Talk:Jim Torrey

AFD?

Should this article be deleted since it does not meet WP:BIO? Or is someone out there willing to make it meet notability? Aboutmovies 19:20, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

I'm not a good judge of his notability since I'm biased, but he's pretty notable around Eugene, of course. He's somewhat famous for saying that Eugene was the anarchist capital of the United States (rightly or wrongly) after the WTO protests. Not sure how widespread his notoriety though... Latr, Katr 00:51, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

The specifics from WP:BIO:

• Major local political figures who have received significant press coverage.
• Just being an elected local official does not guarantee notability.

So as mayor, that alone doesn't qualify. Now if there are some good WP:RS to show the "significant press coverage" then its fine. But its not worth my time with 100 old dead guys ;) to work on (though I am down to 12 OSC justices). If you want to save him, be my guest. That's why I tagged several people with the notability tag to see if anyone wanted to save the people before moving on to AFD. Aboutmovies 01:16, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

I consulted my brother, who just got jumped on for speedying a mayor of a slightly larger city, and he thinks Mr. Torrey is notable. And I just ran across this interesting item: http://dim.com/~randl/holm/anarch.htm from the LA Times that shows the polarizing effect he had on some members of the Eugene community. Alas, though I have been known to get articles about things I personally like deleted, and defend articles about things I don't agree with, I'm not gonna save the Torrey article. I don't think I could live with myself. That said, I believe enough sources could be found to bring this article up to par, if someone else is interested. Latr, Katr 01:33, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

I'd say he's plenty notable. Some anecdotal evidence, since I don't live in Eugene and haven't read about him in the paper...I did, however, do some canvassing for Vicki Walker, and paid close attention to the race. Here's what I heard; obviously some sources would need to be found to back this up. (1) Torrey was very popular as a non-partisan Mayor of Eugene, a Democratic stronghold. Nobody knew he was a Republican. (2) Torrey ran ads playing up his connections with Democrats - including President Clinton. (3) Clinton gave Walker a strong endorsement - very unusual in a state legislature campaign. (4) Walker came from behind, after being something like 20 points down in the polls, to win re-election. To my mind, all that makes Torrey very notable on a statewide scale. I'm sure there are other factors - I know nothing of his record as Mayor. But this was possibly the most contentious Oregon Senate campaign in 2006. I'd say Evans/Winters is the only one that comes close. -Pete 05:19, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Well, I run around in some pretty counterculture circles and even know a few of those infamous anarchists, and rest assured it was well known he was a republican. I can't speak for the average middle of the road Eugenian, but I find it surprising he was that successful in appearing neutral. Eugene is very polarized--until Piercy was elected, slightly more than half the populous would vote for a pro-business (non-partisan but you know a Republican) mayor and the rest of the town would grumble. It seemed there was actually a lot more grumbling about Torrey than about most of the previous pro-development mayors. I wasn't around for the senate race though. Anyway, that's getting off topic and obviously I'm a wacko lefty, but I thought I'd give you a Eugenian perspective. You want to save 'im Pete? Latr, Katr 06:08, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Now that the '06 election cycle is long gone, seems pretty clear to me that this guy is notable entirely outside the context of his Senate candidacy. I think we should save 'im. I'll put in a bit of work. -Pete (talk) 16:56, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

If you haven't discovered already, he's running for mayor against Piercy again, which is pretty unusual. Katr67 (talk) 19:42, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

Sources for Piercy

Yes, Torrey chose not to run for a third term. The ultimate contest for the non-partisan race in 2004 was between Piercy and now-State Legislator Nancy Nathanson. FYI. Katr67 (talk) 01:49, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Independent Party

The section claiming that Torrey would be the first elected member of the Independent Party is kind of meaningless, and may not be entirely accurate, as the office of mayor is nonpartisan in Eugene. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.194.16.150 (talk) 13:41, 28 October 2008 (UTC)