Thread by @ourportland

Friends, today I am asking you to share my Letter in the @Oregonian. Portland deserves fair coverage of this campaign, not status quo editorial decisions that favor the incompetent incumbent. oregonlive.com/opinion/2020/0…

Key points: by any standard of competitiveness we are out-volunteering, out-fundraising, out-polling and out-messaging our current Mayor. We have a clear path to victory, yet we are denied equal or fair coverage, often.

I’m a successful small business founder, a PSU-educated expert in urban sustainability, and a globally-connected policy wonk. I also believe in peaceful protest. Continually, media refers to me dismissively only as an “activist.”

Obviously everyone who runs for office gets public scrutiny. But being the only woman running for Mayor as an #EverydayAntifascist, I receive violent and misogynistic threats daily that shake my family. Then media asks me to condemn violence that I do not practice or encourage.

The Mayor has direct control over the police and rarely gets asked directly to condemn police violence. Yet I am asked to answer for and condemn every distracting act of petty vandalism at Portland protests - even if I’m not present.

I have detailed plans on a host of issues on my website which media rarely asks me about. My opponent has a list of bullet points and an implied “trust me” — when he has broken the public trust countless times by taking illegal donations and opposing climate action.

There are plenty of other examples. But the reason here is clear: the status quo doesn’t want to allow a historic, grassroots campaign like ours to succeed even when all signs point to being highly effective, qualified, and ready to lead.

Maybe I don’t look like some people’s idea of a leader. I would offer that the usual leaders - rich men in suits with family wealth and Ivy League degrees - are exactly who brought us to climate catastrophe, COVID incompetence, overpolicing, and white nationalist gangstalking.

I’m offering a progressive alternative to that failure of imagination, and a new model for leadership: the kind that comes from everyday people, the kind that isn’t afraid of women in charge, and the kind that believes Portland has everything we need to fix our problems.

It is a pessimistic view of the world that says only a certain pedigree are qualified to lead - particularly when they’ve done such a rotten job. I know the people of Portland have the answers. We are the optimists, and we need to keep pushing for the world we know we deserve.

After you share, join the campaign formally at sarah2020.com/volunteer - we need you on phones, writing postcards, and texting your neighbors to help us overcome the unacceptable status quo

We need everyone in Portland who supports to donate any amount to help us meet our goals. We use Open and Accountable Elections to match your first $50 six times, we cap donations at $250, and we refuse corporate money’s corrupting influence. sarah2020.com/donate

We need your voice on social media boosting us, we need your letters to the local papers, we need your commitment to house parties and putting up posters. Get involved and help us win this historic people’s campaign for Portland Mayor.

Unlike the current mayor, I would never try to do this alone. It takes all of us, a city full of movements for housing for all, safe streets, Black entrepreneurship, gun violence prevention, climate justice and so much more. We’ve got this Portland. Join us.

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