Second Attempt to Recall Adams Fails

The second attempt to recall Sam Adams, Portland, Ore.'s gay mayor, has come up short -- supporters of the recall needed 32,183 signatures but were unable to reach that number before the deadline.

A rogue press release announcing the campaign's failure was distributed to the media,and included the following sentence: "The bottom line is we simply can not recall the first 'openly gay mayor' for lying, no matter how many gay men he had to bring down with him." Oddly, there were also links to punk songs within the e-mail.

The official recall campaign later sent out another release that included this message: "You may have received earlier today an unauthorized and inaccurate release sent by Jasun Wurster, which he also posted on the recall website. He substituted his release in place of the campaign official message."

The impetus for the recall effort was Adams's affair with a young man named Beau Breedlove, a relationship the mayor tried unsuccessfully to conceal.

Read the full story here.