Victory for Harrington for Metro

A belated recap of the election:

You can't say she didn't earn her victory - the final official vote count was 24,756 (44%) for Cox and 31,328 (56%) for Harrington. The under-vote - people who turned in ballots but chose not to vote for either candidate, totaled 24,506.

My strategy, to try to reach the folks who historically ignore the Metro race, didn't pay off, or didn't pay off enough to make the difference. (If you run the percentages as total votes available instead of votes cast, it comes out as 39% Harrington, 31% Cox, and 30% no opinion.)

There's no question in my mind that Harrington (and her husband, both retired) worked a lot harder than I did on her race - I know she knocked on more doors, and she certainly raised more money.

Interestingly, despite being recruited by the outgoing Councilor Susan McLain and supported by the status quo forces at Metro, Harrington ran a very centrist campaign, even claiming publicly to support a West Side Bypass freeway - the completion of the I-205 beltway around the region - which is anathema to her base.

So at this point it's up to her to show us how centrist she'll be in office, and up to us to give her the chance to live up to those promises. I'll certainly work with her on ways to increase regional mobility.

Apologies to those who have been asking about my blog - I just fell out of the habit of posting, and hope to pick it back up.

Victory for Cox for Metro

If you followed the recent race, you know the results: I got 25% of the vote, and will face off against Harrington who got 39%, with the remaining 36% up for grabs. Our statistical team is still analyzing the precinct-by-precinct results, but the early numbers indicate an excellent opportunity for my campaign to make huge gains.

That's because Harrington had unified Democratic backing, and a unified Eco-Green coalition. In fact, they've been grooming her for almost two years to take over from Susan McLain, their long time ally on Metro. The majority of voters, however, who are skeptical of Metro's plans for the region, had three candidates to pick from, and split their votes 25-19-15.

Can I actually do that? Only time and hard work will tell.

Forest Grove News Times Almost Endorses Cox for Metro

This has to be the nicest almost-endorsement I've yet received:

Tom Cox, who’s run for past posts, including governor, as a Libertarian, is one of those rare government critics who shows up with well-researched analysis of the programs he doesn’t like and, in many cases, alternatives that could actually work. There’s no doubt that Cox has the brains and work ethic needed for the job.

They go on to endorse one of my opponents, apparently for spending more time in Forest Grove than I have, or at least more time in front of the editors.

Still, for not getting the endorsement, it's quite a nice bit of ink.

WSJ on Newark and Jane Jacobs

In an editorial-page article in the 11-May-06 Wall Street Journal (subscription required) on Newark's struggles to grow, Paul Mulshine gives us this gem:

[Richard Florida said,] "Jane Jacobs told me the problem is that these cities [like Newark] are run by squelchers." By that she meant politicos who try to stamp out anything they can't control. They love big public projects, but private enterprise makes them nervous. Meanwhile the professional planners on public payrolls are squelchers of a different sort. They keep trying to remake cities in their past image.

It's tragic that so many "planners" claim to love Jacobs but so obviously don't understand her.

Garlynn Woodsong Doesn't Love Me

What fun.

Now that Willy Week has endorsed me for Metro, the most righteous of the left are puzzling over it. In the process, I'm learning a lot about myself, or at least a lot about what others imagine I am.

Their Imaginary Tom is quite a monster. From the Willy Week web site's comments section:



i second what another commenter said about tom cox. metro is for people who like portland the way it is, not people who want to turn it into las vegas.
Posted by "jami" | Thu, May 4 2006



Tom Cox would be a horrible addition to the Metro Council. What we DON'T need is another subscriber to the Cascade Policy Institute style of misinformation and anti-transit, anti-bicycle, anti-smart growth rhetoric. Though former Intel manager Kathryn Harrington may not have gone "beyond the usual platitudes" during her endorsement interview, I would support her in a heartbeat over somebody who would seem to be dead-set on rolling back all of the progress that has been made in the region thus far.
Posted by "Garlynn Woodsong" | Thu, May 4 2006



Cox Ain't a Thinker
You argued that Tom Cox will get Metro thinking through its decisions. When he categorizes them as "anti-car, canti-housing, anti-business extremists," thereby insulting the voters across the Metro region who elected these people, I can' t imagine he'll have a productive working relationship. Instead, he'd be a bomb-throwing hype-monger hampering the important work that needs to be done.

We've got a group of smart people on Metro -- Rhodes Scholars, Harvard graduates, etc. We need another smart someone who will truly represent constituents -- Kathryn Harrington, not a radical-fringe self-financed candidate like Cox.
Posted by "Jesse O" | Wed, May 3 2006

Faux Public Process

Anybody who's gotten politically active in the Greater Portland Area will get a chance to be involved in "the public process." If you happen to be skeptical of the official line at one of the public process events, you'll quickly see how many of them are orchestrated and manipulated. I'm starting to better understand the impulses behind faux public process.

As a colleague wrote, "One of the things regional visioning attempts to do is to overcome NIMBYism. One challenge with U.S. policymaking is that local interests have more power than regional interests and they often optimize locally, creating negative regional externalities."

One can readily imagine the dismay of an expert, laboring for months or years, ushering the public towards a good outcome, only to be stopped by a sudden NIMBY uprising at the eleventh hour. How tempted our expert must be, to avoid the resulting 'negative regional externalities' by rigging the system.

I'm told that Australia has a different approach, where random citizens in an affected region are gathered for input, reducing the NIMBY effect while allowing for real input. This differentiates "the public" from "the neighbors" - and obviates the need for orchestrating meetings or rigging events.

There's something corrupt and corrosive about pretending to seek public input and then rigging the results. It may be an attempt at overcoming NIMBYism, but it's always wrong - and damaging - to raise public expectations (i.e. that this will be a fair and open process) and then fail to meet those expectations.

In addition to the general problem of corruption, the rigged process has another drawback: you get the result you predetermined, even if it turns out it was the wrong result. Since self-selected elites seldom consider themselves fallible, they are both more likely to engage in rigging 'faux' public process events and more likely to pre-select a flawed outcome.

Would an honest public process be superior? One source would say 'yes.'

Another option would be to let elected officials decide things, as they were arguably elected to do. But the fetish for public process is strong in the Portland area, and few are strong enough to withstand it.

Anti-Growth Anti-Humanism

There is an elitist yuppie attitude toward growth, a skepticism about advancement, that seems to say that poor people should remain poor "for the good of the planet" or some such.

Here's a detailed exploration of that appalling attitude.

Perhaps This Explains the Light Rail Fanatics

One recurring theme in both politics and business is the fanatic. Alone or in groups, these are folks who are true believers. Don't bother them with facts - they don't care.

One of the differences between politics and business is, the business fanatics will, if wrong, eventually run out of money and stop. Politics is all about playing with other people's money - those fanatics can go on in the wrong direction indefinitely if not stopped.

A new AMA study sheds some light on the phenomenon. In essence, people who buy in to the initial justification for a project will actively ignore or discount evidence, however strong, that the project isn't working. Apparently there's no clear technique available to make folks get past this bias if they're prone to it. Organizationally, the only hope is to make other people responsible for vetoing the plan if certain prearranged conditions aren't met.

Why other people? Apparently, once the first group gets bought in to the project, they will find ways to justify ignoring the prearranged limits.

Hillsboro Argus endorses Tom Cox

I didn't see that coming: the Hillsboro Argus endorsed me for Metro.

Apparently being a "single issue" candidate isn't always bad, especially if it's the right issue at the right time - and if you're on the right side.

I wonder how many other candidates have ever been endorsed for being skeptical of Light Rail. Any?

Cox endorsed by Willy Week

I'm in the cover story on Willamette Week this week - and wonder of wonders, they endorsed me for Metro District 4. (Scroll down to the Metro section.)

Read between the lines and you'll see that this is due to their disenchantment with the current Metro leadership.

This is my first mainstream media endorsement. Feels good.