As Portland Mayoral candidate Jefferson Smith blows bubbles and splashes in his gasoline bath, his backers accuse the Zero and Willamette Week of striking the match and torching their man’s character.

They claim the newspapers have committed ‘character assassination.’ In fact, according to this story,  his backers wanted to take out a full page ad and call the newspapers names. 

They forgot one thing. Oregon is an assisted suicide state. Jefferson Smith has done himself in.  The papers are only reporting it.

What’s worse for Smith, I think, will be deeper revelations about Smith’s Bus Project (his campaign chair is a former member) and the revelation in the same article of the people giving him advice:

The emails went to about two dozen recipients, including Bob Burtchaell, the man who served as a go-between for Neil Goldschmidt and Goldschmidt’s teenage abuse victim [Goldschmidt raped a young girl for three years from 14 to 17 years of age. Later he paid her to keep quiet].

 Ron Buel, a former aide to Goldschmidt when Goldschmidt was mayor and a close supporter of Smith’s, was one of the campaign allies behind the “character assassination” plan.  

Smith’s Mom is the head of the Democrat party in Oregon, his Dad is a helicopter parent; which one of them thought Neil Goldschmidt ties were a good thing?