Quotes of the Day
The cast of the scandal in Portland, Ore., has a certain ring to it: Sam Adams. Bob Ball. Beau Breedlove and his dog Lolita ... "Everyone has porn names!" says Mark Wiener with a laugh. "Until yesterday, it had never occurred to me that the worst offending name was mine." Wiener (pronounced Wee-ner) is one of Oregon's most influential political consultants and a former — and now disheartened — campaign adviser to the protagonist in this political soap opera. That would be Sam Adams, the new mayor of Portland and the first openly gay man to lead a major American city. Then there's Bob Ball, an openly gay local real estate developer who once had mayoral ambitions himself. In 2007, Ball hinted that Adams' mentoring relationship with a former legislative intern, Beau Breedlove (now 21), was, in fact, a sexual one that had begun when the young man was just 17. (See the top 10 scandals of 2008.)
Adams, a city commissioner at the time, denied the charges vigorously, and his supporters, including Wiener, rallied to his support. Ball's charges were shouted down as "sleazy" and a "smear." Then Adams effectively won the mayor's office with a landslide victory in the primaries last May, making the liberal city of Portland even prouder of its liberalism. But just as it was about to celebrate change with the rest of the country, sending Adams to Washington to attend Barack Obama's Inauguration, sex reared its head again. On Jan. 11, Breedlove sent a text message to Willamette Week reporter Nigel Jaquiss, who had persisted in pressing the younger man to speak on the record. Wrote Breedlove: "I'm scared. If the story goes to print without me saying anything, I'm worried I will look like a scumbag. If I do say anything, then Sam's fate is in my hands." (Read a 1956 TIME story about another scandal in Portland.)
Feeling they were on the verge of a breakthrough, Jaquiss and Willamette Week went after Adams again. The new mayor denied the claims again. But on the Monday before Inauguration, he called his colleagues and supporters to say there was truth to the charges. "I believe what I said was, 'You're a f___ing moron,'" says Wiener. "I was, and am, pissed and saddened by it." Another former ally, Randy Leonard, one of Portland's four city commissioners, was also dismayed, not least because Adams' story kept changing. His original version, a mentoring relationship, became a romantic liaison that the mayor insisted didn't become sexual until after Breedlove turned 18, the age of legal consent in Oregon. But in an interview published on Jan. 25 in the Oregonian, Breedlove suggested that he shared a passionate kiss with Adams in a city-hall bathroom while he was still underage. Says Leonard: "The part that bothers me is that I defended Sam back in 2007 more so than anybody else." Referring to Adams' admission that he asked Breedlove to lie about their relationship, Leonard says, "I was troubled that he called Beau and asked him to lie ... Why would he ask [Breedlove] to lie about a consensual relationship between adults?"
Adams isn't commenting on the allegations because of an ongoing inquiry by Oregon's attorney general, John Kroger. "I welcome the independent official investigation — the purpose of which is to address those questions," says Adams. Despite the disappointment of his supporters and the calls for his resignation (from, among others, the Oregonian, the local police union and JustOut, a local gay periodical), Adams says he is staying on as mayor. But he appears contrite. When asked if the media hold public officials to an impossible moral standard, he simply says, "No," then adds, "It's a very high standard, and it can be intrusive, but I knew what I was getting into when I decided to run for public office, so I'm not complaining about it now."
The new mayor has his work cut out for him — and it's not just about political survival. Monday morning saw the first casualty of his office when his press spokesman, Wade Nkrumah, handed in his resignation. Portland, like the rest of the country, is feeling the effects of the recession; the city is also in the middle of something of a crime wave. Two teens were killed and seven injured in a shooting outside an under-21 nightclub last weekend. Only 10 days earlier, there had been a gang-related shooting in broad daylight. How does a public servant go about his duties with so much public outrage and sniggering? "This is something between Sam and Portland," says Wiener. "Sam's got some repair work he needs to do."
See TIME's Pictures of the Week.
- Tiffany Sharples / Portland
- The popular new mayor of one of America's most liberal cities sees his reputation crumble with allegations that he lied about an affair with an underage intern