Chris Dudley should stick to not voting

When he does vote, it reveals his confusion.

OPB's "Think Out Loud" has been able to follow-up on Chris Dudley's claim that he voted for Obama. Here is his capriciously fickle response, paraphrased by Emily Harris:

"Dudley says he liked Obama's message about working across the aisle, but now says he is disappointed in how that's turned out. He cited the health insurance reform bill as an example. He also says he thinks the president has lost some of the well-tuned connection he had to public sentiment during the presidential campaign."

I will not add much to Harris' analysis (click the link above and read). It's spot on. But someone needs to remind Chris Dudley (or perhaps inform him for the first time) that President Obama actually ran on a slightly more "extreme" (from a Conservative's perspective) version of the Health Care Reform bill. Much to my and other Progressive's dismay, the President conceded much even before getting to the bargaining table with Senate Republicans. The Republicans sought and got over 300 amendments to the Health Care Reform bill which did not net the Democrats a single Republican vote when all was said and done. I am only left with one belief, and that is Chris Dudley is a complex mix of naivete, misinformation and lack of understanding of the political process. Dudley is an interesting political figure by now, but every week he seems to prove that he is not ready for the task of being Governor of this state with its complex problems. Think about it. He's never held office, so he doesnt have working knowledge of how to reach across the aisle and persuade people to vote for his ideas. In his eagerness to sound like he has a grasp of the issues, he's stepped in a mess with his minimum wage comments and has been trying for weeks to walk them back. As for his strange voting philosophy, you don't vote for someone because you "liked his message" about reaching across the aisle, while completely disregarding what Obama campaigned on, and then blame him when he did EXACTLY what he promised. If Chris Dudley had ANY real, meaningful experience in setting policy and seeking consensus, I'd feel a lot better about Chris Dudley as Governor of Oregon. As it is, at this point, I'm terrified.

More Honesty Problems

Next time you see the Chris Dudley ad "Deserve", you might pay closer attention to a certain Oregonian quote:














Of course Team Dudley didn't include the ENTIRE quote, the rest of which reads:

... and state government appeared powerless to help.

That would be the REPUBLICAN-controlled Legislature aka "State Government".

Just want to supply you with the TRUTH. When Dudley tries to tar Kitzhaber with "negative campaigning", he's at best obfuscating.

Tell me again how Chris Dudley is an outsider? He seems like just another politician to me.

Added by Bodiegroup:

I'd add to that that in every one of Dudley's attacks, pay careful attention to the dates of quotes or statistics and ask yourself why each one is post 9/11...

It appears that Dudley has a "PRE 9/11 mentality. Maybe you should ask him who was running the US when all of these horrible stats happened in Oregon and EVERY OTHER STATE in the nation.

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

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.

Is Dudley ducking ANOTHER debate?

This little nugget appeared tonight in the Eugene Register-Guard:

The two nominees for governor will speak to about 70 mayors from across Oregon at a conference Friday in Cottage Grove.

The candidates are scheduled to appear separately. Both will speak for a few minutes and then take questions from mayors in the audience.

Democrat John Kitzhaber is slated to appear at 11:15 a.m. Republican Chris Dudley is scheduled to speak at 2:40 p.m. The Oregon Mayors Association conference is being held at Village Green Resort.

The Democratic Party of Oregon is calling it a debate and flatly states Dudley is ducking it:

Dudley Dodges another Debate - Mayors Edition

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

PORTLAND, Oregon (July 27, 2010) -

Chris Dudley has already dodged a debate organized by Oregon newspapers - and now he is skipping a debate in front of Oregon's mayors.

This Friday, the Oregon Mayors Association was scheduled to host a gubernatorial debate. Democrat John Kitzhaber accepted the invitation outright. Republican Chris Dudley declined - again. This time Dudley refused to show up to the debate, agreeing to show up after Kitzhaber had left the building.

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Can we get some media types on this? Either it's a debate or it isn't.

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.