mayor...far away from us!"

"With all the crap that he and the Admiral have blown money on over the last decade"

I see PSU getting another proeprty development VP to help out Erin Flynn soon.

Is there really any point of having a debate (for either party) in Portland? Once the primaries get here, the candidate's already been decided.

Maybe Sam and Randy will get staring roles in the Portlandia productions?

Michelle has a good point. The real embarrassment will be when local leaders giddily offer to host the democratic party debate.

RE: The real embarrassment will be when local leaders giddily offer to host the democratic party debate.

Who will Obama be debating?

Michele,
A Presidential debate is hardly for the benefit of the location and it's primary. It's nationally broadcast and location is essentially meaningless to when that local primary is held.

The GOP obviously thought it would be interesting to have it take place in Portland.
Maybe they even anticipated the city's [Creepy's] response and saw advantage in showing this behavior that is and will certainly be an embarrassment.

Perhaps if the Morasch Brothers hadn't hightailed it to Wood Village, CoP's tax base could have supported more police overtime?

Got to go with Sam on this one. A waste of time and money. (Not that there aren't others.)

Who will Obama be debating?

His teleprompter.

Ba-da-bump.

To be fair to Sam, as the full Oregonian article states, previous Mayors, even the sainted Bud Clark, have complained about the cost of security for these events. But yes, to the larger critique, it does seem like the sort of thing Portland would have money to cover if it wasn't up to its eyeballs in pet projects and developer pork and the debt service to pay for them.

Sam the Scam was a city commissioner and mayor-elect when 72,000 people descended on Waterfront Park.

I've got a crisp $5 bill for anyone who can find a news story in which Sammy Boy said even a peep about the costs of hosting The Chosen One.

Allan,

How do you or Sam conclude it is a waste of time and money?

What time? Whose time? How much of both?

The debate will be the first after Super Tuesday and will have the narrowed field.
The event will certainly bring an entourage of campaign and media personnel to the city.
There's some upside to that.

The idea that the event should not occur or be moved because of some hypothetical BS is ridiculous.

Having the Mayor's new sensitivity to expenditures arrive only with this event is as phony as it gets.

What is most disgusting about Sam in this case is that Alley and the Republican Party have been communicating with PPD about this event for almost three months. Plans have been made, etc, but Sam as Police Commissioner has now claimed he just heard about this. He is a total control freak and his mental state is very questionable.

Then today he claims the logistics of the debate at OPB is so much more difficult and expensive compared to other venues. Both I-5 exits to and from OPB is only 14 blocks south, and the total route is on one arterial-SW Macadam. Not many streets like a Convention Center debate as he suggests. He's just making things up in his delusional, narcisstic mind.

Mayors all over the country have complained at length - and for years - about the enormous, unanticipated costs of security for fundraising and any events involving elected officials. They are legally obliged to cover these costs and candidates and political parties are NOT obliged to carry any of the burden. And so they often choose not to, even when asked. I tracked this situation during the earlier administration when records for fundraising trips by the President and Vice President were being broken right and left.

I'm not against such events but I do think that it's wrong for Millionaire and multi-millionaire candidates with war chests larger than the wealth of entire small countries to descend upon cities already in financial straits and expect the little people to provide for them.

This event could be held anywhere. Why downtown Portland where traffic and businesses will be impacted and it will be more likely that the inevitable demonstrations will make it worse. At least an event at the Airport is controllable and impacts fewer folks (as Mr. Cheney discovered when he held his events).

As far as holding Occupy Portland expenses over the Mayor's head, let me say that while I'm no fan of most of the fantasy stuff City Council has wasted time and money on, there is no way for anyone to know exactly how much security for this election event will ultimately be, so it's pretty hard to plan for it ahead of time.

"This event could be held anywhere. Why downtown Portland where traffic and businesses will be impacted"

It isn't in Downtown. It's on Macadam south of SoWa. At the OPB studios where it will be broadcast from. It's a perfectly fine location.

The Mayor is a despicable liar and defective human being.

Why would anyone listen to him or accept anything he has to say as the truth?

One has to wonder about more than Sam regarding this fiasco. He has over 26 staff members, he has PR and administrative staffs at both his PPD and Transportation Bureaus.

You'd think that there might be a few bright bulbs in all these staffs that might run a few positive and negative ideas past Sammy before he gives his ridiculous reasons. Someone must have told him the hypocrisy of his remarks in regards to spending over a $Million for Occupy, and now his ensuing coverup justifications.
But maybe no staff did inform him, or he didn't even consult. That is probably the reality.

I thought he only hired friends and kiss-ups. Why would they do anything but nod in assent?

Sam cares how much something costs? That's a first!

Ben-

"The Mayor is a despicable liar and defective human being."

With all due respect, Ben, I think you give Sam too much credit.

I'm not really surprised to see Mayor Sam taking this stand.
And I'm sure he actually believes what he is saying, heard him on a local radio station on the drive home tonight claiming he just heard about this debate a few days ago.
Either his staff is not doing their job or he has chose to ignore them.
His bloviating about how the debate just can't go on might just be considered and attempt to suppress the political speech of those he doesn't like.

Fact is, Sam, and the rest of the mental midgets with whom he cavorts, don't want the Republicans coming to Portland. That's all this is. And I'm surprised they want to come here anyway, if they really do.

How do you or Sam conclude it is a waste of time and money?

I can't speak for hizzoner. (He can scarcely speak for himself.) For my money, the republican pretenders are overexposed as it is. The process of choosing one of them to run against Obama just isn't interesting or, for that matter, important.

To all you cost conscious posters, if the visit is for a campaign event the party pays for the expense. If it's a visit by a sitting member of congress or the President and not deemed campagning the cost of security is paid by the host city.The teleprompter is always paid by those dumb enough to think a sitting encumbent has anything to say.

The process of choosing one of them to run against Obama just isn't interesting or, for that matter, important.

To you. And not to Sam either. Which is the point. Little Beirut lives!

"The process of choosing one of them to run against Obama just isn't interesting or, for that matter, important."
---

Aside from sycophant Democrats who lack the critical thinking skills of a tax professor, (and might only be interested in hearing their own opinions echoed back to them) I think Jack brings up a valid point:

"Now Portland's "unique" mayor is, incredibly, complaining about a Presidential candidates' debate coming to town. Suddenly he's worried about police overtime expenses.

With all the crap that he and the Admiral have blown money on over the last decade, and all the garbage that they're still pushing for, Portland can't afford to host a Presidential debate?"
---

Really, is the Mayor's complaint valid, coming from this particular Mayor?

I think not.

If this Mayor really wanted to save Porkland some money, he should have 'tweeted' his money saving message from another mouthpiece, since he lacks any credibility whatsoever when it comes to saving money.

Allen: Two posts, both obviously anti-Republican and childishly anti-anybody's-but-your-opinion.

Do you think the lodging, food and gift industries might stand to benefit from the influx of visitors to Portland's core? Or do revenue producing activities get in the way of your fantasy playground town?

What's really bad about this is the way Adams is dressed. Sportcoat, tie and jeans no less. Bad example and bad business attire. It sus more than we need to know about the man. If he applied for a job dressed that way, I'd show him out the door.

Evergreen-

He's pretending he's a governor.

Too bad Sam doesn't have boots to go with his outfit!
And what a joke...Sam concerned with saving money? Yeah right! NOT!

We all know that Sam loves to spend taxpayer money so that can't be the real reason he is complaining.

My guess is that Sam is afraid that Portland (and the mayor) would be the butt of many jokes during the debate. So he is trying to keep that show out of Dodge. Sam would be such a ripe target for that crowd. The ball could get rolling with the candidates talking about an easy billion dollar saving by killing the mystery train, then maybe a shot of the jail that never opened, the streetcars that do nothing, the silly projects paid for by the water fund, etc. The candidates would rack up points with conservatives all over the nation by pointing out how many fed taxes have been wasted by Sam the idiot.

Sam's chance at getting a high paid gig somewhere would be ruined once he was made the butt of so many jokes. Sam is smart enough to know that he is a joke of a mayor. But he isn't a national story and he wants to keep his joke status under wraps.

Not necessarily defending Sam here, Andy, but most of the issues you raise were well before Sam was in office: Wapato Jail (and this was Multnomah County's fiasco, not Portland's), streetcars, and water fund projects unrelated to water and sewer systems certainly started before his time in office.

But given it was Vera's initiative for some of these (and throw in the tram in this case), yes, maybe Sam's fingerprints are all over the evidence.

Sam was the Chief of Staff all those years for Vera.

I can't help but wonder about what is going so wrong here,
is it that he has to continue to give perks, etc. or else.....??
or does he just like to keep shoveling money to pet projects,
so now we are without money for anything else?

None of this is over, if our finances are in such dire straights, what next?

Andy -

Scam Adams is so far off the radar for the Republican Presidential candidates that I doubt they even know his name, or would even know he's the mayor if he stood up and offered his hand for a grip and grin.

All these guys are concerned with right now is electoral math, and what gives them the magic number of delegates. Coming here is a chance to see what messages might play in a showdown against Obama, because there is a nice group of elitist left here, which they can try some messages on before going after the blue states with a whole grip of electoral votes like California and New York, much less the swing states like Pennsylvania and Ohio.

How gracious of the Republicans to consider us bright, level-headed and solvent enough to host them, considering the legion of madmen and leftists we put up with here. Unfortunately, we are long past listening to anyone else's point of view here. And as long as we continue to be left, the left from the rest of the country will continue to move here. But wait, isn't it possible that if they concentrate too much, they will start to kill each other off? Malthus, you know...