Friends and neighbors, this is Portland from the left.
My name is Piper.
And I'm Josh.
And today we're going to talk about the petition to recall Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler. We are not part of the TED Wheeler recall PAC, but we're very interested in the outcome of this. So we have been paying a lot of attention. So Josh, what is the status of the petition?
At this point, they have just under 13,000 signatures, and they need another 35,000 for the petition to be successful. And this petition specifically is a recall petition. So if the petition is successful, meaning gets it's, uh--I think it's just under 50,000 signatures from Portland voters, then Ted Wheeler will have an opportunity to resign, and he may either resign or he may write a letter to Portland. And there will be, again, if the recall petition is successful, and the mayor does not resign, then there will be a recall vote, which is a special election happens in just 30 days, and Portlanders will vote whether or not to recall the mayor,
How long do they have to get these signatures? Because you said there was only about 13k.
Yeah, they have just under 30,000 right now. And there's a 90 day period for petitions of all kinds in Portland. And so it starts from when you file the petition. And so they filed the petition back a couple months ago, and they have just about four weeks left, I think it's just under four weeks left
Ted Wheeler can choose to just resign at that point.
Right, right, just like at any day that he's ever woken up, Ted Wheeler can wake up and decide to resign. And so when I keep saying "when." Both of us are a little nervous about this petition, we would very much like it to win to succeed to go on to victory. But right now, it's not looking great, I think would just say, when the petition wins, even though we're not super confident, how about that. So when the petition succeeds, Ted gets an opportunity. He can either resign. And his other option is to write a letter, and then that letter kind of becomes his voter statement in the voter guide for the special election where the only question is whether or not to recall him. We don't select a new mayor. When we're recalling the mayor, we just decide whether or not to recall the mayor. And then if the mayor is recalled in that special election after the petition is successful, after Ted Wheeler doesn't resign, then city council basically runs without a mayor for a period of time while they do another special election, which would take another I think I believe it's 60 days, and we would have another special election for the person that would finish Ted Wheeler's term, his second term, if he were recalled.
I've heard a lot of people really confused about that.
Really? they were confused? It's so straightforward.
They're confused what it means to just have this yes or no vote. If the petition is successful, because it feels like they want to vote for a person and not against a person, which is a really unique thing in this situation. Although I feel like the right thing, because I think what a lot of Portlanders, maybe most Portlanders can agree on is that Ted Wheeler needs to go.
I think it's definitely true. Most Portlanders know that Ted Wheeler and needs to go. Most Portlanders did not vote for Ted Wheeler, and most Portlanders would like to see him go quickly. So the question of I think we're also getting a little bit of kind of, I don't know, sideways information, because California is currently has a recall going on with California statewide recall system with a governor, they select a new governor at the same time as voting for the recall. So their their decision to recall the governor also selects the new governor. So that's Yeah, that's not how it works at all in Portland. We first vote for the recall. And then we vote for a new mayor. So yeah, I think you're right. I think that's what I've heard a lot of feedback from people as they're asking, Well, if we recall, Ted Wheeler, who will be mayor who's gonna replace that spot.
So how closely have you been watching this petition process? I know for myself, I kind of felt like there was a lot of time of waiting. And then, and then even once it actually started, I felt like I didn't know that much about what was happening. But I know that you know, a little bit more than I do, about how it was going beforehand.
So to give some insight into Piper and I's kind of proximity to the campaign. My partner is some sort of, you know, semi serious volunteer doing things and helping out. I don't actually know what she's doing with the campaign, but she is volunteering a lot. And also she is the name on the petition. So the petition has to have a chief petitioner. It's kind of like the main signature, and it's also Unfortunately, the person legally liable for any problems with the campaign, or excuse me, with the petition, not with a campaign.
Yeah, so I am very close to the campaign. But when it started, I was actually kind of assuming it would go really well. It seemed like a real easy sell to Portlanders for my perspective at the time. And so I decided to not involve myself kind of directly in the the Total Recall PAC, the political action committee, which is the thing funding the petition so that I could work potentially on you know, the next mayor's campaign, although even at this point now, but having--as we're recording this podcast--they've just got a few weeks left in the position, and both of us are a little nervous about the campaign. So it seems like that was the wrong, you know, it was the wrong call at the time.
Yeah, um, I was a little confused early on. And I think a lot of other people might be, too, that the PAC actually is not the petition, and that they're actually two different things. I thought the PAC was the petition. And it felt like you had to be officially part of the PAC in order to petition and gather signatures, which maybe gave gave me a little bit more of that sense of illusion that somebody has it. Because it felt like they had it. And so if you're gonna volunteer, they would teach you the message that you should say, and tell you how to gather signatures in the most effective way. So I kind of, you know, watching the PAC operate and seeing they had, you know, graphic designers and a website and all that setup, it did feel like somebody had it. It had a sense of legitimacy, which I think they worked really hard to build a sense of legitimacy, because they wanted it to seem like a very legitimate campaign that would win. But I think what that did for me as somebody that could have participated in it is it made me feel like it was more under control, and more of a sure thing than it really was.
Graphic design has a tendency to do this, that like when things kind of look together, when they look branded, when they look on theme. You know, good or bad, it broadcasts the idea that things are covered, the situation is on lock. That like it gives an appearance of stability and togetherness and thoughtfulness that I think really helped the campaign initially, but may have over broadcasted its stability.
It also gave me a sense that I could participate wrong. Like because there was a strong brand. Ah, so it made me feel like, well I don't want to do the volunteer training
right, because they're gonna tell you how to talk about Ted Wheeler, you know how to talk about Ted Wheeler?
Yeah, um, and I don't think it was a strong thing. Like it wasn't against it or anything, specifically, but there was a little bit like, I'm not the kind of person that can do the official thing. People that can do the official thing should probably participate in that because I that's not the kind of thing that I'm good at.
I kind of didn't want to put a shirt on that said Total Recall PAC. Yeah, in fact, I'm literally currently wearing a black on black baseball cap that says "fuck Ted Wheeler," which my good friends at Night Owl apparel and customs had made and helped fund the petition in part through sales of these hats, although they gave me two of them free. Thank you very much, very kind of generous. But you know, that that feels more like well, it is literally me because I told them to make this hat. But that felt disconnected somehow, like it wasn't part of a team. It wasn't like a baseball team I was wearing.
I do also recall early on with the Total Recall group that they wanted to differentiate themselves from the "fuck Ted Wheeler" team
Say that again.
So in like an early info session, they explicitly wanted to differentiate themselves from the "fuck Ted Wheeler" team, and they want it to be a little bit more legitimate was kind of
When you say differentiate themselves from the fuck Ted Wheeler team, you're saying? Like, just from the people that say that a lot?
Well, they Yeah, they actually really explicitly said that. Yeah.
Huh. [both talking, chuckles]
Well--
I mean, if we don't criticism, we're out here. We're drinking white claws.
Yeah, you know, I, I think that
We will delete this podcast if it doesn't come across good.
I think there are two brands, you know, like there's the brand for when you're speaking to someone getting them to sign and I think there's also the brand for recruiting volunteers. And I think that the former they did better than the latter, in my personal perception, because it didn't motivate me.
Well, yeah, I mean it they kind of got rid of you. Right, cuz you're on the "fuck Ted Wheeler" team.
Yeah, I'm on the "fuck Ted Wheeler" team.
I mean, as far as people in Portland that hate Ted Wheeler were to have, you know, we're probably in the top 50
I do hate the guy. Something I think is really interesting is like how both you and I kind of felt like the campaign gave off this allure of being together. That contrasts a lot with the media coverage
That does contrast a lot with media coverage because it seems like every article I read every piece about the recall campaign they say, you know, they don't really know what they're doing. They're vague they're inspecific...when you look at the website, you look at the branding, you look at the the Twitters and the Instagrams or whatever, they're working pretty hard to get the message out there.
uhhm, I mean, they only have one color. There's one color one message get rid of the guy, which should not be an unpopular message in Portland because even people that voted for him openly say "the challenger was worse" or something like that. It's not liking the guy is not really a problem in Portland.
Yeah, it's it's interesting too, because I think the tendency to want to, maybe to tamp down your radical impulse in order to appeal to more people, I don't know if we need that in Portland. Okay. So, you know, not everybody maybe is as quote unquote radical as a cool kid sitting at this table who [Piper chuckles] are so hardcore man antifa super soldiers and lefties and whatever. But I mean, I'm from Portland fuckin Oregon. We're not like, we're not another place, right? We are. We're a place where people and like, there's a certain thing here. And I think that sometimes people you know, when they want to appear adult when they want appear together, they sometimes I think soften up the rough edges that are what make them important or what part of what is like part of who they are. And in a way that sends signals to other people says like, you're probably not right for this, like, maybe it sent signals to us. I don't mean, we didn't really talk about this ahead of time. But it seems like at some level, it did send signals to us that we weren't the right kind of people to volunteer for this petition. And considering the relative number of volunteer petitioners and paid petitioning gathers, I think that's been a problem for them.
Yeah.
Specifically, there's only 18 paid signature gatherers, working right now in the campaign and only 15 volunteers, which seems like basically zero as far as I'm concerned, if you need 30,000, or something in a couple weeks. Just last week, I was under the impression that the petition was going so poorly that they might end up that they might say, you know what we're not there's a word for viable. And so we're going to not spend any more money, not take any more money. But we're not going to keep working on this because it didn't work out. And I actually, my impression that they might do that is because they I mean, they had a meeting where they decided whether or not to do that. And so I anticipated that they're actually going to shut down, not the petition itself. But the PAC, the PAC's work on the petition, and that I had a plan to take it over. And not necessarily make a PAC or anything, I was planning on doing kind of a lo fi dirty version and trying to convince like 20 of my buddies to take a couple weeks off work
which is close to a similar number
It's close to a similar number. But when I did the math, I figured out that if I got 50 people working full time, and and didn't have any money to pay them, I still couldn't make this work. And so when I figured out that, even if I convince 50 people to take four weeks off of work, and not get paid for it, and I still couldn't do it, then I probably didn't have the capacity to make this thing work.
So it seems like they would at least need to probably pay 50 people
it does. I mean, so just doing the math, the math that I got from a friend that has run these kind of campaigns before is something like five signatures an hour for volunteers, and something like 20 to 25 for a really good paid, signature gather and kind of a high traffic spot. So like on the weekends or you know, beginning or the end of the day, going out. So, yeah, you're not going to necessarily have like every person getting 20 an hour. And so that's kind of what I was doing the math on, it's a hard problem, especially in COVID times when fewer people are out, you know, there's a lot of people out and about (as far as I'm concerned, too many people) but it does, you know, limit the number of like big public gatherings you can be at and getting signatures and stuff.
You know, there are a couple challenges that have happened during this 90 day time period that really probably did impact the ability of the campaign. So not just the number of people, but you know, COVID, delta rising, they definitely canceled some things because of that. And then there were quite a few weekends that were like super high heat days, where it actually wasn't safe to send people out. And they did do the right thing. And, you know, put a limit on when they would send their workers out, which is good. But it did make it very difficult. For this time of year,
for sure. Yeah, it actually, you know, summertime seems like the best time right to be out and about doing this kind of thing. But with the heat waves and with the various other things going on. There wasn't quite as intense to smoke as last year in the year before. But there was some smoke and stuff too. So yeah, it's definitely been it's not an easy problem. It's definately, it's like, very difficult to do. I looked at it, I'm unemployed and have all the time on my hands if I needed it. And I I absolutely do not think I could have figured out a way to do it in 30 days, mind you. Now, if if I were running a signature gathering operation, and the petition period was 90 days, I probably wouldn't have started it until I had enough money to pay signature gathers to get all the signatures I needed. Because the clock doesn't start running until you start the petition. So if I find myself in this position again, or if you dear listener, find yourself in this position. That would be my only recommendation. That's not really a very hardcore, like very aggressive like, critique. It's just I think it probably would have been wise to spend some time raising money ahead of actually starting the petition just as a literal logistical step of like having the resources you need in order to get all the signatures in the 90 days allotted.
It is a very short period of time it seems like a long time before he started but three months is just not that long
only so many weekends right? And especially if you're going to in this case kind of depend on volunteers to pick up the slack on the weekend stuff I just like I said, I looked at it last week and I went through all the stages of grief. I got angry about it I started like negotiating with people. Piper got some messages. I was like Piper, here's what I'm gonna do. And but, you know, after going through all that, I'm I'm bummed that it seems like the petition won't win. I love to fuck with Ted Wheeler. I love to ruin his day. I want to stop his political organizing. I consider him a fascist fuck him. But even if this doesn't succeed, Ted Wheeler should still resign. There's no there's no, it's not as though Ted Wheeler suddenly got a cosign from the city because the recall petition didn't work. It's just a matter of, you know, strategy and structure and whatever, who cares. Ted Wheeler is still a danger to Portland and still needs to resign and get out of office, he needs to be removed from power. And honestly, at this point, I mean, I don't know if this is what the Total Recall PAC wanted. But I'm starting to feel a little more aggressively radicalized. Because it seems like we have very few legal options Piper in order to accomplish these goals.
You're not necessarily a person that devotes all his time to official channels and going through institutions.
[both laugh] So you're saying I don't go through official channels?
Not always! So I am interested in like, when you're thinking of like your quiver of tools, How does something like this recall petition fit in for you, personally? And why is it something that you do feel like is worthwhile in general, and kind of what are the costs to doing that?
I think about this a lot, because I see a lot of people talk about electoralism. And as a person that kind of identifies with like, pretty hardcore leftist political philosophy. Probably if you cross your eyes, you call me an anarchist, in kind of like the way I think about things, I think it's just better for people not to have power over other people. I don't like hierarchies in general, I think they should have to prove themselves essential or needed before they should be implemented. I don't like people having power over people. So for me, you know, getting something in office can be actually a danger, right? Because you're getting someone into power, you're giving them power over people. And so anytime I'm considering, like, any decision about politicians, I think a lot about what that politician has done in office and whatever politician has done with their power, and what to expect them to do with their power. Last year, I helped out on Sarah Iannarone's mayoral campaign because I felt pretty confident that if Sarah, Sarah was an office, that power would be distributed more than if Wheeler was in office.
certainly compared to other people that could occupy that position of power.
Right? Yeah. And that's, that's a loose like, you know, I'm kind of I'm gonna vote for whatever the least bad option is. I don't really care about people's feelings about voting and how it like, confirms a system or something. I'm just trying to do harm reduction, right? What's the least worst? And so for me, the recall petition was a lot about specifically Wheeler that he is particularly bad. Specifically, the thing that I've noticed and been saying to a lot of friends is that we've seen 16% of Portland Police Bureau the worst, maybe, probably the worst police force in the USA, get scared and/or frustrated and leave just because Portlanders are yelling at them, saying "fuck you get out of our city quit your job." Okay, so that got rid of 16% of the police force. Now, by comparison, since the uprising Ted Wheeler hasn't made one good decision about public safety. You could maybe say that him agreeing with Jo Ann Hardesty's minor COVID budget cut back, I believe is at the beginning of June. You know, that's the right direction. But even that was just to get people to start saying we defunded the police even though we didn't if you look at the numbers, they're very similar from the previous years.
He did he did mace dairy-heir.
That's right, macing wealthy people is actually good. The one thing that
you can give him that.
A dairy heir. A dairy. Heir. So thank you, Ted Wheeler. Yeah, there's one good thing he's done. This beautiful angel. But the real competition is mostly for me, it's about anti Wheeler sentiment. If you look at his history, where he puts money where he puts power, it's all it's all against humans. It's all for capital and for a wealthy business interests. He's only been a net negative in the city and just like most like liberal politicians, he'll take credit for anything good that happens, but then not actually do anything about I mean, literally Anything he'll just like? And then the next month be like, Yeah, we did that really nice thing, remember, and you'll look at the pictures. He wasn't there, you know, you look back at the City Council meeting that decided that he didn't vote for it. But he's always going to take credit for the good things that happen. And he's always going to pass off the blame to other people when things don't happen.
I think it's also it's also interesting to note that Ted Wheeler, in his second term, has actually been a really undemocratic force. for a couple of reasons, like for one, he cheated in the election. So like people often talk about elections is a mandate and like, representing like, what people actually want. And we know that he cheated, we know that he was unable to win without cheating.
His campaign was out of money, and he actually loaned himself $150,000. A couple problems with that. The first problem is, number one, why does it dude have $150,000? In the bank account? No offense, no offense to people that have $150,000 in your bank account, but like, I don't like that. And then number two, we actually have campaign contribution limits in place in the city of Portland and Multnomah County, both of which passed a Portlanders vote by over 75%,
which is a really, to me, that's a mandate.
That, that seems like the whole city wanting something, right. That's like a big deal.
And he also sort of in a secondary way, he also seems to have created a backdoor for former mayor Sam Adams to be our current mayor after we voted against him in a primary
Sam Adams, I actually have a hard time talking about sometimes because his history is so sordid, right? There's so much sketchy shit in there. But then also, because of the nature of journalism in this city, it's not really well documented. So it's not like with anti fascist people, I can go and just search on Twitter, any any local fascist name, and find out all the sketchy stuff they've done the last couple years. And we keep repeating it every once a while to remind people "Hey, remember this guy, he did this thing." That's the pattern I'm used to. And so now as a person that's trying to maybe I'm having realization, but I'm kind of, in some ways, taking some of those principles and applying them to electoral politics and just trying to find out: So who is this Sam Adams guy? We moved into town when he was on his last term, but he was on the way out, and like, we just knew him is like the guy was on portlandia or whatever.
His pride, his absolute favorite thing
Apparently his favorite thing. But this is a guy that, and this is the closest thing I can get to. That was like said by the Oregonian, so I feel like it's like a confident journalistic statement, he had a romantic relationship with an underage intern while he was in fucking office. Now, normally, I wouldn't say romantic relationship with underage anybody, because that sounds like either rape or sexual abuse doesn't sound like a relationship. You certainly can't romance right with children. However, that's, you know, that's the way the journalist say that. So I'm gonna assume that there's some legal way, a reason for that.
In addition to that, there's many people who actually mentioned sexual harassment claims in office as well. So it was definitely a theme around his office while he was there.
Yeah. And he really just generally seems like a piece of shit.
We got him again
we got him again. Not only does he have this past of sexual harassment and abuse and stuff, but then also, Sam Adams was mayor. And then he had these scandals and stuff come out, and he didn't get recalled. He didn't resign or anything, he finished out his term. But then he kind of like did the thing where he left town for a little bit and then came back. So I think he was under the impression that he could just slip right back into politics and get back into business. And he ran for city council against Chloe Eudaly, for Chloe Eudaly's seat at the time, which later became Mingus Mapp's seat. I don't really like guessing what they were planning. I assume he was running for a spot and wanted to actually get elected. But they're certainly you know, cause to say he, like running in that, for that particular seat was in order to stop Chloe Eudaly from being reelected. And I'm, I'm partial to that, because it seems like what happened to me because as soon as Portland voters rejected him, Ted Wheeler hired him into a position as the director of strategic innovation, which not only is a bullshit title, but also Ted Wheeler just basically has him it seemingly making calls for the city.
He does seem to be a proxy mayor
Wheeler is occupying himself in other ways. Drinking, dates, you know
Pandemic irresponsible
irresponsible pandemic behavior, Ted Wheller
generally irresponsible pandemic behavior. So we were talking a little bit earlier about Ted Wheeler not really having that democratic mandate. That actually he cheated to get into office. And I want to explain what I mean by cheated and why I'm using that term.
Piper, it seems like pretty strong language.
Well, I'm using that language on purpose because did he break a law..
Yes
...is a confusing question, but he did. It is a confusing. It's a confusing question because whether or not someone broke a law, is it because someone held them accountable for the law and found them guilty of it? or is it because technically something was written down and they did the opposite of it? There's some muddy language there
Did you break the law alone in the woods, if nobody's going to witness it.
Yeah, I think there's a little bit of that question there. So I like the term cheated, because there were clearly rules written down that he did not follow.
And he seems like a scummy cheat.
So he cheated the game. He cheated at the game of the election. And it's important because this was down to the wire, like kind of near the end of the election. And polling actually had Sarah potentially winning. Ted Wheeler's campaign actually was out of money, which is something that people don't talk about as much as they should, in my opinion, because when you are a silver spoon, used to buying your way into political office, which he did buy his way into his first political office that he won. You rely on large dollar donors, which is something Portlanders have repeatedly voted against.
We say no
We say we don't want elections to be bought, we want you to have to raise money with more people, less money per donor. And that has been a clear message from the city. We have rules on the county level and the city level that have been passed from ballot measures. Overwhelmingly.
they've actually been in place. So the November 2020 elections, what we're talking about these rules have been all had been in place since 2018. None of them are brand new, right? This isn't stuff that was like, Whoa, we don't know how to deal with this.
So everybody knew the rules. There were some new transparency rules that came with that. You know, there's a map, you can see what zip codes people got money from. So you can see, wow, Ted Wheeler is not getting money for most of the city. So you could see that kind of thing, which was very cool. And I'm glad Portlanders passed that. So Ted Wheeler was out of money. And he did two things around that time, one of which is he gave his money his he loaned his campaign $150,000? which is well beyond the individual donor limit that was passed, clearly violating the rule. He also I can't say particularly how and I don't know what intent but also a PAC got together that was funded by a lot of corporate interests that aren't even based in the city of Portland,
Nike.
That's one of them...to run additional anti-Sarah ads during that time. So he both had to fund himself out of his own pocket and buy the election, which we have already said, Portlanders said no we don't like that. And something with dark monies and then something corporate interests on the side
there was an organization doing weird sketchy like anti his opponent ads, which of course, like he, you know, had enough distance legally from to not appear to be responsible for, but he definitely benefited from and they they mailed every house in Portland, like scary like "Sarah is an antifa supersoldier" whatever mailers so they certainly had an impact at least. And again, a guy that loans itself $150,000 only wins by 19,000 votes, and has this like PAC running for him attacking his opponent. This is not this is not fair, this is a cheat.
And that's a good point. The only winning by you said it was 19,000 votes, it's worth pointing out that he also didn't get a majority. So a majority means you get over 50% some elections actually require a majority in order to be valid or else they go into another runoff. Ours specifically does not at this time. So it's supposed to be the primary makes it only two candidates and then it would be impossible to not have a majority, but we allow write-ins as well. So that is why he did not have 50% and still won. But he did not have 50% a majority of Portlanders did in fact vote for someone other than Ted Wheeler when they filled out their ballot.
It's true.
With the illegal loan with the PAC. They voted for someone else.
You're calling it a dark money PAC. I'm a little I'm a little nervous about saying that only because I know the organizations have funded it so it doesn't seem like dark money to me, but
Non-portlanders
No, we should highlight this. No fuck you. It's not dark money. It's a what's dark, light money PAC. That's Oh, now I'm on the side of the money.
Oh, yeah. you are on the side of the money.
It's dark. It's dark. Just because you know where it came from doesn't mean it's good money.
It's the dark side. money from the dark side.
So the thing, something we haven't talked a lot about yet and maybe probably at some point in the future. We'll be talking about this position inside our city government. The sixth position, our sixth elected officials at the City of Portland, the auditor, and our auditor right now whose last name is Hull Ca-bero. Ca-bero?
Mary Hull, Ca-bero? Caballero? I'm not actually sure how to pronounce
you know what we don't fucking like her: Mary. And I'm not going to look up her name because fuck her.
I know how to spell her name but I don't know how to pronounce it.
Yeah, actually.
Anyway, so Mary's position is She's the city auditor and this an elected position. It's our sixth elected position outside of the four city council members. And then the one mayor. Her role seems to be like an arbitrator, a person that makes decisions, which is I read a lot about this, And I don't, I just don't understand. I think I don't understand fundamentally auditors inside city systems.
I think a lot of people don't
So I don't have a lot of comment about her performance beyond this. But I do know that there was a law that Portlanders voted for
Overwhelmingly
Overwhelmingly, in Portland, it was over 80% for these $500 campaign contribution limits. And she said that that law wasn't, you know, wasn't gonna hold up in court, which, again, not a judge, not a lawyer, an auditor, an elected official. But she decided to make that decision. And as far as I can tell, no one's able to hold her accountable. I don't know if there's anybody out there who knows who is allowed to tell her what to do. Or I actually emailed her office and called her once that didn't get any responses. I don't think she's used to people calling her.
I do believe we are able to help hold her accountable, though, in the upcoming election for her office, because she is up in '22.
You mean like by vote?
That's about that's about all I know how to do for the auditor specifically,
but this podcast is about learning skills other than voting. If you're a portlander, you get your ballot in the mail. So you've got voting covered, we're gonna do some other stuff.
So the auditor actually I do know a little bit more about her, which is that she was also vehemently opposed to the ballot measure for police accountability, because the current organization that does some sort of citizens something with police that doesn't actually have firing power currently is part of her office.
Yeah, the PCCEP. Yeah, I forget that acronym also. But yeah, the garbage doesn't really do anything
they don't really have the power to do anything. Which is a big part of it.
Yeah. And there are good people on that team. And they're actually also sketchy people on that team. So it's worth just noting that there are people that are. And when I say good, I mean, anti police. If you're an anti police person, you're a good person. And if you're a pro police person, you're a bad person. So when I say that, know what I mean. Currently she she has power of over that organization, or whatever. And the new situation moves it out of her domain. And again, me Josh, I'm not an expert on what the auditor does. I don't know if that's good or bad. But it just it smelled it seemed like from an external perspective, from someone who pays attention to City Hall in Portland, as though she was just kind of like, you know, maintaining power as as powerful people do.
It seems like keeping an ineffective tool for accountability under her office, not making it more effective, and refusing to hold someone accountable for a law that overwhelmingly Portlanders support, that at least we can say that she doesn't really have a strong desire to uphold the will of the people of the city of Portland. But that doesn't seem to be her driver. And we deserve that.
I think we really do. I think it's it's okay to say these people aren't doing what Portlanders want. And I don't I'm not under the impression that every Portlander agrees with me on everything. But I mean, I think we can also be honest with ourselves about the things that Portlanders do agree on, we agree that the police are bad. every poll indicates a lack of support for police.
We also agree that people shouldn't be able to buy elections
Absolutely. Over 80% of Portlanders voted for that campaign contribution limit.
That's where we are, we're in a really sad place where we really think the recall is the right thing. But also we don't think its gonna...Got to end on a hopeful note on this, what can we talk about?
I think I think there's some hope here, we both don't think the petition is going to succeed, we don't think that the petition will gather enough signatures in order to win. Now, I have some things to say about a dying petition. Because just because this position doesn't remove Ted Wheeler just because they don't successfully get X number of signatures doesn't mean they couldn't still be doing good. The PAC still has $30,000 as a rough estimate. That's what they told them the Willamette week, this week or a couple days ago. And so that money can go still go to Portlanders to gather signatures. The other thing is the PAC hasn't been doing a good job of spreading people out and are only just now kind of getting people out past 82nd even past 30th in some instances, out into the other areas of Portland that are not the downtown core.
And we all know that some of those areas did get tear gassed.
Yeah, absolutely.
By Ted Wheeler.
Absolutely Ted Wheeler is attacking these places. So our people need to be out there. And I think even though, you know, maybe they won't get enough signatures. We can't have people out with shirts that say, you know that we don't like Ted Wheeler. Communicating the message that Wheeler is bad for Portlanders, and you know, talking to people about that. And I think that as far as a lefty in Portland, someone who has contributed financially to the PAC, not much I think I get 25 bucks at one point and And with volunteer time and stuff, this is what I want the PAC to be doing. I want them to go down in flames. I want them to try their best. use their resources to, you know, get as close as they can to the goal. And what I would say to people listening, if we managed to get this out before the petition is over: if you have time, I think and you need a gig right now, if you need some money, email, Audrey at Total Recall pac.com [correction: audrey@totalrecallpdx.com]. Tell them that you want to be a paid signature gatherer and go get some of the $30,000 in order to spread the message that Wheeler is bad. This is, as far as I'm concerned, coming from like a I used to be an evangelical kind of guy, this is what I want to preach. This is the good news. This is like we don't need Wheeler, we can get rid of him. Granted, this particular petition may not succeed, right? Like we think probably the numbers don't work out. That doesn't change that he's bad for Portland, it doesn't change that we want to tell people is bad for Portland, it doesn't change that we're going to need to keep fighting him until he's gone.
I do have one. I do have one little sliver of hope left
Lately, I can use some hope
for the campaign specifically. And here's why. I have not mailed in my signature sheet.
Oh, yeah?
I have not mailed it in. I still have it.
Do you know how many times they ask you to send in your signature sheet, you're gonna be in big trouble when they hear this.
I've never mailed in anything on time. But it does make me think there may be some other people that have filled out signature sheets, they're waiting to fill it up with their friends. I do assume that the pace does quicken kind of naturally near the end of these things. This is just me like guessing about human behavior.
Sure.
So it will probably go a little faster than it was. That's my last. That's my last sliver of hope that it is possible. We could be surprised. Um, not likely, but it is possible. That's all I've got.
Not likely, but it's possible. Okay. So we've got some good guidance for you. We were telling you that you should absolutely go get some of that money. If you've got time and to get signatures, we want you to be talking to Portlanders, that's like the best. Honestly, it's the best thing anybody can be doing reaching out and making community with people. So if you can get paid by the PAC to do it while you're Come on, just go do that. If you're going to volunteer, maybe put some volunteer time in your neighborhood, do something else.
You could just ask your friends.
That's fair. That's fair. I'm not. So in my mind, when I say if you were going to volunteer, I mean, the kind of volunteer I'm talking about where I was going to go and spend 50 hours a week standing outside of a grocery store. We support the PAC, gather signatures, just I wouldn't put tons of your time and energy into it. That would cost a lot.
And and part of the reason you say that, I assume is because you know our time is limited. It's trade off.
Absolutely
Could spending it on something else. If you have literally nothing else to do, of course do it.
Yeah.
You know, some of us...have nothing to do.
You've been listening to Portland from the left. If you support the recall that we've been talking about today to get rid of Ted Wheeler, please go to TotalRecallPDX.com. You can also just Google recall Ted Wheeler, and download a signature sheet to print out for yourself or a multiple person circulator sheet to get your friends and family to sign and send it in as soon as you possibly can.
You know, neither of us are very optimistic that the petition is going to succeed.
But we are super optimistic about Portland and it's still worth telling Portlanders how much Ted Wheeler sucks.