When Sarah Iannarone entered the race to be Portland's next mayor in late January, she did so with some lofty fundraising goals.

Nodding to the necessity of cash to run a credible race in this town (and most towns), Iannarone said she was confident she could scare up $100,000 in a matter of weeks—and roughly a quarter million dollars altogether. Since that announcement though, the Portland State University employee and cafe owner has been mum. Iannarone still hasn't reported a contribution to the Secretary of State's Office (she has a 30-day window to do so), and has declined to answer questions from media about what she's been able to scrape together.

Until now. In a news release this afternoon, Iannarone says she raised $20,000 since announcing her campaign on January 21. What broke her silence? She's incensed she's not invited to a debate that'll be hosted by the Oregonian on Monday February 29. Only state Treasurer Ted Wheeler and Multnomah County Commissioner Jules Bailey are slated to field questions at that event. The O has offered to circulate other candidates' tweets as some sort of consolation.

Iannarone's not the only one mad about this state of affairs, but she's the first candidate to lash out in a press release. Here's a snippet.

Word on the street is, it’s because I haven’t raised enough money. According to their editorial board, it’s because I’ve never held elective office.

For the record, my campaign raised $20,000 in the four weeks since I announced I was running for Mayor. By my filing deadline, I anticipate I will have raised $26,000 - the same amount Jules Bailey reported nine weeks after announcing his candidacy. We’re both well behind Ted Wheeler’s $400,000 war chest, but given his five month head start this is no surprise.

As for prior experience as an elected official, I don’t see this anywhere in the job description. Neither did Ted Wheeler when he ran for Multnomah County Chair in 2006, when he told the Portland Tribune that such criticism “presumes the only people who can fix the problems created by politicians are other politicians. And I disagree with that.” On this point, I agree with Ted 100%.

As we've reported, Iannarone's sentiment has been shared by other candidates this election cycle, as unions and event organizers repeatedly single out Wheeler and Bailey as the only two hopefuls deserving attention.

That choice is perhaps more efficient, but also not likely to spur the best conversation. As I note in this week's paper, a recent forum on homelessness was far, far better precisely because it was open to an array of candidates.

The $20,000 Iannarone reports collecting may be much less than she'd hoped to have at this point, but it also puts her in an echelon observers suggest should be given consideration. Pacific University professor Jim Moore recently suggested to the Mercury that $5,000 might be a reasonable bankroll for candidates to be invited onto the debate stage.

If the O's taking cash into consideration, it had no way to know where Iannarone was on that front until this afternoon's release. If it's not, Iannarone's tongue lashing probably won't have much effect.