In case you didn’t catch this in the Oregonian this morning, here’s an excerpt from Anna Griffin’s piece on Tom Potter, “Legacy is nebulous but nonetheless real”:

For proof of his popularity, witness his poll numbers, which still routinely top 60 percent. Or witness the group of young activists who showed up on his doorstep a month ago asking him to run again.

“We told him that we were inspired by him, that he had opened up the door to people of color and said, ‘Not only can you sit at the table, but you can take part in the conversation, and I’ll actually listen to what you have to say,’ ” said Charles McGee, a college student, former Portland School Board candidate and founder of the fledging Black Parent Initiative. “We told him he had to run again.”

Potter responded by telling a story from the Walt Disney movie “Dumbo.”

The big-eared baby elephant was ashamed of his appearance until one day a friend gave him a magic feather and told him it would help him fly. Dumbo gripped the feather tight in his trunk, took a leap of faith and became the sensation of the circus.

Then one day, he got careless and the feather floated away.

That’s when he realized: He didn’t need the feather to fly. He could do it all by himself.

In hindsight, the message seems clear: You don’t need me to make Portland great.