Of course, Susan Hutchison lost big last night, as did Tim Eyman. And I suppose every candidate who didn’t come out on top probably feels that they lost big too. But I’d say the biggest loser last night was the Seattle Times editorial board, considering the woeful track record of its endorsed candidates within the city whose name the paper misappropriates.
In fact, you gotta wonder if a lot of Seattle voters don’t take a look at the Times’ top of the ticket endorsements, and just vote the opposite.
In contested countywide races, the Times bizarrely endorses Susan Hutchison, only to see Dow Constantine cruise to a double-digit victory. Meanwhile, Graham Albertini, the Times’ preferred candidate in the Assessor’s race, comes in a distant third. Ouch. And in Seattle races, the Times may actually soon challenge the folks at (u)SP for the title of Endorsement Kiss of Death.
Yeah, sure, the Times endorsed city council winners in Richard Conlin and Sally Bagshaw, but he ran unopposed, and nobody expected the Bagshaw vs. Bloom race to be close. The same cannot be said of the Rosencrantz/O’Brien race, where the former turned the Times prominent endorsement into a surprising 16-point deficit. And then there’s poor Jesse Israel, for whom a number of people told me they seriously considered voting, only to be turned off by her Times endorsement and her perceived run to the right. What some expected to be the upset of the evening turned into your run-of-the-mill 16-point win for incumbent Nick Licata.
And of course there’s the mayor’s race, where Joe Mallahan’s Times endorsed coronation appears to have been waylaid by Mike McGinn’s grassroots activism.
Compare that track record to, say, The Stranger’s candidate endorsements, which saw a clean sweep in the races above with the possible exception of King County Assessor, where Lloyd Hara currently leads their preferred Bob Rosenberger by a small but significant margin.
Considering which paper appears more in touch with the values of Seattle voters, perhaps the two publications should just swap mastheads?
The Stranger is one of our primary sources for endorsement. I’m consistently amazed at them; their tone is cheeky, snarky, f***k-you, but their endorsements show a lot of hard work, homework and real thought. I don’t always agree with them, but I always think really carefully when I evaluate their endorsements.
Too bad one can’t say the same for the Times.
Conlin ran unopposed? Will somebody break the news to David Ginsberg? Shame on you, Goldy.
A great screen shot would have been NBC’s “Biggest Loser” (on Tuesday nights) with the Susan Hutchison vote tally on the scroll…
ivan @2,
Really? Conlin had an opponent? You wouldn’t know it from the results.
(Originally, I wrote that both Conlin and Bagshaw ran unopposed, but Bloom at least managed to break 30%.)
@1 You nailed it. I appreciate that The Stranger and Slog are free, but I would gladly pay a subscription rate to read both.
As for the Suburban Times. Not even worthy of being used to wrap fish guts.
Yes, the Stranger actually puts some thought and work into their endorsements.
But the reason I voted for Constantine was the video you ran of Hutchinson lying about her political donations. Hearing her state that she had given to Democratic party candidates while the proof that she hadn’t rolled by was priceless.
Actually, the biggest loser yesterday was Tom Carr, but he’s always been in a league of his own in that category.
Honorable mention for Publicola too, who unbelievably ensorsed him. Even the Times got that one right (although it was likely because Carr once threatened to throw Seattle Times reporters in jail for not giving up sources).
Well, I wouldn’t think that an endorsement’s value is based upon how many people agree with it. It’s usually a value judgement by the publisher/editorial board, and they are entitled to their opinion (and to pay for the cost of printing/distrubuting it).
But then, we also are free to choose not to read their endorsements – or their paper, either.
The Stranger is “Seattle’s Only Newspaper.”
Goldy is right. For me, the Times endorsement is a taint on a candidate and can make a difference in cases where other information is difficult to find.
I think the biggest loser last night was lying sack of shit Kathi Lambert, who just fucking flat out made up the flood for ferry lie–Dow’s people never even considered getting her vote on it, they didn’t need it, didn’t want it and they didn’t think they could ever get it.(Same for Susan’s other little lapdog on the council Reagan spoiled little asshole Dunn.) And she was the one behind the scenes pushing the whole sexual harassment BS for the last month. So fuck you Kathi Lambert, you lost big and you’ve been exposed for the whore that you are. Next time you run we’re going to rip you to goddamn shreds. You piece of shit.
Annoyed with her, are we?
yes, good thesis. shows that people no longer trust seattle times and look beyond it to their friends and social networks and internet sources.
and actually the biggest loser ws tom carr. while he claimed this was due to some anti incumbent trend, there clearly wasn’t as incumbents conlin and licata won, nickels didn’t, dow moved up and hara moved up it looks like.
I think the biggest losers, and I repeat Loosersssss with pluralization, were gay people. How do we leave a civil rights issue/equal rights issue to a vote? We didn’t vote on whether there should be equality for Black people, or Jewish People, or Spanish People, or Mexican People (Immigrants! Immigrants that we should vote on whether they should be allowed into this country or sent back home to where they came from). Now for all those heterosexuals who voted in Maine on the side of Gay People, thanks but you didn’t seem to matter. You should have opposed ever putting this to a vote – you would have better served Gay People this way, then your vote.
Just think 53% opposed gay people from marrying, sot that means 47% approved of it. A difference of 6%, so 3% of the voters made the determination of an issue that effects only a minority of people. Is this fair? No.
So, thanks to the 53% of voters we now can say that all heterosexuals are bigots. Some more so than others, some still believe that Black People should be called Niggers, that Jews should be called Kikes or Hymies, that Mexicans and Peurto Ricans should be called Spics. But it is all heterosexuals that are the bigots for even allowing this to happen.
Now, this may seem a little off topic but I beg to differ, the losers last night were not people looking for a job or a place in goverment, the biggest losers were Gay People, that were let down by Heterosexual bigots….Now I respectful ask that this comment not be deleted. Thank You.
“Considering which paper appears more in touch with the values of Seattle voters, perhaps the two publications should just swap mastheads?”
The Stranger seems like the logical buyer for Frank Blethen’s $150 million Bothell printing plant after ST goes bellyup. Of course, Stranger won’t have to pay $150M for it …
At least the Times endorsed Pete Holmes. In fact, that race might be the only one where the Times endorsed the more left-leaning candidate! And in fairness, you should note that the Times got it right on 71 and 1033.
@15 “the Times got it right on 71 and 1033”
That’s strange. How did that happen? Maybe the opponents of R-71 and supportrs of I-1033 were too wackadoodle even for The Rightwing Times.
I preferred the Stranger’s recommendation and reasons for the recommendations, over that of the Times. I want better liberals running my government and the Times did not.
R-71 mobilized a lot of gay voters, many of whom are loyal Stranger readers and voted basically right in line with the Stranger’s endorsements.