Saturday, February 09, 2008

Sho Dozono being pretty evasive

Sho Dozono is running for mayor, and before he's barely started, there's already a controversy.

Dozono is qualifying for public financing, but news that a poll was done asking questions about his viability created some questions about whether he had already exceeded the limits on "in-kind contributions" for public financing candidates, and therefore had disqualfied himself.

It appears that he'll be OK, based mostly on the "on-the-fly" rulemaking on the public campaign financing system. But his explanations about the poll are very hard to follow, and make almost no sense.

Dozono says that he did not commission the poll, nor pay for the poll, but he had seen the results. That was how The Funny Paper reported it all week. You would think that such a vague answer would cause any reporter to ask the followup: "who gave you the results?"

But if it was asked, there is nothing written about his answer.

I mean, come on - someone had to give him the poll results, and whoever that is no doubt had some ties back to whoever did it. Unless maybe one of his friends just found it on the streetcorner.

There are slews of questions that anybody who was truly seeking to get the bottom of this would automatically ask: Which firm did the poll? How many questions did it entail? How large was the sample size? But apparently the crack reportage at The Funny Paper couldn't think of them.

If Dozono has nothing to hide, he would have no problem answering these questions. If he TRULY had nothing to hide, he would offer everything he knows, so he could clear the whole thing up and prove that he had nothing to do with the poll.

The way I see it, Sho has given a very evasive and unsatisfactory answer about this whole thing, and that is a bad way to start a mayoral campaign.

I could care less if he caused the poll to be done. Who would run for office without doing a poll? How plausible is it that he DIDN'T cause the poll to be done? Did someone just wake up one day and decide to commission a $10,000 poll on Sho Dozono because he was curious?

If given a choice of Sho Dozono or Sam Adams for mayor, I would vote for Sho (if I lived in Portland, which I don't.)

But it is really irritating to see Dozono default into the same posture we have seen time and again from public officials: obfuscate, tell half the story, evade - and then to have the newspaper of record put its incompetence on display once again and fail to even swerve into a relevant question about the matter that might shed some light.

If Sho Dozono handles such an insignificant issue like this with such guarded secrecy, what would his administration be like? Woould it be any better than the hacks that run city government now?

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

How would you rather route your money to Homer Williams, Gerding-Edlin, Hoffman Construction, and the Network Formerly Known as Goldschmidt? Through Sam Adams, or through Sho Dozono?

To me, it won't matter much.

Accurate said...

Even IF Sho isn't a breath of fresh air - at least he isn't that stale air (Adams) that has been in city hall for WAY TOO long. Politics are dirty, I'm not sure they will EVER change - but if I can't change the politics, at least I can change the bodies.

ANYBODY (including my spider plant) but Adams.

--TIM said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
--TIM said...

Didn't Bruce Broussard (the whiner and perpetual publicity-hound) expose this just to see his name in "print"? What a loser!

Sho is nobody I would vote for; but thankfully, I get to live in the "sticks" and don't have to worry about your Mayor.

And Jack Bog is right... Sho is just as scary in charge of the City's pocketbook as Sam "the Sham" Adams.

Good luck, city-slickers!

Anonymous said...

Showing Sam the door will be a good thing even if Sho, today. doesn't appear to much different.

The others will take note and Sho is hopefully more open to externsive audit than those sitting htere form years and who won't look good when audits finally happen.

Anonymous said...

Kick out any trace of Vera Katz. That's all I have to say.

Unless the Republicans back someone, I'm backing Sho.

Anonymous said...

Who are "Republicans"?

Anonymous said...

The media pasted together half a report and fiction to create a sensational story to entertain readers. Which isn't news, it happens on a daily basis. I just hope people understand that this is what happens. The media makes up stories, they use real-life happenings for inspiration, and churn out something that will hopefully engage people so advertisers can reach people. I'm not drawing any conclusions from what I've heard about this poll because I have only heard half truths, which is no way to make up one's mind about anything. I do not think that is due to Sho as much as it is due to the media, because I know the media holds back information all the time to make a story more interesting. A story is usually more interesting if there are pieces left unknown that the reader can fill in with whatever fantasy they have. It sounds like some people who posted here feel like it is the politicians who only spill part of the story, but usually it is the media that only spills half the story and then either leaves up in the air, or pulls a Nigel and fills it in with their controversial plot twist. Sometimes it is entertaining, but usually it just makes me hate Portland. Why should I let some writer determine whether or not I like this town or these people? The people I talk to, the politicians I've dealt with don't talk this way or act this way, but that's how most media paints it.