Maybe that's why he likes the buses so much.

Anyone can get one or two moving violations, but the number that he's got indicates a certain obliviousness to what's going on around him, as well as an attitude that certain rules simply should not apply to someone doing such important work. Neither attitude is one we should look for in a mayor.

So he graduated from Harvard and worked briefly for a back east law firm and then came to Portland an worked briefly for Stole, Reeves, and left there, and now is in the legislature??? hummm
I wonder why he left his 'real job' at the law firms?

oops...should read: Stoel Rives...
And, BTW, Smith's step mom is affiliated with the OR Democratic Party.

Just what we need another possible "above the law" narcissist in City Hall.

The 2004 DWS violation seems a little too recent to write off as a youthful indiscretion. He was in his early 30's and had passed the bar three years prior.

Given the rest of his traffic violations, it looks like a pattern of irresponsibility.

Just what Portland needs after Sam Adams.

After he loses, maybe he can start a law practice with Brad Avakian.

And so begins the marketing of Jeff Smith...

...and the planning for driving the final nails into beloved Portland's coffin.

PoleSmoker Sam:
(http://www.wweek.com/portland/blog-9156-dan_savage_endorses_sam_adams_for_mayor.html)

is finished. His greenie resume is nearly flushed out - and even though the Morrison Bridge stands useless to the constituency , Sam's composting plan, bike nonsense and bag war victory, along w/ the couplet and tram successes ! will be enough for some spin wonk (maybe Stacey Dycus )to make Sam shine - SOMEWHERE ELSE - probably NY.

Stage one of the economic rape of undervalued/undertaxed Portland is nearly complete.

After the useless distraction that was Sam Adams ...
...the Harvard educated local boy can be marketed as a good guy. Sure - he's made a coupla mistakes, no one's perfect but he's real-world relevant - and his humble roots will connect him with the mainstream constituency.

The exact opposite of Sam - which will be targeted to knee-jerk voters who will gobble it up.

All the while ...
...in the smoke filled BACK ROOMS - stage two of the real estate value mining and the scripts for the new shill are being written.

Hang on to your wallets fellow voters - this one needs watching.

Sooner or later the parasites will kill the host organism.

One-by-one, savings accounts, investments, payroll accounts, business offices, entire corporations, homeowners, families, any and all who still possess anything they value, will slowly abandon ship. Sure there'll be a trickle of new believers to take their place, many subsidized for the sake of appearances, but sooner or later the host will die.

Jack, having any integrity is not a requirement for public office.

Gee, just a bunch of traffic violations? He's not qualified for public office.

Now, get a few assualt charges, or a rape charge, or a sex abuse I charge...the real juicy crimes. DUI is hardly even a crime here in Oregon.

(Or, just tamper with witnesses and get away with it, like poor Sam Adams.)

Perhaps Ms Slovic's editors will allow her time to search Mr Smith's
driving record in Cambridge/Boston, including parking tickets and unpaid fines.

Another aspect of character worth investigating for this and all candidates is treatment of small animals.

But he's "on the right team" so it's okay. I mean, he likes bikes and streetcars, right? He's not a conservative is he? Then this must just be some little misunderstanding.

I don't think our city can take another four years of "on the right team" folks.

"'DWS' means driving while suspended -- a much more serious matter than driving with expired tags."

Not necessarily, Jack Both DWS and expired tags can be infractions --"violations." You forget to pay a traffic ticket, your driving privileges get suspended. Can happen to lawyers like anyone else. Not exemplary conduct, but hardly disqualifying. Unless of course we demand perfection from our public servants, as we do bloggers.

Blue Oregon wont report this.they and their posters keep telling us what a saint and future hall of fame leader Smith ism

You forget to pay a traffic ticket, your driving privileges get suspended.

And then you're not allowed to drive. And if you do, that's against the law. The Oregon State Bar says, "Driving while suspended is a serious offense." Which apparently Mr. Bus committed.

Many traffic tickets over the years?! I knew there was something I resonated with about the guy.
Without truly reviewing, I must have at least 7 citations, maybe twice that, in, oh, gosh, thirty or fifty years, whatever it's been. (... thinking back ... the time I rear-ended a PPD Sargeant stopped at a green light on SE 39th -- reckless driving; judge threw it out, and lectured the Sargeant ... the time I was put in Chicago jail for violating "No Left Turn 4pm - 6pm" at 6:05pm; some argument about the wrong time on the cop's wristwatch -- judge asked me why I even showed up, dismissed the case ... a few times barreling 95mph along I-5 legally, never ticketed, back in Oregon's VBR years -- don't Violate the Basic Rule: use any speed appropriate for road/traffic conditions, operator abilities, and vehicle performance ... the time cited for 70mph in a 55 zone on a deserted open road (except on-coming cop) somewhere in the wilds of Idaho, or maybe Wyoming; only 70 ?!, sheesh, ya' got me ... same thing, 70-in-a-55 on the Warm Springs Reservation, cited by Tribal Law Enforcement; Native American-judge halved the fine because I stood up and spoke the truth, looking like one of 'them' I suppose ... the gas-crisis time of federal 'Fuel Economy' traffic laws, cited for 62-in-a-55 on I-205; mailed it in mocking its pettiness, Clackamas Cty kept the full amount ... years later doing 62 again, on I-205 again, I passed a sheriff's deputy clogging up traffic, he stopped me but issued no citation, only saying it was a face-saving stop because, "what would it look like to the others (clogged up) if I didn't stop you" ... the time of adolescent indiscretion at midnight on an empty road across Oregon's high desert, driving in the wrong lane at on-coming traffic with my headlights off until the last minute, then flicking on the headlights and swerving back in my lane, and, but, the on-coming was an OSP officer, VERY irate; judge dismissed the case saying he "couldn't believe someone with my academic record could be so stupid" ... and the time not long ago I dove headfirst through the windshield of a stranger's car when she plowed over the bicycle I was riding, in my Failure to Obey Traffic Control Device, (i.e., the "Don't Walk" signal) -- judge threw out the citation for improper ORS reference number, (bicycles are Pedestrians in a crosswalk, Vehicles everywhere else), judge wrote a new citation from the Bench on-the-spot, summonsed it, read it, silenced testimony, deliberated one-half second, ruled Guilty, invoked fine ... and there were some other times ....) But I digress.

I am not what you'd call a 'timid, hesitant' driver. However, I figure I have about 750,000 safe miles in the driver's seat, counting motorcycles, tractors, farm machinery, off-road vehicles, and snowmobiles, without fatalities or injuries, (I even waved off the EMTs examining my head after I pulled it out of the windshield and walked to the nearest 'neutral' corner). I've hitchhiked (cross-country) and picked up hitchhikers, fixed flats, started motors and towed cars for strangers stuck roadside, and delivered messages and packages out of my way. In driving, I'm never in a big hurry.

Between speeding or being late, I prefer being late, checking out scenes-ery I'm driving past as well as where I'm driving. I read and don't heed posted speed 'recommendations', while I go as the traffic consensus is going, no abrupt sudden manuevers, be psyching-out and looking through the eyes of other drivers, driving defensively, and when the pace is mine to set I go by the good ol' Basic Rule: Have the car under control according to traffic and road conditions, within my driving abilities, as the vehicle can operate ... and then add a big margin for error. These days I'm driving a 1985 Mercedes ... frequently late for estimated arrival, to the IMMENSE disgust and displeasure of unnamed person(s).

There are some wild-child's I see driving who are not going to live long enough to match my modest record. Jefferson Smith sounds like he's running late most of the time, in a hurry. Hard knocks and stops won't slow him down as much as does arriving at his destination a few times, getting somewhere in his life, ambition vested and bearing responsibility, simply advancing years. Heck he ain't 40. And for the last 10 years traffic patrols are something out of Orwellian paramilitary life-control, and fines quadrupled, if you've noticed ... ever since O.J. in the Bronco slow-speed 'pursuit' which was the highest-ever pride of traffic enforcement cops -- that their restraint training worked, no one got injured, for an arrest without a single weapon brandished. For O.J. today, out of nowhere a drone homes in on-target and blasts the Bronco to bits in a minute, all film (and eye-witnesses) 'impounded' before the 11 o'clock News, nothing to see, traffic move along.

In my estimation, Smith would be a better mayor than Adams, not as good as Bud Clark. But then, in 2011 politics, Bud Clark would not be as good as Bud Clark. I don't even know whether or not Smith is the best candidate running.

He's a good guy though. If he is car-challenged, I don't know that that disqualifies him as mayor; (same goes for me for Sam 'bumper-car' Adams). Voters decide that. Just saying, as long as he's speeding, we know we ain't electing O.J.

Smith can credibly claim innate politician talent 'signs' at his birth. For instance, 6/29/73 was on the eve of the 'great' solar eclipse of '73. Other planets arrayed then concur, as 'exceptional'. (BTW, his money planet: he doesn't work for money and money doesn't 'work' for him; he never gets rich and isn't interested.)

In his car-travel planet: progressed Mercury in his chart was retrograde (car-challenged, from age 8) until approx.6 years ago, so he might be 'reformed' by now. When my progressed Mercury was retrograde, (a 20-year 'phase' nearly everyone individually endures sometime, once in a lifetime), my experience would look at "7 ticketed stops in 1 State over a 16-year period" and say, pfffft! is that all you got?

The "Bus Project" doesn't have anything! to do with busses, except this clown rides around in one trying out one failed political scheme after another with other people's money.
This guy strikes me a just another lazy a$$ wanna be politician looking for his own piggie trough.

Another reason you can get your driver's license suspended is for refusing to take a breathalyzer.

Should any reporter take a politician's statement at face value? Why not look at the actual police reports?

The "Bus Project" doesn't have anything! to do with busses, except this clown rides around in one trying out one failed political scheme after another with other people's money.

The only bus that The Bus Project cares about are chartered MCI coaches with nice comfy seats, restrooms, wetbars, entertainment systems...well, this:

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3045/5860386849_5fb9544017.jpg

Not the buses that many daily Portland area commuters ride in...those old, 21 year old TriMet dinosaurs that break down a lot, don't even have air conditioning, and that most everyone in the Democratic Party doesn't give a rat's ass about because...it's not a train.

Oh man, give me a break. Portland traffic speeds are so slow--all those progressive do-gooders who drive 50 in the fast lane (45 even) and then frown at you if you pass them on the right. When I was contracting and had to drive everywhere I always had 4 tickets on my record, usually for some dumb speed trap like where Beaverton Hillsdale hwy comes up on Bertha Blvd and the 45 mph arbitrarily shifts to 35 for a quarter mile so the cops can nail you, but a few times for going 71 on the freeway, omg! Anywhere else in the country and you get driven over.

This guy's been breed to be in politics (Jefferson Smith...), but pdx speed traps, whatever. Show's he's human, might even be willing to buck the occasional righteous rule.

Sorry, dude. Driving while suspended is a whole 'nother league. And they don't ticket you for just 5-10 miles over the speed limit. Total jackass behind the wheel.

matthew vantress:Blue Oregon wont report this.they and their posters keep telling us what a saint and future hall of fame leader Smith ism

Does Blue Oregon ever say anything critical about the D's
or the agenda in our city or issues that so many of us are concerned about?

BlueOregon is run by Kari Chisholm, who makes a living running websites for Democratic politicians in Portland. He isn't going to bite the hand that feeds.

The Oregon State Bar lists Smith as "inactive". I thought it was very easy to remain a member of the bar even if you aren't practicing. Why would he give that up unless he had to? What's the story with the short tenure at Stoel?

J. Smith - Just another lawyer putz, much like Streetcar Earl and lots of others in DC, that can't make a real living practicing law. So they feed at the public trough. Smith has all the typical earmarks of a future career political hack. Just one more reason to NOT ever vote for him.

An endorsement(?!?) from Skwat is like a letter from the IRS...

...only more difficult to decipher.

I solved all my problems with slow limits, late-night speed-traps on deserted far-flung roads, and time management.

I got a car with cruise control. My Prius astral glider, in 2004, after many years of stubbornly insisting on driving old Volvos, and acting like I was driving in Washington instead of Oregon.

Since 2004, I have only had two speeding tickets, both acquired in the weeks after the Sam Adams scandal broke. I even tried to get out of the first ticket by explaining to the officer why I was so furious, and thus didn't notice the speed-reduction signage right before the semi-rural speed-trap he was manning on 99E. He thought the excuse was amusing, and indicated that he had his reasons why he didn't live in Portland.

Fellow blog planetary travelers, PLEASE consider restraint on the topic of astrology. Some of us believe that most of the ills of the world can be traced to the cultish thinking that leads to such existential rubbish pits as astrology.