Follow the money, baby!

Kind of questions her rational decision making process, which questions her ability to be on the city council.

It's amazing, but less worrisome than if the Usual Gang of Suspects had given her the $250,000 in the hope of currying favor later on, when contracts are dealt out.

Her own dough, and some of mine.

Isaac has it straight.

Far far better her own money than that of the usual gang of suspects financing Hales, and more importantly, her opponent, Nolan the Viper.

Take a look at Orestar for the list of "usual suspects".

The sick thing about all of this is that Mary Nolan probably targeted Amanda's seat because she and her handlers knew that Amanda doesn't play the whole "money wins" game. Too bad Amanda has spent so much of her own money, but it at least it shows that she isn't doing the job for the money.

What worries me is that she must be a bazillionaire to afford that. Sitting next to another moneybags, Saltzman -- you have to wonder how much either of them can relate to the people of Portland. Then there's the Triple-Pension Admiral, and the spendthrift in the mayor's chair. Only Jelly Fish may have a clue as to what money really means.

They definitely aren't bazillionairess unless one of them recently came into big money from an inheritance or something. The last time I heard, her husband Steve works in a thankless but essential job as a psychiatrist for the State of Oregon managing the criminally insane and so forth. It's hard to imagine that he makes more than 200k or so a year, and he earns every penny of it. I never asked him what his salary is, but I'm sure you can dig it up as a matter of public record if you try hard enough. We all know what her salary is as a matter of public record. The last time I had contact with Steve, which was 3 or more years ago, he was driving a 15 plus year old Nissan Sentra with Zebra stripes on it that was on its second engine.

From what I saw they lived in a typical middle class home in a quiet, but very modest neighborhood in the Sylvan area in S.W. up off of Capitol Hwy. and Barbur. I'm sure that anyone can figure out what kind of lifestyle they lead from a cursory examination of the public land records. From what I observed they are both hard working honest family oriented people who might have some resources available to them thanks to the fact that they have been steadily employed for several years and are super responsible with their money. They put three kids through college, and from what I heard it definitely involved personal financial sacrifice on their part to make that happen.

Amanda obviously places a very high priority on avoiding being influenced by money in the pursuit of politcal office, and she took special pride in being the first non-incumbent to get elected under the V.O.E. program. Some might call it stupid to put that kind of personal money into your own campaign if you aren't a bazillionaire, others might call it high minded and principled in an extreme way. My impression is that Amanda is truly cut from a different cloth when it comes to this kind of thing. It might be weird, but it's a good kind of weird in my book.

I seriously doubt the judgment of anyone who would pay three years' gross salary for the joy of sitting up there with the four clowns with whom she works -- one more ridiculous than the next.

And whatever the Fritzes do for a living, they had $300,000 lying around for a political campaign. At the same time she was browbeating the taxpayer for "clean money." It's quite strange.

But hey, I'm voting for the Nurse, because that's a vote against the Goldschmidt Party.

Ok, I admit, I kind of like “Nurse Amanda.” But really, if you can dump $250,000.00 of your own money on a campaign for reelection, you think you might be able to spend a few bucks on a new wardrobe? I mean really! http://i.imgur.com/pB8JH.jpg

I'm puzzled, Jack. You criticize a candidate for self-funding. You don't like public funding for campaigns. And you're wary of candidates backed by the big bucks developers or labor unions.
I don't know that I really disagree with you on those points, but given the state of the media today, there aren't many other alternatives for a candidate to effectively get a message to the voters without raising a bunch of money from somewhere and advertising.