Today's news from PolitickerOR.com

With the PolitickerOR.com Wake-Up Call e-mailed to your inbox, phone, Blackberry or PDA first thing in the morning, you can get a rundown of Oregon's top political headlines. Sign up to get the Wake-Up Call delivered every morning.

With the PolitickerOR.com Wake-Up Call e-mailed to your inbox, phone, Blackberry or PDA first thing in the morning, you can get a rundown of Oregon's top political headlines. Sign up to get the Wake-Up Call delivered every morning.

Will the negativity backfire?
For decades in Oregon, the abortion issue has overshadowed all others in Republican primaries, and no group has wielded as much clout as Oregon Right to Life.

Oregonians now will see if both still ring true, after Republican congressional candidate Kevin Mannix helped to publicize an accusation that GOP rival Mike Erickson paid for a female companion’s abortion in 2000.

As reported on the Portland Tribune Web site Monday night, a 33-year-old Clackamas County woman has alleged in a Tribune interview that Erickson got her pregnant in 2000 and then dropped her off at a Portland abortion clinic and paid for the procedure. (Steve Law, Portland Tribune)

Erickson keeps quiet
5th Congressional candidate Mike Erickson continues to remain relatively quiet in the face of opponent Kevin Mannix’s eleventh-hours allegations.

Mannix, for his part, defended his actions in an interview with The Oregonian’s editorial board last night, calling Erickson a “political sociopath.”

The longtime politico also acknowledged that he had not verified the accuracy of the allegation but that the woman had no reason to lie.

In the campaign’s initial blitz, however, Amy Langdon, Mannix’s campaign manager noted that “the e-mail is verified and sheds light on the character of Mike Erickson who claims he is pro-life, yet he paid for an abortion and left the woman at a clinic.” (Lauren Lafaro, PolitickerOR.com)

Candidates duel over Portland budget
The Portland City Council on Wednesday morning heard an hour of testimony from two dozen people on an alternate version of the city’s proposed budget for fiscal year 2008-2009, which has sparked controversy over the past week.

The council did not take a vote, but spoke about forging a compromise as they continue their negotiations on June 4. Presumably, there will be amendments to the budget, but it’s unclear yet as to what those might be.

A public hearing to adopt the budget is tentatively set for 10 a.m. on June 25.

Drama over the budget broke out this week when commissioners Sam Adams and Randy Leonard came up with an alternate version of Mayor Tom Potter’s proposed budget, seeking to add millions of dollars for art, transportation and social service programs that had been left out. (Jennifer Anderson, Portland Tribune)

See why they run
Portland mayoral candidate Chris Rich knows what victory will look like Tuesday: Five-thousand votes.

That's his benchmark for success in the primary -- out of more than 150,000 votes likely to be cast.

"If I can get that many, I'll take a couple of months off" and then start the next campaign.

Rich, a 39-year-old entrepreneur, is one of 13 candidates for Portland's top job and one of 11 who have no chance -- barring a computer malfunction or a scandal of apocalyptic proportions involving the two front-runners -- of winning.

He knows. Yet he campaigns anyway, passing out pamphlets everywhere he goes, showing up at forums even when he isn't invited to speak, doing all the things a serious candidate does.

It's one of the wonderful and weird things about Portland: Running for office is very easy. All you need is $50 or 100 signatures and you're guaranteed a spot on the ballot and speaking time at dozens of neighborhood forums and debates.

This year the number of mayoral candidates is actually down -- there were 23 people in the 2004 primary -- but the ones in the race are no less enthusiastic or, in a few cases, eccentric. (Anna Griffin, The Oregonian)

Dem turnout tops Republican
College professor Elliot Maltz worried that he might misplace his ballot or forget to mail it in time for next Tuesday's election.

So instead, he used his lunch hour to walk his ballot to a drop site at the Marion County courthouse to make sure he voted for one of the Democratic contenders in Oregon's presidential primary. He wouldn't say if he voted for Barack Obama or Hillary Rodham Clinton.

"It's important that we change administrations from Republican to Democrat this year," said Maltz, a marketing professor at Willamette University. "I wanted to get my ballot in as soon as possible."

Around the state, other Democrats are showing the same level of enthusiasm about sending in their ballots, according to the latest voter turnout figures from the secretary of state's office.

As of Wednesday morning, more than 237,000 Oregon Democrats had returned their ballots, or about 27 percent of the total number of registered Democrats. About 140,000 Republicans — or 21 percent of registered GOP voters — had turned in theirs by the same time. (Brad Cain, Associated Press)

Check the fine print
Sometimes Sources Say is just too clever for its own good. We’ve been waiting for independent committees to crop up and pour money into the Portland mayor’s race. That way, we thought, both Sam Adams and Sho Dozono could benefit from additional spending while staying under their own voluntary expenditure limits.

Well, it turns out that we failed to read the fine print – those much-touted expenditure limits are strictly for cash spending. However, the two candidates have decided they can receive all the “in-kind” or noncash contributions they want from outside parties, meaning other people’s spending on mailings, polls, campaign work, billboards, doughnuts – you name it. (Sources Say, Portland Tribune)

Don’t make Lindland angry
Long-time political strategist Elaine Franklin has apologized to Matt "The Law" Lindland, who is running for the Republican nomination in state House District 52 (parts of Clackamas and Hood River counties). Lindland, an ultimate fighter when he's not running for office, had threatened to sue Franklin if Franklin didn't apologize for falsely telling people Lindland is a felon.

Franklin is working for Lindland's opponent, Phyllis Thiemann. (Nigel Jaquiss, Willamette Week)

With the PolitickerOR.com Wake-Up Call e-mailed to your inbox, phone, Blackberry or PDA first thing in the morning, you can get a rundown of Oregon's top political headlines. Sign up to get the Wake-Up Call delivered every morning.

With the PolitickerOR.com Wake-Up Call e-mailed to your inbox, phone, Blackberry or PDA first thing in the morning, you can get a rundown of Oregon's top political headlines. Sign up to get the Wake-Up Call delivered every morning.