CITY POLITICS What’s nonpartisan mean? BY SARA DONNELLY

Sometime in late June, no one seems to be able to recall the exact dates, the Portland Democratic City Committee (PDCC) held two meetings for potential city council candidates in the offices of city councilor (and avowed Dem) Jim Cloutier. It was weeks before candidacy papers were even available from City Hall. The PDCC, apparently loathe to waste time, invited about a dozen people, including eventual At-Large race rivals Ed Suslovic and Loretta Griffin, to discuss the nuts and bolts of running a city council campaign — how much it might cost, how much time it could take, and how much it would royally stink for a Green to win a council seat (look out, Carol Schiller).

Griffin, the widow of former councilor John Griffin and somewhat of a dark horse Dem for the At-Large, developed a rotten taste in her mouth at the first meeting. According to Griffin, the whole point of that meeting was to encourage candidates like her to step aside so candidates like Suslovic, an established Dem, a favorite of Cloutier’s, and recent treasurer of the PDCC, could have a better chance of winning.

This in a "nonpartisan" election.

PDCC chair Sive Neilan, who convened the meetings, bristles at any suggestion that anyone was discouraged from running.

"I really find it quite abhorrent that anyone would suggest that," she says. "We were trying to present people with the reality of running for office, the amount of effort that it takes and the difference between running for a district seat and a municipal seat. And then about the inevitable difficulty that comes out if you’re joining into a field where, inevitably, someone has to lose. We just wanted people to go in there with their eyes wide open. We’ve had a number of people who’ve since decided this wasn’t their time but we are not showing any favor when there are multiple candidates."

Griffin sees things differently.

"They didn’t encourage you not to run but they wanted the candidates [running for each seat] to sort of get together and ‘collaborate’ to see if it was better for one to run at another time or for another office," she says. Griffin says it was clear that Suslovic had the nod from the established Dems at the meeting. She left pissed-off and committed to running.

"In all the years that I’ve been going around with my husband and he was always involved with political things, I’ve never heard of such a thing," she says.

Griffin asked William Gorham, city councilor from District 1 and former campaign manager for her husband, to accompany her to the meetings. Gorham, who has worked on local political campaigns since the 1970s and is a Democrat, says this is the first time in his more than 30-year career in local politics that he’s heard of party-run meetings with potential city council candidates.

"It seemed that [the PDCC] wanted to back one candidate after the first meeting," says Gorham, "but it seemed that by the time the second meeting rolled around that they had kind of backed off that format."

However the meetings were conducted, who could blame the Portland Dems for wanting to help ensure a smooth race and win for, well, Portland Dems? After all, their vice grip on the city council has helped make Portland the kind of town that passed an ordinance endorsing domestic partnerships and a resolution slamming the PATRIOT Act — progressive stuff, if that’s your bag.

Of the nine sitting councilors, Cheryl Leeman (who this November is up for her eighth council term) is the only one not affiliated with the Democratic Party. She’s a Republican. After the Greens successfully swung the Portland School Committee when party members Stephen Spring and Jason Toothaker joined Green Ben Meiklejohn in 2003 and 2004, respectively, the Portland Dems may have good reason to be nervous Griffin and Suslovic will split the vote and pave the way for Green Carol Schiller to win the At-Large (the At-Large is the only 2005 council race to pit a Dem against a Dem).

Both Leeman and scorned 2003 council candidate Orlando Delogu believe the pretense of nonpartisanship in Portland municipal elections is about as flimsy as a non-binding council resolution backing Bono’s ONE campaign to end world poverty (and, yes, as of the council meeting on September 19, Portland officially endorses ONE). Delogu, a Democrat, was trounced by fellow Dem Karen Geraghty when Geraghty managed to get most of the big party endorsements and Delogu got, well, none.

"It’s become a party thing, not a nonpartisan thing," he says. "They [the city Democratic party] see Portland as the stomping ground for legislative and maybe even Congressional candidates. It’s who they want to run."

Pat Colwell, chair of the state Democratic committee, had not heard of the meetings but commended the PDCC for taking such an active role in their local elections.

"I’m pleased that the Portland [Democratic City] Committee was so energized," he says.

On the flip side of the At-Large ticket, the party endorsing Carol Schiller took a more laid-back approach to the early stages of the race. Peter Rogers is co-chair of the Portland Green Independent Committee. He says Schiller was the only party member to turn in papers for the city council race and no effort was made to coddle candidates until their race for the council was confirmed. The party didn’t have to wrangle with internal competition but Rogers says the Greens did debate the inherent contradiction in endorsing Schiller in a supposedly nonpartisan race.

"It’s a curious sort of double game," he says. "On one hand [the council race] is nonpartisan and that certainly is a strong legacy in progressive politics in our city government. But, on the other hand, there’s an underneath level, or maybe it’s not even that concealed, that for a certain percentage of the population ‘in the know’ it’s fiercely partisan. So, in a sense then, part of being successful at partisan politics is to successfully appear to be nonpartisan."

In essence, be nonpartisan the same way FoxNews is fair and balanced.