The Oregonian‘s Steve Duin suggests a recall election for Adams in 6 months, to give him a chance to prove he’s still up to the job, and to give voters the chance to voice their opinion about his behavior. Meanwhile, in The Matrix, this is happening:
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FACEBOOK GROUP: Has 388 members this morning…
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SAM IS STILL MY MAYOR BLOG: Has 16 followers this morning…

Thanks to Mercury arts editor Alison Hallett for keeping her sharp eyes on the internet last night. Twitter’s Willradik has been directing his readers towards a lot of this stuff, too.

Matt Davis was news editor of the Mercury from 2009 to May 2010.

31 replies on “Blogs, Facebook, Twitter Fire Up In Support Of Adams”

  2. I have yet to talk to someone I know personally that doesn’t think this whole thing is ridiculous. There was only ONE protester standing out in front of City Hall yesterday….and he was from Lake O. What does that say? DON’T RESIGN, SAM!

  5. Disappointment? Come on. Prudishness and homophobia are the overriding theme of this thing. Portland thinks it’s okay to be gay as long as don’t have *gasp* gay sex when you’re single!

    There’s a reason Portland has the smallest percentage of gay/lesbian people of any large west coast city. You and your newspapers’ cries of scandal are making Portland become somewhat of a laughing stock here in Seattle. You’re becoming the Provo, Utah of the west coast.

    http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/…

    (I know Just Out called for Adams to resign, but that just shows that it’s not just straight Portlanders who hold weirdly conservative attitudes towards sex.)

    Larry Craig, Bill Clinton, David Vitter, Arnold Schwartzenegger, Gavin Newsom, John Edwards, and many others were involved in much more serious sex scandals and none of them resigned or were recalled. Most of them are in supposedly much more conservative constituencies, but I guess not when it comes to sex. Portland seems like it’s fighting to become the most sexually conservative city in the nation.

    Time for you guys to invent your own magic underwear and raise the age of consent to 35.

  6. For all the people that think ‘prudishness and homophobia’ have anything at all to do with why Sam Adams is a deceitful representative I have news for you so listen good – coaching people to lie to cover for you is sketchy.
    Adams is being investigated for possible child sex abuse (not prudish) sketchy.
    The people that are mad (most of Portland) are not mad about sex.
    The people that are mad (most of Portland) are not mad about sex.
    Read it again so it starts to sink into your thick skulls.

  9. It’s not the sex. Heck, I hope when I am 42 that I will be able to have 18 year olds want me. It’s not about gay. I am straight but I am jealous of Sam and the fact that he is considered hunky enough to get with 18 year olds. What it IS about is the way in which he handled it. The lies and the alleged abuse of friendships and power to keep it under wraps. It has damaged his credibility and used up much of his political capital. What is the question is – is it better to go forward with a “hobbled” mayor, or to try again and possibly get someone even worse? I don’t know, but after 8 years of Bush politics I am a little tired of in-your-face lying and abuse. What Sam should have done is just been honest. He should have said back then: “Heck yeah I bagged him. It was good. I had a blast. He is a great kid. Of course I waited till he was 18 – do you think I am stupid? If you were single and could get with a hot 18 year old, would you? Let’s move on to how I can fix the city.”

  10. I just looked at that blog.
    The only problem with this – ‘We acknowledge Sam Adams’s dishonesty in this matter and do not endorse it’

    – is that by definition of the group you completely endorse it.

  11. Oh come on. Right now there’s no reason to believe he broke any laws. Obama is being investigated by conservative wingnuts to prove he’s not a US citizen, time to recall him too, right? I suppose Portland has forced resignation or a recall upon every elected official who has lied about campaign promises or other things that, you know, actually relate to their jobs?

    Obama and Hillary Clinton lied plenty of times during their campaigns — remember Bosnia? This has nothing to do with an innocent lie. If he lied about whether he ever saw Star Wars, or where he had his last birthday party, or what his favorite flavor of ice cream is, nobody would care. This is all about sex.

  12. I’ll repeat what I said on another news item on the mercury:
    ————————————————
    Adams is never gonna leave.

    Arrogance always means doing what is right for himself, not the city.

    However, he is a disappointment in terms of intelligence.

    THE BEST AMERICAN POLITICIANS NEVER GET CAUGHT!

    He is third rate all the way, and obviously he is at the end of the line for his career.

    He fits in well as Mayor of this dysfunctional city.

  13. The one thing that changed my mind about all this was learning how connected Beau Breedlove is to Bob Ball– the guy who tried to expose all this as a “scandal”. Suddenly the whole thing sounds like a bunch of petty, jealous in-fighting within a circle of Portland’s gay politicians.

    It’s not in Portland’s best interest for Sam to step down. And if a consenting 17 year old having sex is child abuse, prepare to lock up 85% of the population. The law was designed to protect the vulnerable– not young social-climbers looking to drum up notoriety by bedding politicians.

  14. Baseless accusations of bigotry take us straight back to the level of debate Portland enjoyed during the Cesar E. Chavez Boulevard debacle. That is to say, grade school-level name-calling. Just sayin’.

    Fuck Seattle, BTW.

  15. BILL CLINTON:

    I NEVER HAD SEX WITH THAT WOMAN!

    And the rest, as they say, is history!

    SAM LIED, HE GOT CAUGHT!

    In the American game of politics when you get caught in a lie YOU LOSE!

  16. Sam’s apologists continue to make the same argument, over and over and over, as if ignoring the real issue will make it go away.

    As has been said many times by many concerned Portlanders, the issue is not sex, or gayness, or prudishness.

    The issue is deceit, abuse of power and the cynical playing of the homophobia card. Sam has demonstrated a willingness to lie, to destroy other people, and to abuse the gay community to perpetuate his career. He showed no contrition until he became aware that this issue was not going to go away.

    His supporters won’t and can’t respond to these concerns, and I venture to guess Tom Lauderdale can’t and won’t either.

    Sam Adams is no longer fit to be mayor of this city.

  18. When will you idiots realize MOST people do not care if he stabbed the ass of a hot 18 year old? I’ve been known to stab a booty or two myself. His lying, manipulative behavior is not acceptable and I do not want such a person representing my city.

  19. Bill Clinton stayed in office despite representing a conservative constituency, a Republican power grab, an illegal act, a lie under oath, cheating on his wife, an affair with a subordinate, and adultery in his actual office.

    Sam Adams did none of those things. He just had sex with someone and didn’t want to admit it. Biggest non-scandal ever.

  20. Mizzzzzz:

    Hitting age 18 doesn’t always mean you are mature mentally. Rarely, in fact. The kid had a good future and Adams messed his head up in a number of ways by sleeping/seducing him

    I guess that “MOST people” doesn’t include you. Hey, maybe you should be fired for getting caught in a lie right there. Do MOST people also hold your stance that 18 year olds are little children that should be sheltered from the awful world of their bodily functions?

  21. “Sam’s apologists continue to make the same argument, over and over and over, as if ignoring the real issue will make it go away. As has been said many times by many concerned Portlanders, the issue is not sex, or gayness, or prudishness.”

    I’d like to believe the issue was purely about lying to the public, which is indeed a legitimate thing to discuss, but judging from the comments on this site and others, _most_ of the criticism now (but not all) is coming from a prudish/homophobic perspective.

    Given the amount of bile I’ve seen spewn in various forums, I understand his motivation to lie in the first place. Lying was the wrong thing to do, the weak thing to do, and there were far better options available. However, given the level of hatred out there, I’m don’t blame Sam for considering lying as a viable option. It was an option he should have rejected, true, but I can understand the motivation all to clearly.

  23. Bob:

    This story has undoubtedly drawn all manner of d$#khead homophobes to every website out there.

    The trouble with your reasoning –and I don’t mean to put words in your mouth –is that it starts to sound like “I’m going to support Sam because all these ass*&les are opposing him.”

    When I see support from people like Dan Savage, who supposedly is now participating in this pro-Sam rally, I find it very disappointing. He’s a smart, thoughtful guy, and not a person who is averse to calling out gay people when they say or do screwy things.

    Yet if he marches in favor of Sam, he’ll be marching in *favor* of the cynical use of false-homophobia to save one’s own ass. He’ll be marching in favor of saying anything to get elected and in favor of conspiring with others to smear a political opponent.

    Political dirty tricks are something the left has opposed when perpetrated by Nixon and others. Is that really the side we want to be on now?

    -E

  24. Euphonius – I realize you’re not trying to put words in my mouth. I appreciate that the temptation of the “”I’m going to support Sam because all these ass*&les are opposing him.” argument can lead down the wrong path, but I also think that in a certain context that argument should not be entirely dismissed.

    Some of those calling for immediate resignation do so out of a concern that the City will lack effective governance while Sam is still in office. (I would like to think there are appropriate alternatives less harsh than leaving office.)

    But the “effectiveness” argument is rooted in political calculation. Civic-minded political calculation, not a bad thing, but a calculation nonetheless. And there are counters to the “effectiveness” argument: Will resigning give undue power/influence to the forces of bigotry? Will resigning cause future, otherwise-well-qualified leaders with “interesting” private lives, to just stay out of politics entirely? Will resigning now open an opportunity for someone with a contrary (to Sam’s original supporters) vision for Portland’s future to take office?

    As long as “effectiveness” is on the table as a discussion point, “who stands to gain” and “who are the critics?” are legitimate questions to ask.

  26. This isn’t all about sex. It’s also about elections. If Adams had come clean about this before the election, some of us would have seen him as oppurtunistic, a little ethically challenged, not very bright (particularly getting with a teenager so soon after Goldschmidt), and a little bit pitiful. It’s safe to say that that would have had an impact on the slate of candidates willing to face Adams in the primaries, as he seemed a shoo-in at the time. Criminal or not, and it may be if it turns out that people were hired to reward their silence, this was truly venal behaviour. What’s more, Adams has tacitly acknowledged that he pursued the cover-up as protection from negative election impact. That said he must then acknowledge that the election was a fraud and that a huge disservice was perpetrated upon the city. And it was perpetrated by him. If this whole thing doesn’t bother you now then it wouldn’t have bothered you then and perhaps Adams would’ve been elected without the haze of cover-up and scandal that is destined to cloud him for the rest of his time in office. I believe that Sam Adams is an excellent leader, and he may be a great man, but he has to go. We have all been brought to this point by his venality, his dishonesty and his selfishness. It doesn’t matter that we’re on the same “side” what Adams did was wrong, he knows it, knew it, and did it anyway.

  27. Anyone else here Nigel Jaquiss on OPB’s “Think Out Loud” program this morning? He sounded like a creepy, phlegmatic panty-sniffer whose only joy comes from destroying other people’s careers. He kept repeating “I wasn’t satisfied… I wasn’t satisfied”. Creepy. I was kind of on the fence about the resign-or-not question, but thanks to Nigel I’ve made up my mind: I’m a Sam supporter.

  29. To be honest,

    I couldn’t care less if Sam quit or stayed.

    If he were a “man” he would stay and just go about his business.

    That’s what George did.

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