Thomas Lauderdale has a very high opinion of some people who don’t deserve it.

Most glaringly, Lauderdale can’t stop singing the praises of admitted child rapist Neil Goldschmidt, who, according to Lauderdale, “got people to be better than they were.” Well, Elizabeth Dunham, the woman Goldschmidt started raping repeatedly when she was a pubescent girl, didn’t get better, she got dead (a “circumstance” Lauderdale describes as “unfortunate.”)

Personally, I think serial child rape and a 30-year coverup kind of trump whatever fluffy civic bullshit Lauderdale might be talking about, but maybe that’s just me.

Then there’s Goldschmidt crony and former Metro president (and alleged stripper aficionado and ex of one of Neil Goldschmidt’s top 5 Oregonians) David Bragdon, whom Lauderdale ran into in New York and told “You need to come back and save the city, because it’s going down.”

And of course there’s Lauderdale himself, who thinks he’s the only one in the city with the right temperament to be mayor. “I just don’t see anybody else in the city that has that… even though I think that sounds weird as I say it. But I think that I do have the right temperament for it.”

Fortunately for the good people of Portland, he’s too busy with his own show (and doesn’t want to take a pay cut) to run the show at City Hall.

But wait… is this another instance of Neil poking his head up, testing the waters for a comeback? He was never convicted, but he admitted to behavior clearly defined by Oregon law as serial felony child rape, which would have landed him in the pokey and on the predatory sex offender registry had he been busted before the statute of limitations expired. So forget about it, Neil; crawl back into your hole.

And Thomas, stick to your day (night) job, and maybe find a different political hero to promote. (Prince Andrew, perhaps?)