The Seattle Times’ Danny Westneat calls insurance industry lobbyist cum CEO cum senate candidate Mike McGavick on a subtly divisive bit of campaign sloganeering:
The other day, McGavick was speechifying in Spokane when he tossed out this odd quip: “I like to say I was born in Seattle when you weren’t embarrassed to say you were from Seattle.”
To concisely paraphrase Westneat… “Huh?”
I was born and raised in Philadelphia, a city that — thanks to its second-best proximity to the nation’s economic and political capitals (not to mention the legendary W.C. Fields) — has become a national icon of civic self-deprecation. Thus, as a relative outsider I have always found the typical Seattleite’s profound sense of civic pride to border on boosterism. I’ve often quipped that the secret to Philadelphia being one of the nation’s most affordable and livable big cities, is that unlike Seattleites, Philly-natives aren’t constantly trying to convince out-of-towners to move there and ruin it. Philadelphia is indeed a great city, but shhhhhh… that’s our little secret.
Of course, Seattle is a great city too, and Westneat’s take rings true to a 15-year transplant like me.
No, Seattle is so lacking in things to be embarrassed about that, ironically, it’s created the most embarrassing thing about us