Back in June, when I wrote that mayoral candidate Mike McGinn was having trouble securing endorsements from fellow environmentalists due to his reputation for not working and playing well with others, my post drew passionate rebuttals from McGinn and his supporters. And a few weeks back, when I reported that his fellow environmental leaders were, um, less than enthusiastic about McGinn’s surprising primary victory, I once again heard from McGinn faithful, accusing me of pulling this meme out of my ass.
“[T]he sentiment I heard from many of his fellow environmental leaders was more along the line of ‘oh well, I guess we kinda have to endorse him,’ rather than the outright enthusiasm one might have expected,” I wrote at the time. But, well, I’m man enough to admit my mistakes, for it looks like they didn’t really hafta endorse McGinn after all:
In an affront to environmental poster boy, Sierra Club leader and mayoral candidate Mike McGinn, the King County Conservation Voters have decided not to endorse either candidate in the mayor’s race.
Now, McGinn and his supporters can get all huffy if they want about the works and plays well with others meme, but when the region’s broadest coalition of environmental leaders just can’t bring itself to endorse one of their own — a man with unchallenged environmental credentials — it’s gotta say something about the many toes he’s stepped on (biked over?), if not his political style, doesn’t it?
I’m not saying I want a Mr. Nice Guy in the mayor’s office. It’s just always struck me as ironic that one of the big knocks against Mayor Nickels was his alleged unilateralism, and now we may be on the verge of electing a new mayor with the same bull in a china shop reputation.
Biked over? McGinn is one of those Bicycle Fascists? Good god, Mallahan, I mean Mallahan, for god’s sake … but what choice is there? We don’t need a Bicycle Fascist in the mayor’s office! We already have too many dead and injured rabbits run down in crosswalks by unlicensed and uninsured bikers.
That’s just bizarre. There’s many indications that Mallahan will be an anti-environmentalist mayor. What is their problem with McGinn, then? Or are they just sellouts?
Geez, Goldy, I thought you were tired of “The Seattle Way”. Haven’t you been on record at least half-heartedly praising Nickles and Ceis for their big-city “strong leadership” style?
And I thought the “big knock” against Nickels was mostly the perception by a few too many voters that he didn’t really give a shit about the little folks. He seemed to have plenty of gravitas when it came to “saving the waterfront” or pushing for Allentown, but couldn’t be bothered to pick up the phone about the boring stuff, like street maintenance.
Maybe it isn’t so much about style as about the circumstances where a leader chooses to project that style.
Frankly I think of WCV/KCCV as more of a green-washing organization than a real environmental group. While I don’t think the extreme approach of groups like Greenpeace is the way to go, I’m equally turned off by those who suck up businesses and politicians with lackluster environmental records in the name of attracting big donations and maintaining “access”. In return business and establishment politicians get a green fig leaf to put over doing things the way they always have.
KCCV = Rossi supporters
WCV/KCCV is all about access and influence, not the environment. Sad.
Before you read too much into the judgement of WCV/KCCV, remember, this was the group that gave Dino Rossi an environmental award even though his lifetime environmental voting record was about 12%.
Is it legal for Mayor Nickels to run a write-in campaign?
He would win.
KCCV are a long way from assuming the leadership role that McGinn is offering — and that scares them. The Conservation Voters, and many other well-funded environmental groups, tend to float initiatives when they sense that the coast is clear, when no one (save enviro-bashing Republicans) is likely to oppose them. They want to be liked, and they need to be liked because staff salaries depend on foundation dollars controlled by business leaders. In that way, they are like farmed bunnies, if well-intentioned ones.
McGinn, on the other hand, drew strength from the largely volunteer-driven Sierra Club when he led the fight against 2007’s Roads and Transit measure, which, of course, all other environmental groups were too fearful to stand in the way of.
Now McGinn is proposing environmental initiatives (such as local transit expansion instead of a downtown bypass highway) that neither they nor their business backers can control — and that’s just bad for business all around. I will give them some credit for not jumping in with the Mallahan Consortium, but their lack of support for McGinn is not surprising.
What will be surprising is if the general public cares what KCCV does, because they sure didn’t seem to care much what they had to say in support of Roads and Transit. The old power base is eroding, and last decade’s environmentalists are getting left behind by popular opinion.
Goldy,
As you say you write this column often and McGinn supporters always object. The reason I think you are off base is that you always frame the disagreement as the fault of McGinn and never consider that the mainstream environmental groups may be at least partially responsible for the split.
@6 Indeed – WCV is too busy playing well with so many others that any spine they may have had atrophied long ago.
Amen, kurisu. This sounds like sour grapes over the road/transit ballot issue.
Amen, kurisu. This sounds like sour grapes over the road/transit ballot issue.
@9 Farmed bunnies — ugh. There’s no substitute for wild rabbits.
This isn’t the only weird endorsement decision by the KCCV. They endorsed Jordon Royer – a lobbyist for the Pacific Merchants Shippers Association, a group that’s busy fighting environmental initiatives here and in California. And they endorsed Tom Albro, who is backed by all the same Port of Seattle insiders who supported Pat Davis and profit off of the Port’s foot-dragging-corporate-giveaway approach to environmental issues.
Just weird for an environmental group. I’ve no special access to sources, so I don’t know want is going on but it merits attention from those concerned about the direction of the local environmental movement.
King County Conservation Voters has also been silent about pollution at Seatac during the third runway construction.
Good for McGinn on having principles that make KCCV nervous.
@15
To be fair in spite of where Tom’s support is coming from he seems like a decent and OK guy. He impressed me with his knowledge of infrastructure issues and some of the deeper issues facing the Port as an organization.
If he wins I suspect many of his supporters won’t get what they think they are buying.
That said I’m voting for Max, but I don’t think Tom winning will be the end of the world.
Tom? Max?
I think that neither MIke is making a good show.
As a voter I am concerned with the structure of the City. We really do not have a strong mayor or a strong council. Nickles created his own office with support of the unions and business, then lost it because he never did succeed in neighborhood politics or in leading the council.
What I hear from and about McGinn makes me skeptical that he has the political skills to pull off his stated goals. Mallahan seemingly has no experience in urban politics but this may work out because he has a more modest budget.
The reason your comments are off base is you are channeling the “doesn’t play with others theme” instead of giving the real reason which is that KCCV is on board with the auto oriented tunnel. Like they didn’t oppose roads and transit, they are in line with the “powers that be” brand of environmentalism, which means be environmental as long as you build more roads too, and as long as you aren’t too radical about it.
There’s no need to default to “McGinn has personality problems” when obviously that’s the line the Nickels auto loving KCCV types are spouting, in their spineless compromising approach to activism.
And damn straight McGinn doesn’t play well with typical Seattle passive aggressivism…he says the schools suck and need to shape up… he said no to roads and transit….he said no to the establishment liberals on the timing of the parks levy…..he’s not a typical Seattle consensus nonleader so of COURSE he gets painted as dangerous “unable to work well with others” with is just Seattlese for “he has a spine.”
McGinn, McGinn, McGinn
Fight, Fight, Fight
watching the debate video at the Seatgle Times, that actually had some actual debate, I thought it was interesting how Malahan kind of pinned McGinn with a label as a guy that is just going to fight with the city council, county, legislature, and Governor, and McGinn kind of embraced it.
It is no big shock, SHOCK! That McGinn’s fans reflect a similar tack.
@20
I have to admit the whole scrappy “fighting Irish” thing is rather refreshing, especially to someone rather sick of “Seattle Nice”.
The problem is that he is proving his opponents point, therefore supporting the argument, that the greater issue about the tunnel is delay and fighting with all of those other groups would be costly and maybe not successful, so his style does not lend itself to McGinn actually getting solutions in a manor other than picking fights (right, or wrong).
Mallahan made a case for what leadership is, what it isn’t, and McGinn embraced through arguing his points that he would argue his points, the role Mallahan cast for him.
He lost the debate.
This election is all the more reason to go to Instant Runoff Voting.
@22
on the other hand Mallahan seems to prove himself clueless at almost every opportunity. No wonder his paid mouthpiece has to do most of his talking for him.
@22: It’s surprising that Mallahan spends more time (much more time) talking about the tunnel. If we tallied up talking points, we’d probably find that Mallahan is 90% tunnel and 10% fluff.
If McGinn had gotten the KCCV endorsement, his supporters would be all over it as further evidence of his credibility. But since he did not, then they say that KCCV is not a “real” environmental organization. See how that works?
bull in a china shop, canary in a coal mine, straw that broke the camel’s back, etc. what is the most animal-related, political hackneyed cliche? i used to feel refreshed reading you goldy, but you are sounding more and more like a real KIRO talk radio host.
mr. green eyeshade realist goldy … so mcginn isn’t some go along get along diaper shitter like the most of the highest paid Democratic
ha ha ha
‘leaders’ in this state?
of the 3 bubbles since Raygun won running against EVERYTHING but selfish pig headness for the selfish pigs at the top – hidden behind wonderful lies – WHAT exactly has happened of REAL benefit for the bottom 80 or 90% of the population?
nothing? fucking nothing?
and the opposing political class shits in their pants over the latest death panel horseshit, cuz the supposed ‘oppostiion’ is too incompetent to bury such a horseshit lie… YAWN…
and you are worried that McGinn is NOT another goddam dishrag? ha ha ha. you’ve been watching too many leave it to beaver reruns with your rummy buddy at the p.i.
rmm.
Yep. That McGinn is so popular.
http://publicola.net/?p=15352
@29 – Yes, he is that popular: http://seattletimes.nwsource.c.....own_h.html