Portland, Oregon, hopes a print and broadcast advertising campaign will rehabilitate its reputation, which has been ruined by more than a year of terrorist arson, rioting, violence, and murder.
The message: Yeah, the city is “edgy.” But that’s what makes it an exciting place to be!
The city’s tourism bureau spent more than $100,000 this weekend on full-page ads in four daily newspapers, the Oregonian reported. It also created a hokey video that repeats the print version’s language with a montage of cuts that depicts city dwellers doing what they do.
Understandably, the video does not show Antifa terrorists attacking local police or federal facilities, or mention the Antifa terrorist — subsequently shot dead by police — who murdered a supporter of President Trump.
Nor did it mention that an entire police squad quit the force after prosecutors charged one of its members with assaulting a rioter.
The Text
To its credit, the print advertisement — in the Seattle Times, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and San Francisco Chronicle — opens with an admission that “some of what you’ve heard about Portland is true.”
“Some is not,” the ad continues, but “what matters most is that we’re true to ourselves.”
What that hipster aphorism means in the context of a city controlled by and under siege from leftist crackpots is a complete mystery, as is the rest of the ad:
There’s a river that cuts through the middle of our town. It divides the east and west. But it’s bridged — over and over again. Twelve times, to be specific. And that’s kind of a great metaphor for this city.
We’re a place of dualities that are never polarities. Two sides to the same coin that keeps landing right on its edge. Anything can happen. We like it this way.
This is the kind of place where new ideas are welcome — whether they’re creative, cutting-edge or curious at first glance. You can speak up here. You can be yourself here.
We have some of the loudest voices on the West Coast. And yes, passion pushes the volume all the way up. We’ve always been like this. We wouldn’t have it any other way.
We have faith in the future. We’re building it every day the only way we know how, by being Portland.
Come see for yourself.
Love,
Portland
Oddly, neither the print nor broadcast version of the ad mention anything a tourist might like to know about the city.
Visitors can see bridges closer to home. And most won’t want to see the bare, jiggling cellulite of the video’s naked swimmer, who runs across the sand into a river.
Fortuitously, the producers covered his ample buttocks with a computer-generated white placard that says “This-Is-Portland.” Actually, “this” is a nearly bald, middle-aged dude whom no one wants to see in the buff.
Anyway, nor will viewers care much about the video’s shots of a used book store, a man standing in front a shelves full of shoes, a morbidly obese, marginally-talented diva, or someone getting a “This-Is-Portland” tattoo.
The ad tacitly admits that Portland doesn’t offer much for a tourist to see.
Travel Portland, the city’s tourism agency, spent $101,525 the ads, the Oregonian reported.
CBS affiliate KOIN6 broke the story.
Riots and Murder
On the other hand, if death-defying action is your cup of tea, Portland’s the place to be.
Antifa terrorists have had the city under siege for two years. The terror outfit routinely attacks police and police buildings, and recently tried to trap Immigration and Customs Enforcement employees inside a building they attempted to set ablaze.
The attacks on ICE began in 2018.
One destination might be the spot where Antifa terrorist Michael Reinoehl murdered Trump supporter Aaron Danielson. The murderer fled the city, but police tracked him to a hideout two hours north of Portland in Lacey, Washington. Reinoehl refused to surrender; cops killed him during a major shootout.
Reinoehl, a military faker who said he was “100 percent Antifa all the way,” confessed to murdering Danielson.
