Seat Number Two

Commissioner Erik Sten's resignation opened up another seat for Portland City Council. This is especially important beacuse the incumbent never loses in Portland, so new people can only get elected to City Council when someone leaves office.Jim Middaugh, Sten's former chief of staff, and attorney Nick Fish are in the "Most Likely" box.

Nick Fish has run for every open seat since 2002. He lost to Randy Leonard in 2002, and Sam Adams in 2004. Nick Fish didn't run in 2006, because there were no open seats, and only crazy* people run against incumbents in Portland (Ginny Burdick, Dave Lister, Emilie Boyles, Amanda Fritz).

The "Less Likely" candidates are those that can rally some people, but arer running because they are mad at another candidate or overly-focused on a specific issue.

Ed Garren has defined his candidacy on rent stabilization, which just isn't the right tactic to convince people you are ready to lead whichever bureau the mayor assigns.

The "Least Likely" candidates are those that will likely drop out, or have pretty much no impact in the race. It's pretty clear that they aren't expecting to win.

Harold C. Williams Too doesn't have a website, and stated his reason for filing was "Basically, just to inject some new energy".
Fred Stewart also doesn't have a website and appears to be making no effort to raise his profile.
Nick Popenuk started out running for Mayor, and on his website under Why Nick? it states: This page is under construction.

The Portland Mercury is the de facto source on getting to know the candidates, but unfortunately they have decided to treat all the candidates equally, which means you'll hear from the irrelevant (but possibly more entertaining) crazies** as much as the legitimate candiates.

Also, here is a PDF of everyone I think is currently in the race. It keeps changing, but you can print it out and cross the people off as they drop out.

*I'm not suggesting these people are mentally deranged, just that they are foolish.

**This time, yes, I'm saying that some of the people who run for politics are mentally deranged.