He's got to be kidding

The howls really went up over the weekend as the O ran a story on Portland's hapless mayor, Dud Wheeler, in which he suggested he'll be running for a third term a year and a half from now. Alas, the story is behind the Paywall of Pity, and so I won't get to read the whole thing unless it gets reprinted somewhere. But I don't think I'm missing too much, because the whole concept of Wheeler having a political future seems patently absurd.

Ted Wheeler is the worst mayor Portland has had in at least 50 years. But the scary part is, he was head and shoulders above the clown car occupants he ran against in 2020. And he almost lost. If the nuts on the far, far, and I do mean far, left hadn't split their vote, one of their airhead nabobs would be mayor today. And those candidates are still lurking around, make no mistake. They're otherwise unemployable.

What Portland needs is for a viable moderate candidate, more competent than Wheeler, to come forward soon and get recognized by the public as a contender. Then maybe a poll would show Dud what an early poll showed Creepy Sam Adams during his one term as mayor: that he has no chance of re-election. At that point, maybe Wheeler will decide he wants to spend more time with his trust fund and bow out.

It's going to be an interesting election, to be sure, because as I undsrstand it, that's when the entire City Council will be up for a vote in the goofball, completely untested version of "ranked choice" voting that the public here has decided to roll the dice with. The council will be expanding to 12 seats representing four newly formed districts, and in keeping with Portland reality detachment, as usual there will be unlimited pots of public money available to finance the campaigns of any busybody with a few friends. 

Maybe the dozen-seat free-for-all will attract most of the fringe people to the council races, which could leave Wheeler or a better sane candidate up against only one or two windmill-tilters for mayor. But even if there's a crowd of lefties on the ballot, I believe the mayor's race will be decided by "ranked-choice" voting, which seems designed to give the fringe a lot more power. And there will be no primary to test any waters whatsoever.

It's going to be a tough mayoral contest for any moderate, or anyone with real management skills. Portland voters don't like what they're seeing, but they're notoriously insistent on voting for the same types of clueless politicians, over and over. The race would be especially tough for Wheeler, whose many failures become more and more obvious by the day. You can't look away from them, because they're everywhere. His chances at re-election seem minimal at this point.

Anyway, Wheeler says in the story that he's "made for this moment." Maybe, but he sure wasn't made for the million moments that got us to this sorry point in the city's history. The man needs to find the door.