Source: Oregonian, Victory Fund
A local columnist today described City Commissioner Sam Adams as "the kind of mayor you might imagine Portland to have, if you lived elsewhere and only read about this city in fawning national publications."
Adams is one of the top candidates running to replace Portland's incumbent Mayor Tom Potter. The first step toward election of the out gay commissioner will come two weeks from now when votes in the state's mail-only primary are counted.
Adams is today listed at the top of "Races to Watch" by Gay & Lesbian Victory Fund, an advocacy group that works for the election of openly-gay candidates at all levels of government.
And it's been a lively local race in the Rose City, but being gay hardly figures into profiles of Adams's candidacy in local media, and that, of course, is one of the things the Victory Fund hopes will happen everywhere.
In an April profile of the two top candidates, an Oregonian reporter mentions that Adams is gay only near the bottom of a long story. Oregonian columnist Susan Nielsen doesn't mention it at all in today's column. It's all just part of being "the kind of mayor you might imagine Portland to have."
A survey released last week by KATU TV shows Adams taking 47% of the vote in a race with 13 candidates. His main challenger, progressive businessman Sho Dozono came in at 36%, with 7% undecided and 10% of voters saying they'd vote for one of the other candidates in the crowded field.
Dozono is a travel agency owner and longtime civic leader described by Nielsen in today's column as "an imperfect candidate and a terrible campaigner."
She says Dozono, who is endorsed by Potter, is also "modest, calm, seasoned, grounded" -- qualities she finds lacking in Adams.
The April Oregonian campaign profile with the headline "The policy wonk vs. the businessman" on the paper's news pages said, "Dozono is trying to capture the grass-roots, man-of-the-people mojo that propelled Potter and former Mayor Bud Clark to office, wearing shiny white sneakers when campaigning, for example."
In the same article, Oregonian reporter Anna Griffin describes Adams as "a proud policy geek and experienced politician who dropped out of the University of Oregon to go to work for future U.S. Rep. Peter DeFazio's campaign. He was working as an aide to the House Democratic caucus in the Legislature when he met his mentor, Vera Katz, who served three terms as speaker before becoming mayor of Portland."
On the way to becoming the front-runner for mayor, The Oregonian reports, Adams has added to his reputation as a guy who isn't afraid to bully the people around him to get what he wants.
It's that tendency, in part, that prompted a group of prominent business leaders to recruit Dozono to run.
"You don't have to always like me," Adams said at an April candidates forum, "but you know I will work as hard as I possibly can, that I will listen to you and that at the end of the day I will make the tough decisions."
In her column today, Nielsen calls Adams as "the perfect embodiment of Portland's most attractive liberal aspirations" and says that he "would be a good Portland mayor and maybe a great one." She even says that Adams "deserves the job," but then Nielsen recommends that voters opt, instead, for one of the eleven also-rans in the 13-candidate non-partisan primary race.
If nobody gets 50-percent-plus-one of the votes in next week's primary, then the top two vote-getters -- almost assuredly Adams and Dozono -- would face each other in a fall runoff election.
Adams is "the bike-riding intellectual with hipster cool, the energetic wonk who makes time for gardening and art," according to Nielsen, but also someone who needs a bit of political seasoning, by the columnist's reckoning.
Nielsen argues, "Another six months on the campaign trail would force Adams to explain himself, listen more closely to those who disagree and immerse himself in the world outside of City Hall."
She says the extra time would be helpful, in part, because Adams
makes voters a little nervous -- including those who support him. Voters want an effective mayor, not just an attractive one. They worry about Adams' scattered energies, his relative youth, his shortage of experience in the private sector, his fondness for nonessential projects. They worry about electing someone who has spent much of his adult life inside City Hall.
"It has been a vigorous campaign, and if it continues, I'm prepared for that," the one-term city commissioner said last week, riffing easily at the end of a long day.
Adams was inching toward the magic 50%+1 mark according to the KATU-TV poll taken by SurveyUSA 04/25/08 through 04/27/08 just before ballots were mailed. He picked up 8 points over a similar poll taken 18 days before while Dozono lost two points and the other candidates lost four points.
Full article: PORTLAND'S BIG PICK | Oregonian
Sam Adams approaches pivotal 50 percent mark in mayoral race | Gay & Lesbian Victory Fund
The policy wonk vs. the businessman | Oregonian
Portland mayor's wife backs off after blog goes too far | Oregonian