Goldy

While Josh muses on the more obvious narrative of Republican Susan Hutchison’s visit to the 43rd LD Dems’ annual picnic, you know, the strategery of her showing up, I think there’s a more interesting story to be drawn from Saturday’s event, and one that comments more broadly on the cultural divide that currently separates our nation’s two major parties:  the relatively cordial manner in which Hutchison was received.

As far as I’ve heard, nobody shouted Hutchison down, accusing her of being a Nazi or a communist (or oddly, both). Nobody vandalized her car, or attempted to intimidate her by showing off their firearms. And nobody angrily yelled at her to stay away from their children.

Hutchison was accompanied by a couple of burly, t-shirted aides, but she certainly didn’t need any bodyguards, if that’s what she was thinking.  No, this gathering of very partisan Dems greeted her politely, quietly milled about as she gave her stump speech, and then chatted her up for about an hour.

And that’s not the exception that proves the rule. Ask any of the number of Republicans and even the few righty trolls who have accepted our open invitation to show up at Drinking Liberally, and they’ll attest to their friendly reception. (I mean, it’s so easy beating your guys’ rhetorical ass, why would we ever feel the need to threaten to beat your physical one?)

What we see in comparing Hutchison’s uneventful visit to a Democratic picnic versus the hostile and intentionally intimidating Republican crowds who have recently taken to storming town hall meetings, is not just a contrast in style, but a contrast in political culture. Democrats in general, and as a whole, really are more democratic, while the anti-government reactionaries who now seem to comprise the base of the Republican Party have long since forgotten the true meaning of the word they use as a party label.

It may have been savvy of Hutchison to show up at a Democratic picnic, though I doubt she earned herself any votes, but it certainly wasn’t gutsy. I can’t help but feel the opposite would be true if Dow Constantine were to make a similar surprise foray onto partisan Republican turf.

One of the big differences between bloggers like me and so-called real journalists like those at the Seattle Times, is that I tend to mix in generous amounts of editorializing with my reporting, whereas the dailies maintain a strict wall between editorial and news. Or so I’ve been told…

Dear Seattle voters: That must have felt good.

You finally took out your long-simmering resentment of Mayor Greg Nickels by shoving him aside in last week’s primary.

Yup, as far as news ledes go, you can’t get much more objective than that.

What Danny said, and more…

A rap on Mayor Greg Nickels was that he was a strongman. He supposedly made decisions without taking the full advice of the public or City Council. Many citizens felt, therefore, that he was arrogant.

We say we want leadership… we like to whine about not getting it from our elected officials… but the truth is, we hate leadership, for as soon as a politician attempts to actually use political power and exert it, we attack him or her for being arrogant.

Take the Viaduct for example, perhaps the classic textbook illustration of the political cluster fuck we quaintly refer to as “the Seattle Way.” It’s been eight years since the Viaduct was nearly dismantled by the relatively mild Nisqually quake… eight years of watching it topple over, slow motion, onto the waterfront as its western supports gradually sink into the muck at a steady rate of a fraction of an inch a year. Eight years of knowing that we are one inevitable shake away from, depending on the time of day, perhaps the greatest man-made disaster in our region’s history.

And we could be on the verge of electing a mayor with workable plan to stop the plan to replace the Viaduct, but with no real plan to build political consensus for an acceptable alternative. I oppose the Big Bore too, and hell, I might even vote for Mike McGinn myself. But you gotta admit, on this issue at least, our city/region/state is more than a little fucked up. The Viaduct is a triple-digit fatality waiting to happen (or worse), and no elected official with an ounce of common sense or humanity could choose to allow it to stand any longer than absolutely necessary.

And the truth is, given our current financial, environmental, geographic and political constraints, there is no good alternative to the current structure—at least not one that could likely satisfy a majority of voters. The proposed tunnel is hugely expensive and technically uncertain, the current deal placing untenable risks on Seattle taxpayers, all in the service of an outmoded transportation philosophy that ignores the energy and environmental reality of the twenty-first century. Despite the claims of its proponents, the surface/transit option would likely exacerbate congestion, at least in the short term, and by dumping tens of thousands of vehicles a day onto surface streets, could prove the least pedestrian and bike friendly of the three major alternatives. And while a rebuild might seem like the perfect compromise in both price and function, no city planner in his or her right mind would propose building a double-decker freeway today across such a vital and beautiful waterfront, if one already didn’t exist, and it would be crime to burden future generations with such a stunning lack of civic pride and vision.

In their favor, by diverting traffic underground, the tunnel would do the most to open up, revitalize and beautify our waterfront into a civic treasure future generations would come to cherish. The surface/transit option is by far the least expensive and most forward thinking of any of the plans. And the rebuild… well… current generations of Seattleites grew up with the Viaduct, and if it was good enough for us, it’s good enough for future generations as well. (You know, stop trying to change Seattle into New York or San Francisco and all that.) But even if you believe there is a best alternative, good luck convincing a majority of elected officials, let alone a majority of the voting public.

Though, of course, that’s half of what Mayor Nickels somehow managed to do. He always favored a tunnel, and voters be damned, he ultimately got the governor and the legislature, who originally pushed for the less expensive rebuild, to agree to a tunnel deal, albeit an awfully bad deal for Seattle taxpayers. Call that arrogance if you want. But it’s also leadership.

And as we saw in Tuesday’s election results, we hate leadership.

In helping to end Mayor Nickels career, Mike McGinn has made blocking the tunnel one of the centerpieces of his campaign, and like him, I favor the surface/transit option, if not always for the same reasons. And if elected, I’ve little doubt that McGinn will succeed in fulfilling this campaign promise. For in Seattle, saying “no” is what we do best.

But whether a Mayor McGinn could succeed in building political consensus for his own favored alternative to the Viaduct before nature succeeds in knocking the current one down, well, that’s another question. And if he does show the leadership necessary to force his own plan into implementation, how could he possibly survive the dire political consequences of his success?

I’d heard from a couple woeful Greg Nickels supporters this week who hadn’t bothered to vote in Tuesday’s primary election, figuring the incumbent mayor was a shoe-in for the general… but you know, one always hears stories like this, so I hadn’t given it much thought. But yesterday I heard from a Nickels volunteer who told me a story that gave me pause.

The volunteer (anonymous to you, but well known to me) had been working the phone banks over the last couple days of the campaign, encouraging likely Nickels supporters to mail in their ballots, and he talked to “at least a dozen” voters who said they planned to vote for Nickels in November but were intending to game the primary by voting for who they perceived to be the weakest opponent (usually, but not always, Mike McGinn). The assumption was that Nickels was a shoe-in to make it through to the general, and so they could afford to divert their vote to game the system.

Oops.

Of course, this anecdote is merely, um, anecdotal, so unless I hear from other phone bank volunteers who report similar conversations with voters, I’ll have to leave it at that. But it does make me wonder how complacent Nickels supporters might have been, and if the broader public had understood that the mayor might really come in third to Mallahan and McGinn, whether he really would have come in third at all?

Speculation, sure. But that’s a lot of what I do.

Did you know that a round trip ticket bought at a Link light rail station is actually a day pass for the fare zone purchased, good for as many rides as you can fit into the current calendar day?

Riding the Link to the mayor’s press conference yesterday I bought a roundtrip ticket between Othello and downtown, and happened to run into one of the Sound Transit inspection teams while on the train. I flashed my ticket, and that was that, and apparently none of the other passengers on the roughly half-full train had any problems either. But it got me thinking.

My ticket had the date and the $2.00 zone value printed boldly on the card, with “Adult $4.00” in smaller print along with the names of the starting and destination stations. But there was no time stamp or expiration printed anywhere on the card… and really, how could there be? I might return any time, and the same ticket was issued as valid fare in both directions. And since the ticket is never punched, scanned or collected, I could use it multiple times throughout the day, getting on and off at various stations within the purchased zone.

So I asked folks at Sound Transit whether I had discovered a flaw in their fare system, and was flatly told no. They don’t seem to advertise it, but these tickets are day passes; in fact, it says “Puget Pass” on the front of the ticket, and clearly states on the back: “Pass is valid during the day(s)/week(s/month(s)/year(s) shown.” Furthermore, it’s valid for face value service throughout the region, on Community Transit, Sound Transit, Pierce Transit, Metro and Sound Transit. In that sense it’s even better than a bus transfer; one can ride the light rail, and then use the same ticket repeatedly throughout the region’s bus and commuter rail system, paying the difference between the face value and the fare where need be.

At least through the end of the year.

When I asked why anybody would use an Orca Card, which dings you for every boarding, rather than an all-day Puget Pass, I was told that a) few commuters take more than a single roundtrip ride a day; and b) come January, paper tickets and bus transfers would no longer be accepted as valid transfers, while the Orca Card would continue to seamlessly operate as such.

Fair enough. But for the moment, these roundtrip tickets are one helluva bargain, and will still be a pretty damn good deal after the first of the year, especially for folks looking to explore the neighborhoods along the Link line.

On election night, Dow Constantine’s people were just thrilled to see him break away from the rest of the Democratic pack and break the 20-percent mark. So they must be absolutely ecstatic to see him closing the gap with Republican Susan Hutchison as the late arriving ballots are tallied.

What started as a 37-22 margin on election night has now shrunk to a mere 33-27 Hutchison lead with about 90-percent of the expected turnout tallied. Not too shabby considering Hutchison was the only Republican and only woman, while Constantine had to compete with three other Dems.

So, how bad is Tim Eyman’s Initiative 1033? So bad, apparently, that the Washington Realtors’ Tax & Fiscal Policy Committee has reportedly voted unanimously to oppose I-1033. Apparently something to do with it being poorly crafted, ill-timed and a job killer.

The final endorsement decision won’t be made by the Realtor’s Legislative Steering Committee until September, but the fact that there is so much opposition within the Realtors for chrissakes, to an initiative that promises steep property tax cuts, tells you something about how obviously stupid and dangerous I-1033 really is.

One of the things I’ve bemoaned most about our mayor’s race, is that unlike our neighbors to the south in Portland, our City Hall has never seemed to produce a juicy sex scandal.

Or has it?

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vBGmnqcMGOI[/youtube]

Standing there in the room during his concession speech, you could almost feel the heat of their passion as Mayor Greg Nickels and Deputy Mayor Tim Ceis stared briefly, but lovingly, into each other’s eyes. Who knew?

Mayor Nickels has conceded, and gracefully. (And no, he’s not all that fat; I just liked the pun.) More later.

UPDATE:
I’m back home now, after conveniently riding light rail back and forth to City Hall (you know, the light rail line Mayor Nickels staked his political capital on building), and while I’m waiting for some video to load, I thought I’d just add a few more observations.

As I initially wrote, Mayor Nickels’ concession was quite graceful, but it was also self-effacing, forthright, and at times both funny and touching. There’s no doubt a lot of of folks don’t much like the mayor—Tuesday’s election was a testament to his unpopularity—but had more voters seen this downright likable side to Nickels, I wonder if he would have been giving a concession speech this morning?

I for one thought this race would in the end come down to competence, and thus I never really believed Nickels would lose in the primary, as despite the incessant whining about snow removal and a few bad curbs, he’s proven to be a pretty damn competent mayor, with no hint of personal corruption. In terms of basic infrastructure—roads, rail, schools, fire stations, parks, play fields, etc.—Seattle is a better city than it was eight years ago, and so I guess I never really took seriously public discontent with the mayor himself.

I guess I should’ve known better.

Voters elect people, not issues, and apparently, not enough primary voters liked the mayor enough to get him through to the general. Perhaps if his campaign had done a better job of defining Nickels as a human being, the results might have been different. Or perhaps it was already too late.

Whatever.

I can think of a lot of reasons why one might want to kick out the mayor. I just come away thinking he was kicked out for the wrong reasons.

Word on the street, and from multiple sources, is that former Western Wireless CEO John Stanton has been telling folks he’ll raise a million dollar “independent” expenditure on behalf of closeted-Republican Susan Hutchison in this November’s race for King County Executive.

In addition to Stanton, you can expect the usual Republican suspects to pony up (Kemper Freeman, Skip Rowley, the various McCaws, et al). And don’t be surprised to see a big chunk of change from the normally apolitical Microsoft billionaire Charles Simonyi, who has long had a strangely close relationship with the former KIRO-7 anchor.

I’m one of those who strongly believes that demographics and party alignment strongly favors Dow Constantine in the race, but I’m also one who believes in the power of money to sway votes, especially in the face of our weakened political media. So as bizarrely unqualified and out of step with mainstream King County values as Hutchison really is, we can’t afford to be complacent, especially with R-71 potentially bringing conservative voters out to the polls in force.

Not much good news for Greg Nickels in this afternoon’s ballot drop, with the gap between him and second place finisher Mike McGinn growing, if only slightly, to 1170 votes. I suppose it ain’t over until the fat mayor sings, but with about three quarters of the expected ballots already counted, and the trends not going in his direction, it sure does look like Mayor Nickels will be entering the private sector come January.

One thing I can say for certain is that the Seattle Times editorial board will have an easy time endorsing Mallahan. (Think tunnel.) As for me, I guess I’ll have to start paying closer attention to McGinn and Malahan as opposed to just complaining about their awfully uninspiring campaigns. (And really, all around, this his been a truly disappointing campaign thus far on the part of all the candidates.)

In other election not-quite-news, it looks like the late ballots haven’t trended quite so well for Susan Hutchison as the early ones, with her lead over second place finisher Dow Constantine shrinking from 37-22 on election night, to 34.6-25.0 after today’s drop. I guess the more you get to know Hutchison, the more you, um, know her.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b46ZCMx-RGQ[/youtube]

The Seattle Times this morning asks the question, “Bag fee: bad idea or bad timing?”

Huh. Well, I suppose it could be one or the other or both. Or, and perhaps I’m reaching here, but just maybe Referendum 1’s failure had something to do with the chemical industry outspending the Yes campaign by fifteen to one, an astounding $1.4 million to $95,000 margin? I mean perhaps, if the American Chemistry Council hadn’t spent about twenty bucks a piece for every No vote it would ultimately win, the vote might have been a little closer?

Or maybe I’m crazy, and money has no influence whatsoever on elections?

Of course, the reason the plastic bag industry was willing to spend so much money in a city initiative had nothing to do with lofty ideals or even the plastic bag market here in Seattle. It was to head off a cascade of similar measures in other cities should the Seattle bag fee had gone into effect, and proven to be, well, not so bad and not so unpopular. So here’s what I would do if I were on the Seattle City Council: pass the bag fee ordinance again.

And again. And again, and again and again.

Just keep passing that sucker, forcing the chemical industry to pump a million and half dollars or so into our local media economy year after year after year. It’s good for business and good for our democracy. And it sure would feel good to give the American Chemistry Council the finger.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nYlZiWK2Iy8&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]

Normally, a sound first place finish in a nonpartisan primary would pretty much assure a candidate frontrunner status, but since the race for King County Executive is nonpartisan in name only, not-so-secret Republican Susan Hutchison shouldn’t start measuring the drapes just quite yet.

On the one hand, 37% in an ostensibly five-way race is pretty darn good, especially when you consider that the runner up is trailing far behind at 22%. But that’s not really all that much better than Will Baker numbers, the bare minimum an uncloseted Republican can expect to draw around these parts, and with 57% of voters choosing avowed Democrats, the D to R ratio is actually pretty damn respectable.

So what percentage of these non-Constantine Dems can Hutchison expect to lure in the general? Some, sure, but I’d hazard not nearly enough. Constantine is by far the most qualified candidate remaining, and the only Democrat. And if voters understand that in November, that should be enough to put him well over the top.