Shut Up & Vote

Wild Life

Making Entertainment Out of Education.

Combining skilled performers with aspiring politicians sets up a show in which the former can be a lot more entertaining than the latter.

And that was the case Monday night at the Aladdin Theater, at the ninth version of Candidates Gone Wild.

Host Storm Large, actors from Curious Comedy Theater and Live Wire!'s Courtenay Hameister stole the show from an earnest band of candidates for Metro Council president and Multnomah County Commission District 2, representing north and northeast Portland.

Narrating a photo montage of previous Candidates Gone Wild moments that included a shot of her and GOP gubernatorial candidate Allen Alley belting out a show tune in 2008 when he ran unsuccessfully for state treasurer, Large observed that Alley was "the cuddliest little guy in the Enchanted Forest."

The statuesque chanteuse also amused the crowd by chiding Alley's GOP rival this year, Chris Dudley, for being the only major gubernatorial candidate who did not submit to a filmed interview with Hameister.

"I'm calling you out…you rude little bitch," Large said to the absent former Trail Blazer.

In a game of Metro Council president Jeopardy!, hosted by gold-shoed Metro Council President David Bragdon, the three candidates vying to replace Bragdon played to type. Bragdon chided Tom Hughes, the former Hillsboro mayor, for receiving The Oregonian's endorsement last week. Hughes displayed a fuzzier knowledge of Metro than former 1000 Friends of Oregon chief Bob Stacey and third-term Metro Councilor Rex Burkholder. But Hughes came across as the candidate with whom you'd most like to have a drink.

Burkholder clowned and interrupted Bragdon repeatedly. Meanwhile, Stacey jabbed at the Columbia River Crossing, the mega-bridge project that is a major disagreement between him and Burkholder, as the two battle for the green vote inside Multnomah County.

Bragdon, looking eerily like fellow Harvard-grad Conan O'Brien, closed out the Jeopardy! segment with the plaintive question, "What the fuck am I doing here?"

If anybody in the audience was asking themselves that same question after insiderish stage banter about economic development in Cornelius or baby antelopes at Metro's Oregon Zoo, therein lies the tension of producing such an event: Do you entertain or inform the audience?

Mark Zusman, editor of WW, which produced the show along with the Oregon Bus Project and Live Wire, acknowledges Metro and Multnomah County contests may lack marquee value even among politicos.

"We decided to focus on races we thought were important but don't always get enough attention," Zusman said. "Those two are very competitive."

The program gathered steam when the Curious Comedy Theater crew took the stage to skewer Sarah Palin.

Also popular with the crowd were filmed interviews of gubernatorial candidates Alley, Bill Bradbury, John Kitzhaber, John Lim and Bill Sizemore. The clips provided a more focused candidate snapshot than did two meandering live segments featuring seven county commission candidates.

The wannabe commissioners dueled in the parlor game "Two Truths and a Lie" and later tried to one-up each other on questions about minority contracting and budget cuts in a version of Dancing With the Stars.

Only in Portland would people pay $5 to come out on a rainy night when the Trail Blazers playoff game was on TV to listen to obscure candidates compete to answer questions about topics such as contracts for minority businesses, budget cuts and sheriff's patrols of Sauvie Island, all for the right to waltz with a potential constituent.

"You gotta love Portland," Large told the nearly sold-out Aladdin. "Where we make entertainment out of education."

Trail Mix

1. Two notable trends in campaign contributions for the seven-way race to represent North and Northeast Portland on the Multnomah County commission. First, the union money is on Tom Markgraf, a former aide to U.S. Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.) and a consultant on the Columbia River Crossing project. Trade unions are contributing heavily to Markgraf, including donations from the Iron Workers District Council of the Pacific Northwest ($750), the Joint Council of Teamsters No. 37 ($750), the Building Trades PAC ($500) and Local 48 Electricians ($1,000). Second, Rev. Chuck Currie, the No. 1 fundraiser in the race, has raised $12,546 of his total $34,242 in contributions from out of state, relying far more on out-of-state money than any other candidate in the contest. Currie says those donations are mostly from family and former classmates.
2. Ex-Gov. John Kitzhaber is a strong candidate in his party’s primary to get a chance this fall to reprise his earlier service as the state’s chief executive. (See our endorsement of him here). But the former emergency room doc, first elected to the Legislature in 1978, appears to have some difficulty coming to terms with the fact he’s 63 years old. His Voters’ Pamphlet photo looks more touched up than Joan Rivers’ face and his first TV ad highlights a candidate decades younger (he sported a mullet even then!). Campaign manager Derek Humphrey says the Voters’ Pamphlet photo dates to February, but was not available to comment on the TV ad.

The Money Shot

One big donor.

Attorney General John Kroger isn't on the 2010 ballot, but he's raining money on candidates who are.

On April 24, Kroger gave $1,000 to State Treasurer Ted Wheeler's campaign. The gift is interesting because insiders believe Gov. Ted Kulongoski in March appointed Wheeler treasurer (to replace the late Ben Westlund) in part to give Kroger competition atop Oregon's list of the next generation of Democratic leaders.

In the past year, Kroger has donated $44,750 to other Democratic candidates and party caucuses. That's a level of generosity no other statewide elected official can match. Given the gusto with which his office investigates pols and public employees, his generosity could create some delicate situations down the line.

"I'm simply trying to support candidates who share my values and are trying to move the state forward," Kroger says.

Source: Orestar elections database

WWeek 2015