Here at HA, where the motto is “politics as unusual,” we take pride in doing things a little differently, so this primary election season, rather than joining the parade of candidate endorsements, we’ve decided to march to the beat of different drummer and publish our list of unendorsements. (And when I say “we”, of course I mean “me.”)
While I think I know who I’m voting for in all the races, the choice sometimes involves splitting hairs, but there’s little question of whom I’m not voting for. So here is a list of candidates near the top of the ballot for whom I definitely won’t be filling in the box… HA’s first annual Candidate Unendorsements:
KING COUNTY EXECUTIVE
Thank God for Susan Hutchison. Had this race merely been a battle between the four D’s—all of whom I like, and all of whom are qualified, if in different ways—my unendorsement might have come down to something petty and personal like temperament or height or legislative voting record, but Hutchison is what we call a bright-line distinction. Unqualified, out of touch and arrogantly unopen about her stance on nearly every issue, Hutchison is the clear unchoice in this field of otherwise experienced, if unexciting public servants.
SEATTLE MAYOR
I suppose I could unendorse James Donaldson for his bizarrely inept campaign (and his ineptly bizarre campaign manager), or maybe Jan Drago for her uninspiring calls to bring old blood into the mayor’s office. And of course, it’s awfully tempting to unendorse Mike McGinn, if only to provoke his inch-wide/mile-deep base into a passionate, bike-crazed fury. But something just sticks in my craw about T-Mobile exec Joe Mallahan, a man whose candidacy would be taken only slight more seriously than Norman Sigler’s, if not for the $200,000 he sank into his own campaign. I understand he’s a nice guy and a successful businessman, but I’m not all that sure how that has anything to do with being mayor. And listening to Mallahan on the trail, apparently neither is he.
SEATTLE CITY ATTORNEY
It’s one of those low profile races folks tend not to pay much attention to, and quite frankly, neither had I, despite challenger Pete Holmes’ earnest outreach. But when incumbent Tom Carr started publicly challenging Holmes’ legal qualifications for office, weeks after the deadline for filing a legal challenge had passed, he earned both my ire and my uncoveted unendorsement. Pushing a homegrown version of the birther controversy, Carr insists that Holmes six years providing legal council to the OPA Review Board doesn’t actually count as practicing law, which, assuming he believes what he says, either makes him a crappy lawyer for missing the deadline to file a challenge, or a crappy lawyer for not understanding the law. Or, he doesn’t actually believe what says. You get the point.
REFERENDUM 1 – PLASTIC BAG FEE
Honestly, I’ve always been a little conflicted about the bag fee. On the one hand there’s plenty of environmental justification for limiting the use (and thus waste) of plastic bags, and this is exactly the kind of issue on which Seattle is able to provide national leadership. On the other hand, I reuse my bags, particularly the paper ones, which, double-bagged and lined with newsprint have become an integral part of my efforts to comply with Seattle’s strict food waste recycling mandates. (I just dump the whole, compostable bag into my yard/food waste bin. No clean up, no mess.) But in a display of political douchebaggery, the plastic bag industry has dumped $1.3 million into a cynical, astroturfed “No” campaign, more than earning my unendorsement, and a big, fat “Yes” vote. Hmm. Maybe next year we should put a douchebag fee on the ballot… that’ll really cost the American Chemical Council some money.
Coming up, the Seattle City Council unendorsements… that is, assuming I ever get around to it.
What is this, telling people who you aren’t voting for?
Why, did the ones you are voting for asked you not to mention it?
Or maybe if you don’t say it can’t be used against you in the future.
I hope there’s a better explanation, those make you look cowardly.
Goldy, I already know not to vote for these clowns. It’s whom TO vote for that has me stymied, at least for a couple of the down-ballot races. Multiple endorsements from Aaron Ostrom/FUSE sure didn’t help. Your positive endorsements might help me (OK, ever so slightly). We can see these…when?
“I understand he’s a nice guy and a successful businessman, but I’m not all that sure how that has anything to do with being mayor.”
For someone who runs a political blog, it amazes me that Goldy doesn’t understand the basic notion of our form of government service, which is founded on the believe citizens should take a leave from their jobs and lives, and lend their experience government, and then one day return to private life.
I wholeheartedly second the unendorsement of Susan Hutchison, possibly the most unqualified person to run for public office since Sarah Bailin’. But I may unendorse Dow Constantine as well, for his support of taxing homeowners to pay for the county’s foot ferries — the most cockamamie idea to come down the pike since the voters of this region decided to pay 10 times as much for light rail as anyone else ever did.
As for plastic bags, I urge you to vote with your brain instead of your gut, Goldy. Visceral voting too often turns out badly, just look at our wingnut friends as a (repeated) example. First of all, carrot works better than stick, and the 5-cent credit that QFC gives shoppers for reusable grocery bags has a lot of customers using reusable grocery bags in the checkout lines I’ve been in lately. Second, plastic bags aren’t all bad, in fact they’re indispensable for certain leaky grocery items that otherwise would create a godawful mess in your vehicle, on your clothing, on your kitchen counter, and generally all over the place. I want my plastic bags! — for this stuff. I think we can substantially reduce, if not all but eliminate, unnecessary plastic bags going to landfills with the positive inducments in place. So, set aside your gut reaction to the odious chemical industry lobby, and cast a vote based on common sense. I’m a big fat “no” vote on plastic bags.
Why is it the Seattle city attorney’s office perpetually attracts ringers? Such as Mark Sidran, who in his recent incarnation as chair of the state utilities commission, cast the deciding votes to allow a foreign hedge fund buy Puget Sound Energy (thereby giving PSE’s CEO a multimillion-dollar bonus for selling the company out from under its shareholders, many of whom are retirees who depended on the formerly dependable dividend payments) and give PSE a 9% natural gas rate increase at a time when wholesale rates for natural gas have fallen by half since last summer? Why, of why, does the city attorney’s office attract such scumbag politicians who dedicate themselves to working against the public interest and screwing the little guys? Maybe the real issue here is not which cretin we should unelect from that office, but whether the office itself needs restructuring?
@3 What a total, unmitigated, load of pig crap! This is exactly how we got into the godawful mess we’re in — because of thinking like this.
How many more times do we have to live through mismanagement disasters in order to continue repetitively discrediting the bogus conservative argument that success in business qualifies someone to run a government?
It is equally logical to argue that a successful career as a government bureaucrat qualifies a person to run a business — a thesis I do not endorse.
Or, you could argue, using the same justification, that good barbers should be allowed to perform brain surgery, or successful football players should be allowed to fly jetliners.
It makes about as much sense, to wit, none.
I agree about Mallahan, he doesn’t seem to get ‘it’. I feel it would make more sense if he had even a little experience working in the Seattle community, but he’s never been involved…that makes me question him wanting to run it!
@5
The Founding Father’s notion of government service was that citizens would take leave from their jobs, lend their experience to government, then one day return to private life.
The Founding Fathers wouldn’t have a problem with Joe Mallahan’s qualifications to serve as mayor.
I would imagine, then, after reading Goldy’s, “I understand he’s a nice guy and a successful businessman, but I’m not all that sure how that has anything to do with being mayor,” that he wouldn’t think being a comedian and author has a whole hell of a lot to do with being a Senator.
@7 Who authorized you to speak for the Founding Fathers? Speak for yourself and leave it at that, jackass.
@8 Being a comedian and author doesn’t qualify a person to be a U.S. Senator, although Al Franken’s longstanding serious involvement in public policy issues and strong desire to make this a better country for its ordinary citizens arguably is all the qualification a Senator needs, and I for one wish to God more Senators would bring to the Senate what he brings. In any case, whatever your personal views on SENATOR Franken’s qualifications for the Senate, the good voters of Minnesota decided, for whatever reason, that he’s a better alternative than what they had. Deal with it. If you can’t deal with it, shoot yourself.*
* Just kidding! Wingnut joke. See, Ann Coulter is a comedian and author, too.
The Founding Fathers didn’t admit Washington to the Union, write the state Constitution, or incorporate the City of Seattle. Their opinions of what makes a good and effective politician, whatever they may have been, are appropriate to 13 agrarian colonies of 1776, not necessarily to Pacific Rim trade and 2009.
@11 Not to mention that Troll hardly speaks for the Founding Fathers. He doesn’t speak for anyone except his own asshole.
hey idiot troll–
the founding fathers provided for lifetime appointment of judges.
the founding fathers wrote lots of qualifications for other offices but didn’t put term limits in.
they didn’t provide for due dates and cut offs and limited sessions of the legislature
they didn’t provide that senators or congressmen don’t get paid.
they didn’t provide for initiatives either.
they had lots of experience with english model of pm’s being elected time and time again
and serving their whole life.
so you’re full of it as usual.
Is ANYBODY concerned that NOBODY wants these jobs?
WADR, none of the candidates, with the exception of the incumbent Mayor, seems to actually have a reason for running other than appeasing their own ego.
Seriously folks, Seattle DOES have real issues. Here would be the SJ choices of ISSUES:
of the SLUM the LUMP the MMM the schools and more
a. the schools as a tax burden. How is it that we are building housing for some 100,000 folks downtown BUT doing so in way that assures no kids will live there?
Downtown is being built by an aging,very rich man with little evidence of personal taste and, of course, no children and no interest in the PUBLIC schools.
Seattle’s ruling classes send their kids to privates schools (or move out of the city). That leaves the Seattle Schools as more of a tax burden than an asset. I believe we are the only city competing for high tech without a major charter/magnet school? Where is Seattle’s version of Bronx Science or Boston Latin?
The argument that the schools are not the mayor’s business is inane. Past mayors showed that the city DOES have a role in pushing great schools.
b. neighborhoods Does this mayor represent anyone other than downtown?
c. SLU Am I the only person in Seattle skeptical that SLU is in danger of becoming the South Lake Union Mess?
The housing going up is ticky tacky, the most obvious feature of the entire project is the absence of park space, shopping streets, boulevards, or recreational facilities .. i.e. the amenities that make for great city neighborhoods. Here is a hint: SLU is not growing into Manhattan West as long as there are no shopping streets, no parks, no libraries, … anything but poorly built high rises obstructing each other’s views.
As for the Lake Union Mini Park (LUMP)… has anyone in Seattle been to our neighboring cities… San Francisco, Portland, Vancouver .. to0 see how a waterfront can function. The LUMP is going to be tiny, MOHAI is a trivial museum for the3 site, loss of the Winona is tragic.
c. The Mercer Mess nuff said.
The stupidest part of this is that anyone who visits our neighboring cities .. even Bremerton, comes away realizing how badly Seattle is being planned.
Almost the same sort of issues can be raised in regard to the County.
a. The Port. Do we need a separate elected board rather than professional management?
b. Lake Washington. What a great and under served resource! Do we want to keep building bridges over it? Why not a trail system (as proposed by Sims). Under WAState law waterfront access must be provided.
c. Time Limits on the County. Does KC really need so much government or should we just incorporate what is left and shrink the County to managing “metro” issues?
d. County Share of State Resources … If the Cities in KC worked together,m wouldn’t we deserve3 and get more state resources?
e. KC as a highway. No one seems to question the idea that we should turn KC into the NJ through way, that is expanding I99, I5, I 405 until we pave everything so that the driving is good between BC and Portland.
Cross Posted at SJ