Kitzhaber takes the High Road. Voters get No Road.

Update: We've been asked to show some examples of the information we cite below. It's all available, public record stuff. And I was rather angry about matters last night when I wrote my piece that my feelings at the time were essentially "I won't do the media's job for them, let them find this stuff". Trust me, it wasn't hard! But here is a screen grab of the Biography section of the Form ADV so you can see what I am talking about. Chris Dudley is a biography for Filigree. He has a super awesome title and no apparent role.




























This is the ONLY mention of Dudley with the SEC.












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In light of the very recent news that John Kitzhaber, who I have the greatest respect and admiration for, has told the Democratic Governors Association (in effect) to cease and desist with any negative campaigning for the time being, I thought I had better make a few things abundantly clear about this blog and vent my frustration.

First of all, this blog is written and researched by my husband and myself. We are Oregon residents. We are not part of the Democratic party in any official or unofficial capacity. You may have noticed a lot of this blog is formatted in the form of questions. As voters, we have questions! The media seems to have exhausted and bored itself with research on Dr. Kitzhaber because he is a known quantity. But we know even less about Chris Dudley.

We are not impressed with Chris Dudley. That is obvious. For one thing, the media seems to have bought into this enchanting notion that Dudley is somehow this experienced business person who knows how to create jobs. Chris Dudley doesn't create jobs in his career at Filigree Advisors. He (supposedly) creates wealth on paper for a living. And there's really no proof of success there either. The guy who did have some direct knowledge of business and job creation was Allen Alley but the Republicans didn't think Alley was glamorous enough so they invested no resources in his campaign. Chris Dudley, is above all, a campaign donation machine. So we "get" why his party likes him.

We fell into our role of exploring Chris Dudley quite by accident when we witnessed the Republican Governors Association post and then remove some tweets about where Chris Dudley REALLY was when he said he was unable to attend the ONPA debate because he was on a "family vacation". Now that we see how much the RGA has received from News Corp, the parent company of Fox News, we understand why Oregon voters came last on July 16th when Dudley had a choice between debating and going to a fund raiser. Screw us, the dumb shit voters of Oregon. Oh boy! The RGA has money and Haley Barbour to rub elbows with! What do we matter?

Since my husband and I witnessed Dudley's lie firsthand, we have been curious about him but there is little to know about him. Everything we can find on our own in local press says he has no specifics and that he has no experience in government. Then his 26 point plan comes out, and all be darned. It's true. The man needs a civics class on how Oregon government works!

So here's what I want to know based on my own research:

Why does the CFP Board website list Dudley's CFP license as current but that he is not practicing? A call placed to the CFP Board told me this means he's licensed but he isn't taking new clients.

Update: Chris Dudley is also not registered with SEC as an IAR (Investment Adviser Representative)

The Willamette Week in their July 21st article said Filigree has a value of $55 million in accounts they manage and the article speculated how much they made using a very generous 1% commission rate. The actual rate (if you do the damn research) is a sliding scale with the most generous being .85%. They have 30 clients according to their most recent filing with the SEC. We can assume that these clients are not all equal in wealth. So if we use the highest .85% commission rate, that's $476,500 annually that this firm makes. Hardly Fortune 500 stuff. It's three guys on commission in a high rent office in Lake Oswego, which I found leases from anywhere between $21 and 25/sf/yr. Oh yeah, a real job and wealth factory there. I'm not impressed.

All this leads me to my pivotal question: what the hell does Chris Dudley DO? His bio on the Filigree Advisors website says he is a "Wealth Strategist". In fact, the Filigree website doesn't even mention Ian Crawford, the third partner but instead leads the visitor to believe that it's Gerald Graves and Chris Dudley's s show. However Filigree's FORM ADV with the SEC says lists Chris Dudley's biography and that's it. No duties, no detail. He's not a controlling partner. The ADV goes into some detail what Graves and Crawford do. But for Dudley, it's just a biography.

And I would contend, that's all he is in his job and that's all he is in politics. A biography. A story. A hand-shaker. Someone to bring clients in, or bring donors in. The thinking is, where the money goes, the voters will follow. Where is the evidence that Chris Dudley has created a single job? Where is the evidence that he's even created any wealth?!

As for negative ads, Dudley's expensive campaign ads have already gone negative on Kitzhaber in spite of Kitzhaber wanting to take the high road. In Dudley's recent ad, he blames Kitzhaber for poor job creation in Oregon during the recession in 2001 after we were attacked on 9/11 and when the whole country was in recession. He neglects to say that the Republican Legislature at the time also shares the blame if there is any blame to give. He neglects to say that the Oregon Progress Board set goals for itself and basically gave itself the F grade as depicted in the ad. It's disingenuous crap and half-truths. If Kitzhaber doesn't have the money right now to put out something positive in defense of this BS, then I have concerns that this will never be an even race, which I believe most Oregonians believe in.

So John Kitzhaber may have shut off the DGA, but this humble husband and wife team will keep on chipping away at the facade that is Chris Dudley, "economy fixer and job creator" until we see evidence that he can do either.

Your Humble Blogger
~bujeeboo

The Tax Foundation

this publication represents a big problem for the Oregon GOP candidates, why? cause it pretty much exposes everything they've been telling you about taxes and democrats as lies. Please note that during 1979-1987 Oregon was under GOP rule. 1987-current, Dems. Note the improvement in Oregon's rank under Dems and the fall under GOP. Then ask them why is that?

On a side note: Did you know that over the last decade Oregon spending as a percent of GDP has gone down?

Question Dudley

The next time you see Chris Dudley ask a few simple questions.

1.) if you suggest taxes are the cause of Oregon/US recession why is it that Oregon currently has the 14th best business tax climate in the country yet jobs aren't here?

2.) If you suggest that Dems had a "failure of leadership" why is it that under Vic Atiyeh Oregon went from 6th highest tax burden to 3rd and under dems it went from 3rd to 26th?

3.) If reducing taxes is what creates jobs, how many jobs were created by the Bush tax cuts?

4.) If Democrats are "tax and spend" please explain question 2

5.) If GOP is fiscally responsible, please tell me how much GOP cut federal discretionary spending when they owned executive and legislative branches of government.

After he stumbles through those questions. Ask him to name a company that left Oregon when their minimum corp tax was "increased 1500%!" from $10 to $150.

Remember that debate, no... family vacation? Errr... couple hours of RGA work?

UPDATE: Further investigation on ORESTAR reveals that Chris Dudley was also reimbursed for one plane ticket on United to Aspen. (Ironically, my husband took the exact same United flight the week following Dudley's trip and it cost EXACTLY the same.)

Given that Dudley was so adamant that the trip was a family vacation, and that he told Lars Larson that he did "a couple hours of work", should the campaign be paying for this trip at all? Even if these charges were for a staffer, that's quite a hefty hotel charge. Also, whoever bought the plane ticket got an upgrade. Must be nice working for the Dudley Campaign.














A real-time charge for a United upgrade:














Frequent Flyers: Please feel free to corroborate or refute. These charges EXACTLY match my husband's who took that same flight (with upgrade) the following week.


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Weirdness surrounds the Chris Dudley family vacation back in July.

Recap: Dudley begged out of the ONPA debate because he had a pre-scheduled family vacation.

"Chris made a commitment to his family and he's going to uphold that commitment," said campaign spokesman Leroy Coleman.

Then it was revealed that he was caught in a lie when the Republican Governor's Association tweeted that they had spent a "productive couple of days" with Dudley. Those tweets were promptly removed so as not to implicate The Tall One in a lie. Too late! The Dudley Camp is then in the awkward position of having to explain that vacation/RGA meeting overlap (from Mapes' column):

Dudley's spokesman, LeRoy Coleman, said Dudley had long before blocked out a period of Wednesday through Saturday for a vacation in Aspen with his family. He chose that location in part because of the GOP meeting, Coleman said.

So imagine our surprise while sipping coffee in bed on a fine Saturday morning and scanning Dudley's campaign expenditures when we ran across this (click to enlarge):















Yup, that would be the hotel charge for the 2010 Dudley Family Summer Vacation Extravaganza and Debate Dodge. And it's a reimbursement. It's not illegal. At least, I don't think it is. But to be sure, we've written the Secretary of State and inquired.

However, it still eludes to an Honesty Problem and a problem if you happened to have donated to his campaign. You might have purchased a family vacation at a luxury hotel in Aspen for a family that can afford to buy its own vacation or even its own house in Aspen. I think it warrants an explanation because controversy has been surrounding this event from the git-go.

Gosh... A free vacation in Aspen in July sounds wonderful.

What part of tax deductable don't you get?

Idiots piss me off, the assumption that tax cuts to the rich trickle down to the rest of us is assinine.

Let me ask a simple question to Dudley supporters.

How many jobs did the tax cuts to the rich create under Bush?

Or how much of a budget surplus was created by those tax cuts? 

Over the past 30 years unemployment skyrocketed under GOP presidents and dropped dramatically under Dems. It is indisputable. But since when did facts actually matter?

I've created 3 businesses: 1 event consulting that I merged into my 2nd business (graphic design and media production) which I sold, and started a new similar business which is doing quite well. When taxes are very low I pull money out of my business & I bank it. I don't re-invest it & I don't hire new employees. 

Under Bush corps have stashed HUGE amounts of cash. They aren't hiring. In fact many are buying new businesses to drive growth (as opposed to growing their own business and hiring new employees) and as a result they lay off employees. don't believe me... look at unemployment stats from 2006-10.

BREAKING NEWS: employees are tax deductable. yes, it's really that simple.

All thinking people understand that there is a cause and effect between what is happening nationally and what happens in Oregon. The rest vote for the tall guy.

Daddy, please tell me again how the GOP are deficit hawks?

Seriously, do facts matter anymore? If you think Dudley is out to protect Oregonians, think again. He's GOP, what else do you need to know.

This chart shows deficit spending as a percent of GDP note the trends in the past 30 years. Curously Obama is driving HUGE deficits, you hear that meme all the time from the right. The part that they leave out? $1.2T of the debt generated under Obama was handed to him by Bush, and much of the other deficit spending is the result of several things:

1.) an economy left in ruins by the GOP

2.) wars started under Bush

3.) wall street bank bailouts under the Bush

Nope facts, don't matter, right Chris Dudley?

George Carlin -"Who Really Controls America"

It's really rather frightening how true this is:



Remember this when Chris Dudley and other CORPORATE PUPPETS come knocking on your Statehouse door.