Mayor Nickels has conceded, and gracefully. (And no, he’s not all that fat; I just liked the pun.) More later.
UPDATE:
I’m back home now, after conveniently riding light rail back and forth to City Hall (you know, the light rail line Mayor Nickels staked his political capital on building), and while I’m waiting for some video to load, I thought I’d just add a few more observations.
As I initially wrote, Mayor Nickels’ concession was quite graceful, but it was also self-effacing, forthright, and at times both funny and touching. There’s no doubt a lot of of folks don’t much like the mayor—Tuesday’s election was a testament to his unpopularity—but had more voters seen this downright likable side to Nickels, I wonder if he would have been giving a concession speech this morning?
I for one thought this race would in the end come down to competence, and thus I never really believed Nickels would lose in the primary, as despite the incessant whining about snow removal and a few bad curbs, he’s proven to be a pretty damn competent mayor, with no hint of personal corruption. In terms of basic infrastructure—roads, rail, schools, fire stations, parks, play fields, etc.—Seattle is a better city than it was eight years ago, and so I guess I never really took seriously public discontent with the mayor himself.
I guess I should’ve known better.
Voters elect people, not issues, and apparently, not enough primary voters liked the mayor enough to get him through to the general. Perhaps if his campaign had done a better job of defining Nickels as a human being, the results might have been different. Or perhaps it was already too late.
Whatever.
I can think of a lot of reasons why one might want to kick out the mayor. I just come away thinking he was kicked out for the wrong reasons.
The demise of the Progressives!
If it can happen in The KLOWN Capital/Anal Canal of the Universe Seattle, it can happen anywhere…and certainly in America!!
Oink! Oink!!
Good riddance to the incompentent Cherubic Mayor with the curly-tail!
Very gracious and classy. Good on Greg. Best wishes to he and his family.
It is over…the mayor has sung.
@1: hahaha
You are so damn stupid, Klynical. Greg Nickels as a critical and key progressive…hardly. He was plenty cozy with the business interests in Seattle.
Nickels was burned by the lack of accountability and efficiency in his administration. Those are typical republican faults.
cnr–
Here is a left-leaning Washington Post/ABC poll just released by AP–
The Progressive Bowel Movement is tanking!
It has always been about the American people having TRUST. Obama has blown all that political capital in 7 months.
Americans are looking down the road now and asking the right questions about How in the Hell are we gonna pay for Obama’s reckless Deficit Spending/Massive Debt and sugar-coated Entitlements????
Obama has no plan to pay. He is structuring this stuff so the sh*t hits the fan after he is out of office!!
There is no free ride, despite O-blah-blah’s belief there is!
NutsTooTight
He surrounded himself with local and regional Dummocrapts. He was president of the U.S. Conference of Mayors. R U saying this “esteemed organization” would erect a fool with an “accountability and efficiency” problem? Why are inna cities crumbling? Those a Republican faults? What a hoot NutsTooTight!
His one achievement Puddy applauds was his Mayor’s Youth Council. All else was Dummocraptic Swill NutsTooTight! The populace got fed up with this Dummocrapt.
Puddy gonna visit Seattle this weekend and start a beach bonfire in his “remembrance”! Wanna join me?
Then NutsTooTight screams about bidness interests. If bidness left downtown Seattle, what would happen NutsTooTight? Think about all the WA State gnashing of teeth over the second 787 assembly line potentially being out of state!
Let’s see how the polls work after we pass health care reform with a public option over the dead bodies of the republicans.
Now that the President has taken a stand to pass the public option, the numbers will go up and the obstructionist, laissez faire, just say no republicans will be exposed as the liars and corrupt in-the pocket of the insurance industry lackeys that they are.
Dear Klynical: time for you to take your meds…I know that life is much more thrilling for a schizophrenic when not taking their meds…but being out of touch with reality really CAN be dangerous to you.
Puddy: What a fool
Republicans don’t believe in government…therefore they can’t run it. Look at the last example. GWB.
He screwed up virtually every part of the executive branch from Justice, to State, to the FDA, to the EPA. He ignored his own scientists, he manipulated the Justice dept., he ignored the reports from the EPA’s own scientists and on and on…not to mention creating a record deficit and ruining the economy.
Oh, and by the way the US conference of Mayors is all mayors, not a democratic conference. But an idiot like you would not know that, would you?
Just make sure there is a burn ban in effect when you start your “beach fire”.
Must be tough to be a republican in Washington:
city, democratic
county, democratic
Senate: two democrats
House: all democrats on this side except for the weasel Reichert
President: Democratic
House majority: democratic
Senate: democratic
The people have already chosen….and the wingnut republicans will lose by even larger margins as they go out onto the wingnut far right limbs.
Mr. Cynical,
LOL…has anyone ever told you that you are a really lousy propagandist?
The current ABC/WaPo poll you cite has Obama’s approval at 57%, disapproval at 40%, and 3% undecided.
(Update: The closest ABC/WaPo poll in the Chimp’s administration was from 9 September 2001, that had 55% approval and 41% disapproval, and 4% undecided. So Obama’s position at this point is just about where we should expect a new President to be.)
Obama has a LOOOOOOOOOOG way to fall before entering Chimpie’s territory (ABC/WaPo poll 11 Oct 2008, Approve 23%, Disapprove 73%).
@4
Not surprising, poll numbers tend to go down once you start delving into things. The lies and screaming from the howler monkey crowd probably knocked a few points off as well.
Remind me not to take Cyn’s numbers at face value. Even if they were true, they still wouldn’t be anything shocking.
@1
Hey dumbass, both McGinn and Mallahan are liberal and progressive. Oops … yep Seattle is going to continue to be run by a bunch of tofu-eating, birkinstock wearing, pot-smoking, commie pinko hippies.
@11
Good Point!
So long and good riddance Greggy!
@13
Why so excited, you’re not going to like the other choices any better.
It’s Bush’s fault.
Somebitch!
People vote for personalities. And they vote based on fear more than accomplishments.
Why do you think W got elected twice?
And why do you think McGinn’s anti-tunnel campaign ads get close to being Rovian?
@1 My GOD you’re dumb, even by Republican standards. Hey, you guys might ride up in the polls, because talking down to folks be being stupid generally gets you votes, but DAMN you’re dumb!
“The demise of the Progressives!”
Dude, the mayor lost because he wasn’t progressive ENOUGH!? Do you know ANYTHING at all about politics? God, this is a political blog and you don’t have the slightest idea how this works?! He didn’t lose to far right opponents, Nickels WAS the ‘pro-business’ guy. He lost to the ‘ride your bike to work’ crowd. End of progressives? Jesus you are incredibly dumb!
Just a thought. If you hate progressives so much, you might have less heart ache if you don’t live here. Why the heck are you living in one of the most liberal pro-gay states in the country? I “choose” not to live in Alabama. Why don’t you move to one of the big right wing big business states, like Mississippi, Tennessee, Alabama, you know…where all the corporate HQ and jobs are based. What? There are few HQs and jobs in Wyoming and Mississippi? Most the financial HQs are in liberal gay friendly New York? Fox News has it’s HQ in Jew/gay friendly New York? That’s odd….wonder why they don’t move to the “real America” in Wyoming, Iowa or Alaska. No one is stopping them. Free market.
CNN: “Stocks end week at their highest levels of 2009; Dow surges 152”
There you have it. Proof Obama’s socialism is destroying America. Can’t argue with raw numbers. 6 months after he started implementing actual policy (about a month after he took office) the stock market goes from 6,500 to 9,500. While Bush managed to take it down from 14,500 to 6,500. So that’s clear. Or somehow the DROP of the DOW under Bush was the Democrats fault, and the raise under Obama is because of Republicans. Er…or something. LOL.
2nd Reality check! Gay marriage continues to destroy ‘real’ marriage! Except the state that’s had gay marriage the longest has the nations lowest (straight) divorce rate. The highest divorce rates are “no gay marriage” conservative Arkansas and Alabama.
Once again. Reality is not the friend of Republicans. Evolution isn’t real. The earth is 6,000 years old. Man rode dinosaurs to work. The moon landing didn’t happen. The liberals are coming in black helicopters to steal your guns and red meat. It WOULD be funny and just cute if there weren’t enough dumb folks to actually vote for this kind of stuff.
That was: “…because talking down to folks and being stupid…”
That’s MY bad typing. I’ll own it! Ironic huh!? :)
Had the Mayor shown some of that joviality and willingness to take blame that he did in his concession speech rather than pig-headedness over the past 8 yrs he might have won this election.
The Mayor was so pushy about the tunnel. He lost my vote right there – I don’t care about the snow storm at all.
We may end up missing his politics and leadership, but I sure won’t miss his style.
The demise of progressive politics in Seattle?
Mr. Cynical, you come across as a major league airhead most of the time, but this one takes the cake.
McGinn took progressive votes from Nickels the same way Nader deemed Al Gore “a tool of big oil.”
Heck, even Mr. T Mobile ran to the left to get votes, touting his Democratic and lefty support http://www.joemallahan.com/About/Endorsements
Seriously, Mr. Cynical, can you really be THAT stupid? Do you have ANY self-respect left?
Goldy,
I agree, if we’d seen the Greg Nickels we saw on the campaign trail back in 2001 he might have crushed his challengers.
Another mistake was allowing his aids and staff to isolate him both from front line city employees and the voting public. Back when Schell was mayor you used to see him all over town often with just a bodyguard with him. I’ve never seen Nickles out in public without a full entourage.
He should have also either fired Ceis a long time ago, or reigned him in some. Ceis was mostly responsible for Nickles’ “bully-boy” reputation.
17 – Mr. Cynical, once upon a time, lived in Queen Anne but for a number years now has resided in Montana.
Good riddance! Now if only he’d hammer Schweitzer voters where he lives instead of polluting the threads here.
You KLOWNS are mighty defensive.
Oh and Darryl…The Washington Post/ABC poll is historically left-leaning.
This is exactly what the recent poll said Darryl…you are implying it didn’t.
And from a left-leaning poll too!!
The popularity numbers are very, very weak.
They will drop as mistrust of Obama becomes the operative line du jour.
Enjoy the pummelling!
Mr. Cynical,
“You KLOWNS are mighty defensive.”
If by “defensive” you mean “totally demolishing your wingnut bullshit,” then I do agree.
“Oh and Darryl…The Washington Post/ABC poll is historically left-leaning.”
Feel free to cite a source. This statistical analysis pegs ABC/WaPo as overestimating Bush’s approval by, on average, 2.9%. By contrast, the same analysis only shows Fox biased 1.7% upward. In other words, ABC/WaPo was 1.2% more favorable to Bush than Fox!
“This is exactly what the recent poll said”
Please cite. Oh…and don’t bother linking to an analysis of election polls. There are plenty of analyses of approval polls for you to chase down.
“Darryl…you are implying it didn’t.”
I didn’t imply either way. I used the same fucking poll you used, dumbass!
“And from a left-leaning poll too!!”
If by “left-leaning” you mean “slightly right-leaning”, then we agree.
“The popularity numbers are very, very weak.
They will drop as mistrust of Obama becomes the operative line du jour.”
LOL! The ABC/WaPo poll has Obama’s approval at 57%, disapproval at 40%. And that is even better than Shrub was pulling at this same point in his first term. With a poll biased slightly in Bush’s favor!
Aren’t there wingnut books you can read on how to propagandize, or something? ‘Cause, man, you SUCK at it!
@25: Klynical never met a poll he could not manipulate or spin to his way of thinking.
Klynical is easy to spot…this was the same fool who kept exclaiming that global warming was not real because it was cold in winter.
He also was going on and on about how Obama was ruining the economy because the stock market was down.
Now that it is summer the market is up…he focuses on polls and other distractions.
Klynical has a very limited ability to actually analyze data and come to a legitimate conclusion from that data.
@21: To answer your questions about Klynical:
No, she has no self-respect and she is that stupid.
Goldy — Apparently, you come away thinking just the way you came in thinking, only with a lower opinion of your fellow citizens.
Not unusual by any means … but perhaps not the best use of the intervening experience, especially for a political essayist.
Good riddance to the knucklehead. His type of arrogance and contempt for the people of Seattle will no longer be tolerated by us progressives and civil rights activists as we move forward in rebuilding our once-great city.
Oh what a happy day!