Sizemore: The mystery revealed!

Oregon initiative process gamer and convicted racketeer Bill Sizemore is not having a good month.

The word was out last week that the right-wing sugar daddies who've kept Sizemore financially afloat for years are finally turning off the money tap.

Apparently, after the spectacle of Sizemore (and fellow right-wing initiative trust fund baby Kevin Mannix) going 0-for-7 at the polls last November, there are limits to what even a millionaire octogenarian sexual hypnotherapist and plethysmographer will continue to spend his money on.

Now the state Attorney General's office is pushing to have the penalties against him increased for using a tax-exempt charity to promote his political operations in 2003--a tax code no-no. And he's under investigation by the Secretary of State's office for variations on the same theme in the 2008 election cycle.

For many observers, it really is sort of a puzzle: Sizemore is so politically toxic that opponents have found that branding his initiatives with the Sizemore name is almost enough by itself to ensure their defeat.

Others, more cynical, don't find it puzzling at all: Sizemore has found a way--at least until now--to make a comfortable living authoring initiatives with no chance of passing but which serve to annoy and harass his political enemies. Nice work if you can get it, I suppose.

For myself, I don't completely discount the cynics' argument, but I think it's too clever by half. When you pull a tax scam while running a losing but high-profile initiative campaign, that's dumb. When you get caught, but do it again anyway (and lose again), that's dumber.

Ladies and gentlemen, we are proud to unveil the newest addition to the p3 Separated at Birth gallery: Failed dog groomer Harry Dunne and failed political operative Bill Sizemore.