Sorry Sam
Not At This Price
If you want something done, Adams is a go-to-guy. Under Vera Katz, Adams developed a reputation as an astute politician who loved the game and believed that winning was everything. Adams has mellowed with age and has learned to be a team player, but his drive to win at all costs is why he is now enormously respected and wholly untrustworthy.
It’s clear now that for the mayoral contest, winning meant everything to Adams. It meant orchestrating an elaborate public relations campaign, forcefully issuing statements, manipulating editors and reporters, feigning outrage, hanging Randy Leonard out to dry, attacking the character of Bob Ball, urging a young, impressionable man to lie and even having his political consultant scrub the story. The same qualities that fuel his ambitious 100-day agenda for Portland are now unraveling his legacy before it’s even begun. Potter may have been boring, but he was transparent and trustworthy. Adams appears more like the Wizard of Oz, a desperate man behind the curtain manipulating public opinion for his own gains.
The news about Adam’s scandal broke on the same day we were celebrating the inauguration of Barack Obama and a new era for accountability and trust in government. The Bush administration, which believed the ends justified the means, broke laws, distorted truth and violated human rights to push their own agenda. This is a time for us to uphold our public servants up to a higher standard, not lower. If we accept Adam’s deceptions as business as usual, we are perpetuating a cycle of mistrust and political expediency that we firmly rejected in the last election. Portland deserves no less than a clean slate and a new mayor.