“(Portland) is the 25th city of my tour and if you could see what I see you would know Bush is doomed!” best-selling author Michael Moore said to a crowd of about 10,000 supporters in Portland on Thursday night at the Memorial Coliseum.
Moore is on tour to promote his new book, “Dude, Where’s My Country?”
Portland State University’s continuing education department sponsored the event and local movie maker Gus Van Sant gave an introduction speech.
Moore opened with an explanation of his speech at the Oscars.
“It seemed like the right thing to do,” he said of the speech, adding that his house was vandalized several times afterward.
He discussed the growing strength of the liberal movement, calling them “the majority,” and said 60 percent of voters are either female or people of color.
“The majority of Americans are pro-choice, for affirmative action and pro-gun control” and support stronger environmental laws, he said.

Moore mocked the Democratic Party by calling them “The Pleather Party,” and he said that voters often have difficulty choosing between two parties that are so similar. He added that he believes America lacks a true representation of Congress.
“If 10 percent of the country is Green, then 10 percent of Congress should be Green,” he said to audience applause.
Not everything Moore said was greeted with such support, however.
“It was the Jesus jokes,” 29-year-old Portland resident and Moore supporter Olin James Longworth III said. “A lot of people don’t respond well to Christian jokes.”
Moore said he’s “a recovering Catholic” and read a passage from “Dude, Where’s My Country” that he claimed was written by God.
“Let’s get this straight, God don’t bless America, God don’t bless anyone, God’s got a tee time on the back nine and he doesn’t have time to be interrupted with all this patriotic mumbo jumbo, ‘Go bless yourselves, and quit using my name as justification for feeling superior to everyone else,’ you aren’t!” he read.
Moore said political commentators are angry and called them “dying dinosaurs.” To illustrate his point, he used his cell phone to place a live call to local conservative talk show host Lars Larson.
“Hey Lars! This is Michael Moore, and I’m at the Memorial Coliseum and we just wanted to hear what a dying dinosaur sounded like, could you tell us please?”
The call provoked an explosion of laughter, applause and bantering from the crowd.
The audience was composed of all ages.
“I liked seeing old people there tonight,” Longworth said. “I liked seeing them laugh.”
Portland resident Christine D’Esposito, 27, said “Michael Moore is a good symbol to the younger generation. He wears a baseball hat, a T-shirt … he keeps himself looking approachable.”
Moore ended the evening by telling people to get out and vote.
“We need to defeat PGE (Portland General Electric) here in November and we need a government watchdog so that this never happens again.”
He encouraged voters not to make a decision on presidential elections yet and to “push the candidates to do a better job.”
He told the audience to vote because “they have got the money on their side, and we’ve got the people.”