It's a great article. The comments are also worth a read. In particular the one from "Kari, if you can't take this post down, please remove my name as an editor or contributor of this blog." Jesse Cornett. Typical "Portland Polite" thinking.

Love how all the tolerance and free exchange of ideas go out the window when the scion of progressivism takes some heat. Good job Bill

Go Bill Go!
"Portland Polite" sums it up! It is way past time folks started telling the truth and digging up the dirt around these parts.

My favorite part was Bill, in a relevant callback, giving & his buddies another kick in the nuts for looking the other way on Neil Goldschmidt's vile acts with a 14-year old kid. Never forget!

Ace in the hole. Won't the Oregonian take it as an opinion piece? That'd boost their readership.

"...giving Goldschmidt and his buddies another kick...."

I love how the criticism is trending over there. I remember how I felt when I met George W. Bush. I was still a banquet waiter, and "compassionate conservatism" was a new phrase. I thought America would never go for this. They did. I spent the last 4 years of the Bush administration doing a cable access show that spent most of its time criticizing the war in Iraq, and calling out Bush and Cheney.

When I talked with Smith I had that same thought: Portland will never go for this guy. I've learned you've got to get involved. I felt I had something that Portlanders needed to know.

The classic thing is - though I sensed he was violent - I hadn't heard a thing about it yet. That was my instinct. Later, when I heard the stories of the fighting, hitting the woman, and attacking people during amateur sports, I realized I had been right.

One person who also got to know Jefferson Smith during the last year is Max Brumm. I thought it was interesting that this seemingly carefree individual would also have such a strong dislike for Jefferson.

Way to go Bill. :)
And I love how Smith can trot out the old ADHD as an excuse for his reckless behavior but you're the bad guy for even mentioning it. Typical of this bizarro Bus kid cult of personality.

I appreciate Bill's perspective on Nutsy. And I'm glad Kari posted Bill's take on Smith. It is sad that the comments are trending along that river in Egypt, but then that is BlueOregon.

I think this whole "Portland Polite" needs more discovery, analysis and focus. Portland has some weird crap going on with their electorate. Strange, stupid weird. Not artsy, cutesy "Keep Portland Weird" weird, but just plain old strange & stupid weird. Nutsy for Mayor would be stranger and stupider than what Portland already has in City Hall. If Nutsy were to somehow win, and then go off his rocker, THAT would be really weird for Portland.

Maybe W&K can work up an ad campaign, pro bono, for Portland? Work off of some comdic ad copy points from Bill? That would be funny, in a weird, sad sorta way.

Ironically, Portland has a history of corruption that once led to a Senate investigation. Read about it in Phil Stanford's book, "Portland Confidential."
Somewhere along the line we went fluffy and that's okay as long as reality complies. But if there are horrible things happening or extremely shaky people running for office, and we are too stuck on polite to call them out - then the city a lot of us love, pays.

Bill: Great stuff. Too bad Smith is going to win. I can't stand either candidate. I'm doing what Jack's doing and voting for our auditor, Laverne McGriff-Salad.

Too bad Smith's going to win anyway. Like I've been telling anyone who asks me lately (especially my smarter friends that left town years ago), the kids love him. Those creative types that dig food carts, live in cr-apartments, and cause the city to close the streets in Old Town to cars while they party will vote for him in droves.

Why? Charlie Hales is a "square, man".

The B.O. kids just can't over the fact that Jeffy is toast. Jesse Cornett -- least successful City Council candidate in history -- has an opinion? Too funny.

Looks like the Bus "experiment in democracy" with the cutesy websites and the yada yada yada is a big fail. Because their pied piper is a nutjob.

But you know what? Hales is going to be every bit as bad -- perhaps even worse.

Boy am I glad I do not live in Portland and have to vote on these two
It is like standing there holding a .45 and being told its eather the right foot or the left foot

I saw a poll by KATU/USAToday showing Hales up by 9 percentage points, and this before Smith's confession last week. I hope we can get Griffin-Valde to run for Mayor next go around. Need to see if we can build the dirt on Hales the next four years. Wonder how Novick and Hales will get along, as Novick strikes me as someone who is a bit of a free spirit.

Not to go too far out there or anything, but what do you think of the chances that the big economic collapse arrives in the next few years?
I saw a story that implied Obama may not want to be president for another term. Maybe he knows what's coming. Maybe all the leaders do.

6-dollar gas in California? War drums with Iran? An economy that's an illusion, where stockholders are pleased at the 5-year highs even as they must wonder how artificially propped up this thing is.

We might look back at this election in Portland and wonder how we could worry about the damage a candidate could do, when we're on the precipice of economic collapse, and nothing much of any normal economic behavior will be happening. No new streetcars, no new condo towers, nothing.

The big wheels of history could be rolling our way. America's been spared a lot of the consequences of war, etc... since the Civil War. If you've lived abroad you know that scenes that seem so stable can end. Look at Spain.

I'm wondering if worrying about who wins these elections will make any real difference in the implosion of the economy that already seems to be underway.

Perhaps the economic wall is near, and the post crash analysis will show no skid marks, but then again, maybe not for at least 10 more years. In the mean time, in four years Portland will need somebody with name recognition, a keen sense of humor, a large Rolodex, some common sense and no political experience or history to clean up after the circus leaves town. I think you should grab a beer with Jack and a few of his lawyer friends to sketch out (on a cocktail napkin, of course) the basic outline of a plan to clean up after Nutsy or CharLie. If the SNL writer can become Sen-MN, and if Bud can become Mayor, then so could you. Just sayin...

What strikes me about the comments is the similarity to the defenses I read about our current mayor when the (almost) full story came out about his involvement with his young Beau.
Once again, too many people are more than willing to overlook and excuse their own candidate's flaws. It seems they don't want to admit that they could possibly be wrong about their choice. In this instance, it's particularly amusing since, on the issues, the differences between Smith and Hales are generally acknowledged to be very slight.

Bob Clark: Wonder how Novick and Hales will get along, as Novick strikes me as someone who is a bit of a free spirit.

Novick is the Tyrion Lannister of Portland politics: Scheming with a joke and a smile.

You forgot the comment on BlueOregon by Mark Bunster:

"See what happens when you let bojack people out into the light?"

Bill, I also don't want to "go to far out there" about Armageddon. But we were at a party watching the Oregon game and after using the bathroom I asked the host "why the filled water in the bathtub?" She hesitated and said here daughter had called a few days with concern.

Within an hour at her Boeing job in Phoenix, three of her cohorts had received concerned calls from members of their family. One was high level CIA, one in high level military, the other in law enforcement. They all said "something is coming down soon-prepare!" All didn't know each other or anything. Maybe Biden or Krugman can use that fact to explain Obama's debate performance. He got the same call.

It's a think piece intended I presume to try to cause the blue Oregon crowd pause and think a little bit before they reflexively vote the way we all already know they're going to vote.

But conservative armchair observers know there's a better than even up chance the Keep Portland Weird contingent will carry the day, as they mostly have since 1984 when Bud Clark came out of nowhere and the voters made their first such statement. The comments after the piece pretty much confirm it.

lw,
That's heavy....

The most irritating part of the Blue Oregon response was the idea that I had hidden the interview I did with Smith and some cyber-sleuths drew me out. Give me a break with that. I did several versions of this before Kari agreed to run it - one of them had a lengthy description of my interview with the candidate and mentioned my other sit-down interviews with Charlie Hales, Max Brumm, and later cyber-interviews with Cameron Whitten, and Scoot Fernandez so I know that this was not some kind of "Holy Cow!" moment of discovery as one comment would suggest. Maybe I just assumed everyone reads Jack's Blog - even the publisher of the Oregonian emailed in twice this month.

Hide the interview? That's ironic. I went home afterwards and started writing it up. Frankly, I thought we had something there. Yes, it was contentious but that's okay. I thought it was pretty riveting.

What really did steam me is that Jefferson's campaign called my editors and bullied them into not running it. I thought that was chicken-sh*t, and I still do. I admit that did hurt me. It cost me financially because they didn't pay me for Smith, and they canceled my interview with Eileen Brady. It also hurt my feelings. It's ironic, considering Smith's recent comment, but I felt like I had been played.

The point where I really saw what Jefferson Smith is all about was when my editors had given in, and sent a new reporter to do a much more Portland-friendly type interview. During that one, he had the temerity to ask for tougher questions. Folks, that is a Dick Cheney level of manipulation.

Speaking of that, I have to admit I was a little hurt that nobody over there remembered my cable access show, "Born to Slack" with the late great James Shibley. We were on 4 years bashing the Bush administration every week, and playing the video "Let's Leave Iraq" hundreds of times in the Portland area.

Nobody remembers that on Blue Oregon? That's my proudest foray into the media. Oh, we'd get a lot of flack from right wingers. In fact after James got really sick, we got a long comment saying they hoped he would die - a comment his wife saw by the way. He did die 4 years ago this month, but for the whole second term, we were on George Bush and Cheney every week.

Remember how Cheney used to plant stories in the New York Times, and then go on the Sunday shows and react to them: "I see the Times said this today..." That is a level of manipulation that proved his character.

I was a columnist for the Portland Tribune back then and 3 weeks before the invasion of Iraq, I was warning of the unforeseen consequences and how Bush would have done it differently if he hadn't used his connections to avoid Vietnam. In short, I wasn't going along with the bloodlust, 9/11 revenge against a country that didn't do 9/11. As a result of my opinions about the war, I was let go from the Trib. At least that's what the person who was firing me said: "You pulled the tiger's tail too much on Iraq."

It seemed like every columnist that got it wrong was rewarded. Neo-Con Bill Kristol got a column in the New York Times for Christ sake. Me? I get canned and I was right. BTW, did you see that Bill O'Reilly said we shouldn't have gone into Iraq in the Jon Stewart debate? Sorry, it doesn't count now when the damage is done and it's safe to say.

I stood up when it counted and it cost me. That was a sweet gig. I don't like losing gigs. So - although it hurt my pride to have Jefferson Smith cost me the gig doing sit-down interviews with politicians - it was not the first gig I've ever lost and I'm certainly not going to go Portland Polite now.

However, the idea that Smith asked for tougher questions, while his campaign had killed the interview with the tough questions? Sorry, That is Dick Cheney time. That is vintage Dick Cheney. That's Dick Cheney-esque with an emphasis on the "dick" part so I don't care how progressive Blue Oregon thinks Jefferson Smith is.

I agree wholeheartedly with Jesse Cornett in the BO comments (whose peculiar dental color long ago earned him the nickname "Corn Nut":

If one has allowed oneself to deteriorate physically in horrifying ways, including obesity and tooth discoloration, that person has no business even setting foot in a government building, with the possible exception of a county dental facility. Such disfigurements occur by choice, and reflect a carelessness of character implying a complete inability to govern oneself, let alone a municipality.

It is strange that he is trying to turn these descriptions around on Jeff Smith, though, who is neither fat nor dentally challenged. Thank Odin Portland was spared four years of Corn Nut governance.

I was chatting with a craigslist seller this morning while looking at an item he had for sale. Small business solo landscaper, nice,smart, granola type. What he had to say was classic. "please can we just have a mayor who hasn't committed assault?'

Stop Corn Nut Governance!

Some bumperstickers write themselves.

Interesting -- my first reaction privately after the "debate" was to say to my co-watcher was: "Obama seemed distracted.. Maybe he got some intense briefing on something going on in the world before showtime."

And aw heck, Bill -- Jeffy the Menace could never even rise to the level of a parking lot valet in Cheney's dark world. Though maybe at the election night party @Smith HQ they will serve punch & nuts.

Mojo,
You're right. Nobody is comparing Smith to the Overlord of Darkness himself - I just thought that one instance of media manipulation was reminiscent of the Waterboarder-in-Chief.

If you want a politician who the complete Jefferson Smith reminds me of, it's Newt Gingrich. Even Smith's admirers often note how he goes on and on with the ideas. You sit there and think, "Man, this guy is smart." Then 5 minutes later when he's still jabbering away, you say to yourself, "Man, this guy's an idiot."

When Newt Gingrich won the South Carolina Primary, I panicked. The idea of a President Gingrich? Too grim to contemplate. I immediately started in on a song called, "Smart-Talking Fool" - anything to do my part to prevent Gingrich from being elected president.

Of course, by the time it was done, Newt had already imploded in Florida with his talk of base on the moon, and just by being an all-around bloviating jerk.

No problem. I added another politician to the song, another man who was running his mouth as much as he was running for office: this relatively unknown state representative in Oregon who took a half hour just to say "Good Morning."

The song "Smart Talking Fool" is now about both men. It did not catch on. Viral? It didn't even catch the sniffles.

You do what you can.

The word "progressive" should be required to be enclosed in quotation marks. It's the most abominable of all the abominable linguistic misappropriations.

The thought police would do better to change their favorite adjective to "oppressive." I'd just as soon vote for Shariah law.

I might be wrong but I'm not kidding.

Thanks for the piece, Bill and to BlueOregon for running it. It is obviously imperative that Smith be stopped.

I agree with Dr. Phil in this one: In most cases, the best predictor of future behavior is past behavior.

Bill - ditto the thanks for that post over on BO. A needed public service to an insulated crowd. Not sure if Kari already saw the writing on the wall by allowing your post, or if he accepted a shot of Liberty in his coffee. Either way, well done.