Anybody But Sam?

[September 12th, 2007]

WW is pleased to announce its candidacy for mayor of Portland.

Oh, c’mon. Somebody had to come out and just make a clear statement already.

Mayor Tom Potter finally announced his decision Monday, saying he doesn’t want the job after 2008, in part so he can spend more time with his grandkids.

“I have no intention of being a lame duck,” Potter said of his remaining 15 months as mayor.

Potter also promised his support for Portland’s next generation of leaders. There’s certainly a lot of opportunity for that cadre: There’s now an open mayoral seat. And that in turn will probably create a second vacancy on the five-member City Council, if and when Commissioner Sam Adams runs for mayor.

Potter wasn’t naming the “new leaders” he was ready to pull for. “Quite frankly,” he said, “there are several of them in this room.”

Let’s see…Charles McGee, who ran for Portland School Board two years ago at age 19, was there in the standing-room-only council chambers with reporters, City Hall types and wannabe City Hall types. And there was Pearl District developer and volunteer cop Bob Ball, who’s mused about a mayoral run.

(One clear winner if there’s a Ball-Adams race: gay rights. Both Adams and Ball are gay. One clear loser: Potter’s grassroots vision. Adams—who’s worked in City Hall since 1992—and Ball—a developer—didn’t exactly walk in off the street.)

Come to think of it, pretty much everybody was in the room for Potter’s long-awaited announcement. Except Adams. The commissioner was conspicuously on vacation Monday. The mayor did speak with Adams by telephone before the big announcement, says Potter spokesman John Doussard.

With Potter out, it’s all but certain that Adams will run for mayor.

“I’m familiar with almost the entire field running for Sam’s seat,” said Commissioner Erik Sten. “Assuming that Adams is running.” Wink, wink.

Commissioner Dan Saltzman—who got along with Potter better than Adams and the rest of the council—expects a repeat of 2004 for the final 15 months of Potter’s term. That’s when then-Commissioner Jim Francesconi ran against then-private citizen Potter to replace then-lame duck Mayor Vera Katz. Sten backed Potter and undercut Francesconi at every turn. Commissioner Randy Leonard supported Francesconi but couldn’t help him avoid a huge defeat.

If past is prologue, the result again of all the jockeying would be a less effective council, with a weak (really weak, in this case) mayor. It also means even more constituency-pleasing resolutions coming from the desk of a campaigning commissioner (i.e., Adams).

Leonard’s not as worried about that, but then, he’s pulling for Adams to be the next mayor. “Some might argue that Sam’s never quit campaigning,” Leonard says. “I don’t mean that in a bad way. That’s what Portlanders like.”

For his part, Francesconi tells WW he has no interest in running for mayor again. He says it was “extremely difficult” to run for mayor while being on council, because every thing you do is seen through a political prism. That said, Francesconi thinks Adams could pull it off—because Adams has the political skills he lacked.

Publicly, Adams has been coy about his future. He did share his plans with at least one person who’ll tell the truth about it: Leonard.

Leonard won’t say what Adams told him. Still, when Leonard and Sten started singing Adams’ praises in front of television cameras, only minutes after Potter bowed out, you could see where people literally were lining up.

The two-man cheerleading squad for Adams lingered in the council chambers.

But outside in the hall was Ball, telling reporters what respect he had for Potter. Citing a recent series of meetings with business leaders, and stressing the importance of “listening”—rhymes with “visioning”—Ball seemed to be positioning himself as Potter’s heir in a race against Adams. As a disgruntled former Adams supporter, Ball would also make a nice lodestar for an anybody-but-Sam movement, the same way that Potter vacuumed up anybody-but-Francesconi folks in the 2004 election.

Nick Fish, the public-affairs TV host, lost to Adams in 2004. Fish, who’d run for council once before that, says he’ll decide in the next week or so whether he’ll run for mayor, take a third crack at a council seat or sit out the 2008 election. And African-American businessman Roy Jay, who’s said previously he’s not a candidate, now says he’s forming an exploratory committee in the next month to look at a run for mayor or council.

Well, in that case, forget it—there are too many possible candidates. Like the mayor, WW has decided to spend more time with its family.