As promised, here are some groups that have endorsed for the primary.
– The Stranger has their endorsements. Other newspapers have their endorsements, but I don’t really care. I mean on the one hand, it seems to be the only time The Seattle Times notices downticket or suburban races, and I’d like to encourage that. On the other hand, do I really think people who normally can’t be bothered to figure out about downticket or suburban races should tell people how to vote in those races? No, not really. I also don’t know what other newspapers are behind soft paywalls and I don’t want to waste y’all’s or my limited hits.
– NARAL Pro Choice Washington and Planned Parenthood Votes Northwest have endorsements to let you know who will be most pro reproductive rights.
– The Cascade Chapter of the Sierra Club has endorsements in only a few races, and as far as I can tell, Washington Conservation Voters has only endorsed in the Mayor’s race if the environment is your issue, and you literally only live in Seattle [via Willisreed in the comments, WCV has endorsed in multiple races].
– Individual unions have also endorsed in the mayor’s race, but I can’t find anything downticket or for the rest of the state on any of their sites. And there isn’t a more general labor friendly voting guide or scorecard as far as I can find.
– The Downtown Seattle Association put out a scorecard in the mayor’s race. My instinct is that they’re wrong about everything, so pretend that unfilled in circles are good (except the transit half of the transportation one, that I can’t figure out how they separate for people who got half).
– And finally and least importantly, the only individual in this list: I’m endorsing Kate Martin for mayor. She was the only candidate to turn in answers to the candidate questions, in essence the others were saying “I’m terrified of a few open ended questions that I can answer in writing at my leisure. I’m too lazy to even just give it to an intern, and that’s probably indicative of how I’ll govern if elected mayor.” Other candidates can feel free to answer, but I’m assuming they won’t since the ballots have already dropped and the questions were sent out quite some time ago.
If you think some other group’s endorsements are important, please leave them in the comments.
WCV has endorsed in a ton of races. You can find their full list here: http://wcvoters.org/campaigns-.....dorsements
@1,
Thanks.
Carl, with all respect and in fondness: no.
I’ve been consulting with Joey Gray’s campaign, and – speaking strictly for myself, not her or her campaign – there’s all sorts of false premises in the above statement. And you probably know it.
For starters, no candidate in the mayor’s race – with the exception of Doug McQuaid, who has only shown up to two events thus far this year – can fairly be called “lazy” – even Mary Martin, the SWP candidate who cares far more about getting her platform out than getting elected to anything, has worked her butt off. None of them have any leisure – in any serious political campaign, the candidate’s time – and his or her need to eat and sleep – is always the biggest bottleneck.
Similarly, nobody’s “terrified” of the HA questionnaire. What they are is swamped. At a guess Joey’s campaign got about fifty questionnaires from different places, plus dozens of random questions from individuals. I’m sure campaigns that started earlier got lots more. (It’s also been eye-opening how many groups and media outlets have been specifically dismissive of women candidates this year, but that’s a rant for after the primary.)
Almost all of the ones we got had at least a few questions nobody else asked. In HA’s case, it was the “hindsight” John T. Williams question, though aspects of every question were a bit different than how others asked them. In any campaign where the candidate wants to answer the actual question rather than plugging in generic talking points for the issue, even if someone else is drafting the answers, the candidate has to edit and approve them. And at least five of the candidates, probably more, don’t have interns. What they all have is enormous demands on their time. For at least the underfunded campaigns, and probably for all of them, the resources available to respond to the community are far greater at City Hall – so failing to return your questionnaire in no way is an indicator of how they’d govern.
Good on Kate for replying to HA – I wish other candidates (including mine) had. And I like Kate a lot – she hasn’t gotten a fair shake in a lot of places, and she should have. But that the others didn’t respond isn’t a reflection of anything except a campaign choice around prioritizing finite resources.
@3,
I was being over the top. I thought I was doing two things with that. First joking about the place of HA in Seattle media. I thought bombast contrasted with “least importantly” in the same paragraph was funnier than just straight out saying that people aren’t responding to HA. I could have built that up more before making the switch, I suppose. Something like “at least it’ll earn her one vote (mine) and at most it’ll earn her… one vote.” Rereading it, I still think that it works, but, I can see how that came off more like the guy who asks out a woman and then says “well you’re ugly anyway” when they’re rejected than as goofing on myself/HA.
Part of why I’ve asked these questions in the past was to get a little more exposure to candidates and races that weren’t getting much attention. Obviously, that wasn’t the case with Seattle mayor this year. I’d asked the commenters when I first wrote this year’s if people wanted to ask questions of other races, and nobody did.
The other thing I was trying to do was a bit of satire more generally on media focus on the dynamics of campaigns instead of the issues and say that has any bearing on how people will govern. The sort of the “how can we expect so and so to be a good Senator when they mumble through their stump speech?” type coverage. That was what I was trying to do with “probably indicative of how I’ll govern if elected mayor.” But that wasn’t executed as well as I had hoped. Maybe something like “As CNN always reminds me” and putting it earlier would have been better.
@4 No worries – I know what your intent was. But one thing I’ve learned from writing over the years is that an awful lot of people are missing the satire gene and, in this case, wouldn’t get which parts of your post were hyperbole vs. straight commentary. You’d think anyone reading HA to begin with would be a cut above average in that regard, and many of the HA faithful are. And some…aren’t. :-)
My experience this year, working from the inside, with what’s left of local Seattle political media has been a serious eye-opener. But that’s a rant, or a series of them, for after I’m no longer working for a candidate!