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

Chris Dudley's employment history

Chris Dudley became Vice President of M Financial Wealth Management in 2006. The "outsider" who is his "own man", would like you to think he's just like average Oregonians.














M Financial Wealth Management was featured in the October - November 2008 issue of the magazine "Private Wealth: Advising the Exceptionally Affluent". (I am guessing that isn't you, Gentle Reader.) This is a very exclusive class of people who are just itching to get their Number 1 free-thrower in the highest office in the state. These are not wealthy people who necessarily create jobs or stimulate the economy in times of recession. These are the ones who sit on their Golden Goose asses and hire firms like M to accelerate their wealth on paper. For many in this class, the only jobs created are the folks' at M.

Having connections in high places is important for a Governor. Chris Dudley is not like that other celebrity pol to our South, Arnold Schwarzenegger, who came into office politically isolated and largely remained politically isolated while running as a populist. No doubt, Chris Dudley intends to leverage his relationships with the "Exceptionally Affluent" to procure some promises for jobs. But he won't come out and say it (even when pressed) and it's the kind of back-door dealing the voters have come to hate, the promise of jobs not-with-standing. Not only that, but such deals have the potential to be dangerous especially when a political neophyte isn't a very strong communicator, which Dudley despite his overall "nice guy" persona, is not. But Dudley claiming to be "open" to offshore oil drilling and LNG pipelines means he's a typical Republican who is "open" to parceling out our natural resources to the highest bidder. That can mean jobs. And it could also result in opening the Oregon coast within 3 miles off shore to oil exploration.

For you and me, he has candy.

Dudley and another former M employee left in 2008 and started their own wealth management company called Filigree. You might recognize Gerald Graves, his business partner. He's one of the "testimonial" heads on Chris Dudley's commercial "Drive".

And lest you think, as I do, that the above is not adequate experience to run the state of Oregon, there's always this gem from Sports Illustrated:

"In the NBA you're working with 12 or 15 players of completely different backgrounds usually," Dudley said. "They're from all over the country working toward a common goal and that's winning a championship. That element of teamwork and working with others is something that translates well into politics."

The stakes have never been higher.