Despite credentials like "former White House press secretary" and "host of own TV show", veteran PBS caballero Bill Moyer's opinion piece on Measure 26-108 is a bit sloppy.

With awkward metaphors like—

John would have fit well in Portland because he was a radical middle-of-the-roader who believed in widening the road into a broad highway so more people could travel it.

—you can see why the Oregonian neglected to publish the article in its print edition.

HOWEVER, buried in Moyer's long and boring sentences is a very good point: Portland is one of the only cities in the country that has voter-owned elections, and seeing as how they're totally empowering and sensible, we Portland citizens should vote to protect them.

He has good company, including some folks who make the point more articulately. The measure is endorsed by the ACLU, which provides a much more coherent argument for its passage, as well as Harvard professor Larry Lessig, who came to Portland on Thursday night to speak in its defense. Lessig spoke at the First Unitarian Church and later at Brewhaha, an event sponsored by the Mercury and the Bus Project.

Even Moyer's aforementioned friend John has something to say. Keep reading.

That friend is actually John Gardner, founder of Common Cause. He wrote:

"There is a disconnection between the people and their leaders. Citizens do not trust their government. And a variety of polls indicate that this mistrust extends to corporations and the media. People do not feel they have control of their lives, and the sense of impotence grows like a great life-endangering tumor."

Perhaps requiring political candidates to spend strictly money provided by tax revenue (rather than collecting donations from corporations, wealthy individuals and special interests groups) would help to repair that disconnect.