JUST OVER A WEEK AGO, there were 28 people vying for a job at
city hall. But the May 20 primary election dashed a lot of dreams, and
left three men—Sam Adams, Randy Leonard, and Nick Fish—with
secure employment for the next few years.
What’s undecided is who will be taking the seat Adams vacates, when
he sidles over to take the mayoral post. In a hotly contested race that
had a record five publicly financed candidates, two people will keep
battling until voters choose a victor in November.
Amanda Fritz, who ran against incumbent Dan Saltzman two years ago,
scored nearly 43 percent of the vote, while Charles Lewis came in
second, with a comparatively distant 12.65 percent (pulling in at third
and fourth respectively, Jeff Bissonnette and John Branam were right
behind Lewis, in the low 12-percent range).
What’s interesting is that of the six-person field, voters sent
through the two candidates with the most similar platforms. Both
stressed the basics, with Lewis even shelling out some of his public
campaign funds to fill potholes in outer East Portland. Fritz’s mantra,
meanwhile, was “basic services in all 95 of Portland’s neighborhoods.”
Both have been critical of projects like pricey Portland Development
Commission-funded condos, the tram, and a proposal to move the Sauvie
Island Bridge to NW Portland to create a bike and pedestrian crossing
over I-405.
As the only real contested election in Portland this November (it’s
a safe bet Portland will vote for the Democratic presidential nominee,
after all), the two will face intense scrutiny, and will have to
differentiate themselves.
Lewis isn’t wasting any time. The day after the election, as
Bissonnette was conceding, Lewis was making plans to “knock on a few
doors this afternoon.” With Fritz widely seen as the frontrunner, he’d
hoped to place second, and says his focus for the next few months will
be “to get our name out.”
Fritz is no slouch, either. In an email to supporters, she asked
them to store lawn signs temporarily, and she’s taking a short break
from hardcore campaigning to re-evaluate and recharge, before jumping
back into it mid-June. “I’m going to run very, very hard. Certainly
it’s great staring with a 44,000 vote lead, but I know I need to work
hard,” she says, adding that the next six months of interacting with
the community are preparation “to be a city commissioner.”
In a potential sign of things to come, Lewis has already taken aim
at Fritz, claiming that the basic services message was originally his.
“[Fritz] definitely tried absorbing some of that messaging—basic
services and potholes. It’s something we’ve been doing since the very
beginning,” Lewis says. (Though her messaging was less precise in her
2006 run, Fritz was seen as the neighborhood advocate, pushing for
services citywide. “It’s not a new concept for me. It’s what I see as
what most needs to be done,” she says.)
“The big thing is going to be, what has she actually done?” Lewis
points to his work at Ethos, where he heads up a staff and a budget.
“She hasn’t run an organization… I think that will be a really
critical difference.”
The criticism doesn’t ruffle Fritz. “I’ve been involved in Portland
politics for 17 years, and politics is very different from running a
business. Politics requires collaboration and negotiation, and that’s
what I have experience in.”
Lewis was one of the only candidates in this race to toss bombs at
his competitors in the primary—criticizing one of Fritz’s
mailers, and dogging Branam on financial details—but he says he’s
aiming for a positive campaign. Fritz is on board with being positive,
saying, “the public campaign financing demands that.” But having spent
the last few months on the trail with Lewis, she’s already got a
comeback: “I think it’s pretty clear that that’s his style, and that’s
probably what we’ll be asking voters to distinguish. Do voters want
someone with a more collaborative style, or do they want someone who’s
more combative?”