Oregon does have one Senator who's willing to come out and stake his claim for a full and robust public option (FRPO)--junior Senator Jeff Merkley. In this video recorded today at Pioneer Square outside KGW's new studios there, Merkley affirms his support for a public option, one that competes directly with private insurance and cuts costs using Medicare-style bargaining rules with providers. He also takes time to parry some of the built-in skepticism of his interviewer, who seems awfully concerned for the health of private insurers (as opposed to say, the insured or those who would like to be). Watch the video, below:
"An important announcement about the future of professional soccer in the city of Portland” is scheduled for Friday morning.
The news is included in invitations that went out to members of the Portland business community Wednesday morning. It said the announcement would be made at the downtown Portland Hilton Hotel.
The invitations were made in the names of Merritt Paulson and Major League Soccer, Paulson is the Portland businessman seeking an MLS expansion team franchise. Neither party would publicly confirm the event to reporters who called seeking comment.
But Commission Randy Leonard's office confirms the press conference is scheduled with Paulson and MLS officials Friday morning. Leonard has been the most outspoken member of the City Council in support of bringing professional soccer to Portland. A number of City Hall sources say MLS Commissioner Don Garber will be at the event. [emph me]
So breaking (and apparently rushed), you need more than one hand to count the typos!
In an article posted at KGW.com about 1030AM and now updated with a rather mischevously revealing quote from Commissioner Randy Leonard, it would appear pretty damned likely that on the heels of the award of a franchise to Vancouver, BC today, Portland will indeed secure the second expansion team for 2011 play.
A news conference was reportedly scheduled by MLS and the Portland Timbers for Friday morning to make an announcement, according to several soccer message boards, including SoccerCityUSA.com and another website devoted to bringing a pro franchise to town.
According to reports, the press conference was scheduled for 9:30 a.m. Friday at the Portland Hilton between Timbers and MLS representatives.
Supporters hoped that if professional representatives were coming all the way to Portland, it must be to bring good news. "It looks like this is going to be the celebration we have all been waiting for," Portland resident Jeremy Wright wrote on one message board.
City Commissioner Randy Leonard, a supporter of the proposal, would not confirm nor deny the reports. He did speculate that league officials would "probably not travel to Portland to announce a franchise in Philadelphia."
You can almost hear the grin in Leonard's voice from that quotation. The article notes a bit wryly that Philly doesn't even have a bid on the table, which points either to Randy's need for city alliteration--or he's trying to tell you something in his non-confirm, non-denial.
I wanted to watch the debate between Jeff Merkley and Gordon Smith last night, and came home intending to, but was called away from the house until after it was over. If you missed it at as well, you may find it helpful to use these links to watch it for yourself: They are KGW videos, and I don't see any way to embed them, so you'll have to follow the links, sorry.
What analysis do I have of the performances? I will admit upfront that I could only stand to watch part one, and I must say that both men were excreable. Gordon Smith was creepy-looking, in a way I can't really define. Something about him just looked dark and sinister. His voice was even and didn't really show tension, but it still sounded like verbal teeth clenching. And oh yeah, there's the small matter of nearly everything coming out of his mouth being a total fabrication or smear. At one point Smith even asserted that because he'd participated in revenue hikes in the Leg, that ipso facto meant Merkley was a dead lock to do so in the Senate--"He's gonna raise your taxes, folks."
Jeff Merkley's performance may have been very good on paper--literally, read rather than seen or heard. By and large his policy poisitions are the right ones, and he definitely gets credit from me for being against a bailout bill many Democrats backed. On the issues, I have no doubt that a majority of Oregonians would vote to boot Smith, and I think there's a fairly decent chance they will.
But from the get-go, Merkley was jumpy and hyperkinetic, swinging his hands and fists around, and seemingly bouncing on the balls of his feet. He was the opposite of Smith in that his speech was erratically enunciated, somewhat slurred and with one word tumbling out after another, the next one riding the back of the previous. He had been improving, but last night he was like Roger Clemens waiting to face the Red Sox at Fenway in the playoffs--way too tight, way too pumped, and firing fastballs over everyone's heads.
Nobody helped themselves in this debate that I saw, IMO--although if someone wants to point out an especially effective segment for either man that's in the final two parts, I'm happy to check it out and revise if necessary. If both men hurt themselves equally, Smith by being creepy and Merkley by pounding too many Red Bulls beforehand, that's a net win for Smith, unfortunately. Jeff had all the momentum the last month or so; let's hope this debate doesn't kill it.
Whether on their own sources or as a result of reportage by Loaded Orygun and the Lake Oswego Review, KGW has caught wind of the swim park story we've been covering for the last few days. They don't offer anything particularly new information (that sound you hear is me patting myself on the back), although they do get some defensive quotes from City engineer Joel Komarek and Mayor Judie Hammerstad. Check it:
“In order to recreate this expanse somewhere else on the lake would require condemnation of homes, tearing homes down and then relocating individuals from their homes,” said Joel Komarek, Director of what’s known as the Interceptor Sewer Project.
Komarek and Mayor Judie Hammerstad say there’s an even larger, public health issue at stake: the current pipe carrying sewage through the lake is too small and outdated. The city has already been fined $54,000 for overflows that violate state clean water standards.
“Do we want to have clean water, or do we want to have sewage?” said Hammerstad.
Those are reasonable responses to why the City might want to avail itself of the swim park site--but don't address the primary complaint of residents, which is the stealth effort and rather condescending way in which responses like Hammerstad's suggest that the sacrifice of the swim park is expected and required of Lake Grove residents, and any fuss over deeds and public notices should be viewed as counterproductive troublemaking.
That sort of "get behind the project or else" mentality is missing real concerns being expressed by parents like this one:
For parent Jane Fendon, there’s another option: find another place to park the materials, because this critical community resource is too important to lose, even for a summer. “It’s very very special. Families meet here, we meet for barbeques, my kids take swimming lessons here. We love this place and it’s heartbreaking.”
Tonight, parents and other interested parties will have the chance to get their say and perhaps threaten legal action if the process isn't opened up and addressed more publicly. The hastily prepared notice from the school district (pdf) suggests that they are ready to move forward with the agreement the very next day:
• The School Board will hold a public meeting in order to provide accurate information regarding theproject, and t o provide patrons with the opportunity to suggest alternatives. Representatives from the City will make a presentation that includes information on how and why the swim park was identified to serve as a staging area.
Lake Oswego School Board Public Meeting: Tuesday, July 15, 7:00 PM Lake Oswego Junior High School Cafeteria 2500 Country Club Road
• The School Board will meet on Wednesday, July 16 at 9:00 a.m., when it is expected that a final agreement regarding the City’s use of the swim park will be presented. [emph mine]
Nothing like a 14-hour public comment period! LO will be there to record the proceedings, of course. Stay tuned...
In this most unusual of political seasons, who might have expected that Novick would, by acclimation, lose a two-man debate against Jeff Merkley in which he seemed to score plenty of hits--but win in a three-person dynamic by being almost softspoken at times, takng no shots at all at anybody else on stage?
Even before Candy Neville was suddenly thrust into the KGW mix, this portended to be a vital chance for the two top candidates to make their cases and exploit whatever differences could be made in order to distinguish them. They'd pretty much done that at the City Club of Portland debate, and while I thought Novick pointed well, he failed to reach expectations while Merkley exceeded his.
And so notwithstanding Ms. Neville's completely credible performance, the focus seemed not on how Merkley would do in this debate, but how Novick would do. One suspects that for many new voyeurs of the race the knowledge of Novick boiled down to: cool beer ad, said stuff about Obama and Clinton (and Bono, if they're really plugged in). Could he handle it? Was he just too erratic, arrogant, too something to be Senator?
Merkley had a couple of choices: he could talk mostly about himself and his accomplishments, in the position as the only one of the three who's actually done elected person type stuff--or he could take on just Novick and try to keep the focus on his statements or "suitability" for the Senate, just to see if he'd take the bait.
Let's see how this goes. I'll post updates on a rolling and somewhat random basis, as the debate proceeds. At least for this debate I have working WiFi, since I'm at home. The debate is televised live statewide on KGW Channel 8, will be repeated at 10pm, and livestreamed at KGW.com...
Panelists are Jeff Mapes of The O, Brad Cain of AP, and two others I missed.
Rules:
1 minute to answer question, 2 30 second rebuttals.
Reporter with option of followup, to go to any candidate, with 30 seconds to reply.
Neville wins toss, to receive first question: In the 1990s, Oregon received a lot of media attention for the Oregon Health Plan. Still a lot of attention, but not so flatering laterly. How would you propose to pay for added health care coverage?
"Single payer" does some of that, since it's cheaper.
Wyden has good ideas about it coming out of paychecks. If you're going to have a health plan, it has to be there between jobs.
Novick--you can pay for it by having Medicare for everything, or you can use Wyden's plan. Best thing is to repeal tax cut for pharma ads.
Merkley--we need to stop the war and reverse Bush's tax policy.
Question to Novick:You support a variety of green measures--nothing about lowering the price of gas. Are you going to tell Oregonians the price won't go down?
If we do those measures, we will use less and the price will go down. But we can't do anything about China and India. Biofuels are good, although science says we need to choose right.
Merkley--reduce dependence on foreign oil. If we take advantage of all the alternative energies in an aggressive national plan, we'll reduce the demand and make it less expensive.
Neville--people will pay to have a TV or a swivel seat. It wouldn't take too much more if people will seek to purchase more energey efficent cars.
Question to Merkley: if you're elected, when would you feel comfortable about tax hikes, and are you worried about Gordon Smith's attacks?
Have to close tax loopholes torn in our Treasury.
Neville--take care of Halliburton, bring the troops home. Don't think of it as taxes, think of it as pooling money to get the things that are necessities.
Novick--agree with Candy. Approach is the same: tell the truth and fight for fairness. Taxes have to be fair. Unfair thing is paying SS tax only on first 100K, that's wrong. I think we need to make it fair.
Busy day yesterday for the Senate candidates; both frontrunners released their money figures for 1Q and continued prepping for tonight's big statewide KGW/TheO debate at 7pm, Merkley released an ad, and today a candidate newly steps onto the big stage.
First, to update yesterday's piece on Novick's money, there was a slight math error that overestimated the full-campaign total by $4K from what the campaign initially reported. The actual total is $889,000, give or take a couple bucks. Later in the day Jeff Mapes at The O chimed in with Merkley's totals; they're lower than I expected and reflect a 26% dropoff from last quarter:
New fund-raising numbers show that House Speaker Jeff Merkley is continuing to rake in more money than his chief primary rival, Portland consultant Steve Novick.
But Merkley's edge is not so dramatic that he can simply swamp Novick with money. Instead, the difference may come down in part to the divergent advertising strategies the two candidates are pursuing.
First, the basic numbers. Merkley's campaign announced that he had raised $453,000 in the first quarter, for a total of $1.37 million for his entire campaign. He had $474,000 cash on hand as of March 31.
Mapes also notes that Merkley is running his ads, the second of which began airing today, Novick is opting to use his two previously filmed ads and save production costs for other potential spending later in the month--new ads, or mail, or GOTV? Nobody's tellin'. I'll show you Merkley's Acme Commercia Inc. boilerplate masterpiece on the jump, as well as an interesting profile of new "viable candidate".
On Monday, Candy Neville turned 58 and got the good news that she's polling as strongly in the race for the Democratic nomination as the man who has been seen as the Democratic establishment's favorite: House Speaker Jeff Merkley.
Candy Neville
Her celebration continued on Tuesday when she found out that The Oregonian and KGW TV have decided to include her in a televised debate - probably the most important of the campaign - to be held on April 15. Merkley and Portland lawyer Steve Novick, who led in a poll conducted by Survey USA, will also participate in the debate.
"It brings me clearly out of the term 'other' and makes me Candy Neville," said Neville from her Eugene home. "I'm really not a fringe candidate. I'm a factor."
Neville, a Realtor, has been running essentially without money, a political support base or any experience in elective office. But she said she has made ending the war in Iraq a higher priority than the other candidates, and she believes that has brought her a measurable amount of support in the race.
I really can't remember a single poll that so quickly and dramatically changed a major race. But it's completely realigned conventional wisdom (finally, I would say) and immediately put a different character on the final weeks before the election.
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