Over at Publicola, Josh says “it’s looking likelier that Seattle City Council Member Tim Burgess is going to run against Mayor Greg Nickels,” an assertion supported, I suppose, by Burgess’ official exploratory committee filing.
Huh. Hard to believe, considering that in my personal experience, when a politician or his office says he is not a candidate (or is not being appointed to some plum position in the Obama administration), his word is as good as gold… and just a couple weeks ago on our podcast, Burgess insisted he most definitely was not running for mayor:
[audio:http://horsesass.org/wp-content/uploads/timburgess.mp3]Of course, that was February 10, whereas Burgess didn’t file for his exploratory committee until February 20th. I guess a lot can change in ten days.
When I ran into Tim on a Metro bus a couple of days after your podcast, he laughed about a mayoral run and said that he was still learning how to be a Councilmember. He also mentioned that he’d probably said some things that he really shouldn’t have.
Then again, when I wondered whether anyone of substance would run for mayor, he couldn’t come up with a name.
zomg, a politician lied to a media person. who could have predicted?
Nickels has been a Disaster.
You should welcome a run by Tim….or many others.
Anybody but Nickels.
I never liked Greg Nickles. But I would have voted fro him in a second before Mark Sidran.
It’s a politician’s prerogitive to change his or her mind!!!
@4 Mark Sidran just raised your electricity and natural gas bills by sucking up to Puget Sound Energy. And PSE’s CEO will collect a $20 million bonus for selling his company to foreign speculators.
Btw, did anyone see the comment I posted the other day about how public regulators allow privately owned utilities to collect hundreds of millions of dollars from ratepayers for taxes they never pay? That’s going on in Oregon; PacificCorp customers have been ripped off to the tune of $900 million. I wonder if it’s going on here?
I didn’t trust Sidran when he was Seattle City Attorney, and now that he’s chair of the state Utilities and Transportation Commission, I still don’t trust him.
We should be thanking you then! It would seem that after your podcast so many people must have heard that he was not running, but wished that he would. That they all reached out to Mr Burgess and in their encouragement, made him reconsider a bid for mayor.