Nickels did poorly for one simple reason: people "don't like his personality."

it doesn't matter whether it's rural Appalachia, or Wallingford, voters everywhere base their votes on gut feelings. How do you think W got elected 1 1/2 times?

Mike McGinn, who isn't qualified to be dog catcher, mastered the art of appealing to voters' emotions. Despite the fact his Start Gridlock Now! surface option should have offended all those deluded viaduct re-build nuts in NW and SW Seattle, they all still voted for him. As in, the populist sophist bs paid off.

Mike McGinn mimicked that whole Karl Rove thing - people vote with their hearts - not their heads.

Interesting piece.
Let's just hope he makes it past the primaries.

If not, I think that there is going to be a big dose of
"buyers remorse" in picking between McGinn and Mallahan.

Both are not at all qualified.
McGinn's idea's are loony left
and Mallahan is all corporate america.

Nickels is a sane liberal.

There are no perfect people or politicians.
Nickels has done a fine job.
I fear one of the others getting the job.

One thing you overlooked--and I agree with everything you wrote--is that Nickels demonstrated he may not be up to running the city in a time of crisis in his (non-)response to the snow last winter. In northeast Seattle, particularly Maple Leaf which is around 500 feet in elevation and where snow lingered for two weeks, people are still angry that the city simply forgot about them for so long. All the walking people did in the snow also demonstrated to northeast Seattle how completely stupid it is that there are no sidewalks: the mayor is not up to providing basic city services like clear roads and safe sidewalks.

I think McGinn shows a lot of promise as a leader; Mallahan needs to show he is socially in line with Seattleites because the corporate thing is going to hurt his chances generally.

Nickels has accomplished a lot, but he's too often a hard guy to like. David's review captures the problems well.

His devotion to inside baseball deal making on almost everything would not be missed. It always puts him in the fray and defines him as a classic old-school politico, an image he seems at home with and which is chief deputy notoriously revels in.

Green voters appear to have abandoned the guy who is perhaps America's greenest big city Mayor, which will make people wonder whether green voters can ever be reliable allies, on anything.

There does not appear to be sufficient support among primary voters to elect someone whose chief platform is to reject the deep bore tunnel. The issue that ate more important things does still appear to attract a stubborn following via exploitation of the lowest of political arts. Hopefully the general election will let the City move on.

Times are perceived as tough, which is always rough on people already in office.

Next to Obama's Presidential win, my fantasy that Nickels [and Ceis]would not make it through the primary is way up there as one of my 'big political win' days. Considering Drago & Donalson, they did this city the biggest favor,pulling votes away from Nickels. McGinn and Mallahan are heroic!

Comment to Jan: I've always thought of Nickels as 'green wash'. Remember Nickel's didnot support the Parks and Green Space Levy 2008 [it passed with 60+% of the vote] his urban forest management plan is flawed [as per city auditor]; he supported the transportation levy in 2007 that would have built more highways, that levy failed. There's nothing more 'ungreen' than his $$billions$$ tunnel.

Don't count Nickels out yet. After all, this is Seattle. The election isn't over until enough ballots are discovered to get the establishment candidate over the top. I'd say give it or three or four more recounts.

The reason Nickels was selected to lead the nation in 'green' stuff, is because the nation's real leader, Portland wasn't in the running because its Mayor Tom Potter was beginning to sour on the job and wasn't interested. The next closest choice (in proximity only) was Seattle, though as Portland's ugly sister city who sleeps around a lot and treats her luxurious pad like a toxic dumping ground. Seattle's powerful elite mostly pretend to be environmentally conscientious.

Politically, McGinn is a reasonable Moderate whose campaign strategy was excellent, admirable and perfectly suitable for a Seattle mayoral candidate. The Deep-bore is not the best tunnel option, nor the least expensive. He's right! McGinn is most amenable to considering the best tunnel option -- WsDOT's "4-lane" Cut-n-cover; best mainly because it maintains the critically important access ramps at Elliott/Western, and has a manageable contruction process (which is why WsDOT revised their "6-lane" Cut-n-cover version that voters rejecte in 2007).

It may be a difficult decision for voters in November regardless of final primary outcome.

Jan Drago was the spoiler, had she not run, most of her votes would have gone for the Mayor, almost certainly enough for him to have taken the lead in the primary.

Unless more counting puts the Mayor in the top two might he be a write-in candidate for the autumn election? Although there were a lot of reasons for voting against him, his record and stands in some areas are good or within reason may prove preferable to those of an unknown future McGinn or Mallahan administration.

Mallahan seems attractive with some management skills and an outstanding Municipal League rating but politically inexperienced and largely an unknown.

McGinn seems attractive for his neighborhood experience and environmental values and good at running a campaign, but many voters will be wary of harming that hard to work out viaduct replacement plan and also wary of his campaigning on school problems over which the City has little control (at this point).

Good luck to us all however it come out!

More Nickels "greenwash:"

Trashing wetlands in the headwaters of Hamm Creek (which had benefited from years of expensive habitat restoration projects downstream) at SFD's new Fire Training Center on Meyers Way. After committing to a $4 million fix for the damage after being cited by the Army Corps of Engineers for illegally filling the wetlands, the city reneged and decided to use this $$ for other purposes. The City Council shares blame for this with our soon-to-be-ex-mayor.

Building a sockeye salmon hatchery on the Cedar River that will likely damage not only the naturally salmon sockeye populations in the Cedar, but other Cedar River fish species as well because of disease problems that sooner or later will afflict the river, as they have as a result of every otehr sockeye hatchery ever built in the lower 48 states to date. This single project will cost Seattle $40,000,000, more than all other Seattle-sponsored salmon recovery efforts put together in all watersheds across the board.

Dropping out of the WRIA 9 Green/Duwamish salmon recovery process for at least the next two years in order to save $$. Seattle is offering "in kind" services to replace this hit to its WRIA 9 partners in the form of its mostly hard to work with, imperious, process-addicted staff members who convey the following message at practically every meeting they attend--"It's Seattle's Way or the highway."

Placing stream protection rules on its books, then fighting tooth and nail against implementing them. In the case of the tributary of Thornton Creek that used to flow under a parking lot at Northgate, Seattle stubbornly opposed daylighting this stream and was dragged through court for years by the Thornton Creek Legal Defense Fund in a court case that cost Seattle big buck$$$ before the city finally got trounced.

Allowing SAM to displace the maintenance facility for the now defunct, formerly much beloved Waterfront Streetcar, which was non-polluting because of its electric power system. Seattle could have required SAM to mitigate for lost of the streetcar barn, but noooooooooooo. Instead it asked Metro to replace the streetcar with dorky, diesel-powered, air-polluting bus.

Spending 10s of millions on new ballfields at Magnuson Park, but neglecting to implement a robust habitat restoration project that could have nicely restored long degraded habitat along the lake and associated wetlands. The value of the habitat restoration Seattle is severely compromised by Seattle Parks' decision to leave in place acres of old concrete runways. Some of these roads are less than 100 feet from the lake shoreline.

Crowing about Seattle's supposed "bike-friendliness" when in fact it will take 60 years to build out the Seattle Bicycle Master Plan at the current rate of expenditure. Meanwhile, hardly a month goes by when a cyclist isn't killed or seriously injured because many neighborhoods remain poorly linked and lacking in effective bike-friendly infrastructure. Many designated bike "trails" are in fact glorified city streets painted with "sharerows." In addition, there are countless blocks in downtown Seattle and other commercial neighborhoods without one single bike rack.

Many other examples of Seattle's faux "greenness" could be added to this list. The bottom line is that Mayor Jowly's reputation as a "green" mayor is ill-deserved. All he did was talk the talk.

Doesn't the tunnel get any attention? Nickel's willingness to support a zillion-dollar tunnel drilling project where the city will be on the hook for any extra costs (and everybody knows it'll take longer and cost more) was the last straw for me. He has always been too quick to sign on to developer's pet projects and pipe dreams, but the bored tunnel is a disaster waiting to happen.

This election also shows that all that stuff about Nickels being a "Chicago-style" mayor was nonsense all along.

Last night I found myself in agreement with a Republican neighborhood activist from Queen Anne. Nickel's first screw-up was firing the Director of Neighborhoods. The neighborhood councils have never recovered and feel unloved and ignored. Seattle is a city of neighborhoods, not Downtown, South Lake Union and Denny Triangle. 2) the South Lake Union Trolly, which cost way too much, is underused, is a favor to Paul Allen and Vulcan and which actually cost us many hours of bus service; 3) the Mercer beautification mess, which is another favor to Paul Allen and South Lake Union developers, is way over budget and doesn't improve traffic whatsoever, and 4) the snow debacle, of course. I was in Chicago when Jane Byrne lost her second term for mayor because she couldn't get the streets cleared for a month. Everyone has his or her own story about how bad it was, and both the characters responsible for it are still in their jobs. Heads have to roll.

I need to ask, which candidate is going to come to terms with the unions, Mallahan or McGinn? The unions need to pick another horse.

I think DannyK has it right. It was the Tunnel. Other than myself I only know of two other voters who approve of it. Voters have a short memory, we will have another Paul Schell and we won't like that either. I think Nickels is the best mayor we've had since Royer and he might run again (and win). I don't think that is unprecedented but I can't remember who it was who ran after being defeated.

Frankly, I was very surprised McGinn is the front-runner. It shows how much the anti-tunnel and anti-tax sentiment has. I can't say however that this is an endorsement on the power of his environmental record since the same voters soundly rejected the Bag tax. If there is a lesson to be learned for November, heed the words of Bill Clinton who said, "It's the economy, stupid!"

Well I am surprised.

Mayor Nickels wisely, although belatedly, killed the monorail, he added firemen, added cops, sent the Bridging the Gap measure to the voters and got it passed to fix our roads, he led the City through the 2001 downturn which was terrible locally and he was poised to lead us through this downturn which is terrible nationally. He put the City and the mayors of close to 1,000 other municipalities on the map with the charming, although admittedly ineffective, Kyoto signing and he has generally kept the City in good shape. The viaduct solution was proper and looking wholly to the future. Killing it now would further alienate the City from Olympia and I imagine is impossible anyway.

I have my disagreements as well. The streetcar is cute, but a waste of resources. The new housing levy is poorly designed. I wasn’t put out too much by the snowstorm, but SDOT leadership is lacking in competence, and City Light needs better management.
But my God, in no way can I see that requiring a change at the top. One-note McGinn would immediately upon arrival hand the executive reins over to the fiefs that will pop up in the Council. It will be Schell redux. Mallahan’s website is thin on his positions, but perhaps that’s only because he didn’t have to expound on them to move to the general. Well expound he will have to do now. Or not.

If not, because I can’t imagine McGinn to pick up more support than he is showing now for the general election, what then? I would have only to look forward to Crosscut articles in the intervening time to see if, as reallyreallyreally suggests above, that there is any buyer’s remorse on the part of contributors here, if not the greater population. One can’t expect it from the likes of Ted van Dyke who already has one foot in the grave and the other in a steaming pile of dogmatic poo. But the Brewsters, the Bergers (who I think has been uncannily silent as of late on the election), et al., what will they say? I eagerly await there more nuanced and thoughtful take on this, what seems to me, wholly unnecessary turn of events.

In short I want Chubby Nickels back.

I eagerly await their more nuanced...

It's getting late.

The whole McGinn campaign is tied to one issue that he has a lot less control over than he will let people believe.
Still, the Greenwood area has gotten a LOT of attention over the years due, in part, to his efforts. The important part was that they got the attention they wanted, not just what the mayor wanted.

Xteve is right, but the whole McGinn campaign is tied to one issue that he has a lot less control over than he will let people believe.
Still, the Greenwood area has gotten a LOT of attention over the years due, in part, to his efforts. The important part was that they got the attention THEY wanted, not what mayor quimby wanted.
Lower QA wants something, so, it is not all dark clouds, IMO.

Licata (53%) supported Tim Eyeman’s roads and rails push because it would kill other projects competing for city bonding capacity and the monorail.
McGinn helped kill the roads and rails, and brought the rails back the following year. I am not arguing for the roads and rails, or the roads, or rails, just saying he can get things done, even with Nick Licata on the other side.

On primary, the polling trend does not favor Nickels, though he had a lot of ads at the end to slow that down. He’s right to wait and hope to see the results. At first, the 455 votes between he and Mallahan looked very small.

On the head to head general election: McGinn might have a harder time getting to 50+1 against Mallahan since the people right of the Sierra Club will trend toward Mallahan the further toward the center and then right you go. In the betting world that is a “no-line”.

Should Nickels get his sweet flip and be the second, do not be shocked to see the same trend as Mallahan would get breaking toward Nickels. Nickels negatives and apathy toward him is pretty big. He is going to have to scare women and children (not kidding) in order get those people to play it safe AND actually vote. I think the high water mark in the general is closer to 45%.

They all learn something about the campaign to this point, what worked in their messages, what did not. Now, they pretty much have to relive the past 5 months again with fewer people running and more people voting. Some people know Mallahan and McGinn are running for mayor for the first time today by “looking at” the front page of newspaper that they never actually buy.

This election was a good example of how people are motivated to vote. I think I am fairly typical. I have voted for GN repeatedly, because I generally support his political positions. As the years went by, though, I saw that he repeatedly ignored what the citizens of Seattle clearly indicated they wanted, the most powerful issues being the monorail (which they wanted) and the tunnel (which they did not want). Nickels really thinks he knows better, and acts on his own ego. His political boss style and his aggression (he should never have allowed negative ads in this campaign) leave bad tastes in the mouth. I think others joined me in a "last straw" moment with the snow last winter. Every aspect of it left a bad taste in the mouth: the experience itself, Nickels giving himself a B, the Chicago style "make sure the mayor's street is plowed and to hell with the rest," the revelation that the management of streets was revealed as incompetent long ago, the cronyism of his job rearrangement for the incompetent man who failed the management of snow plowing, etc. I had a moment. I said to myself: "I am done with Nickels. I will never vote for him again, no matter who the opponent is."

I think lots of people had a "last straw" moment with Nickels, actually about 75% of the voters in Seattle.

Three quick points to follow up Brewster's ongoing insightful analysis of local politics.
First, Katrina and the disaster preparedness drills we've gone through since 9/11 have taught us that cities must be able to function under duress or disaster or we could be in big trouble. The snowstorm suggested that Seattle might not be able to cope with bigger situations and Nickels' poor management and "B grade" arrogance failed to reassure.
Second, while the downtown business interests are routinely vilified and automatically assumed to be evil in the eyes of many, the fact is they are a legitimate interest group that must be represented in the city or the city fails. You just can't sustain a modern metropolis on Olmstead parks and bicycle lanes. Tourist and entrepreneurs and Florida's creative class (and their tax dollars that support the arts, parks, etc.) will not come to, or stay in, Seattle to ride bikes in sharrows. The business interests must win some, the environmentalists must also. Real compromise must go beyond such token gestures as the bag fee.
Third, Nickels attack on Mallahan as a threat to public safety was vile and a throwback to the Willie Horton racism of George H.W. Bush. Mallahan might not have long experience in government but neither he nor any of the candidates would seriously change the public safety profile of the city. Furthermore, this is just code for a continued attack on, or dismissing of, the south end of Seattle--the most diverse (we know how that's translated in fear-speak) neighborhood in the U.S. This divisiveness seems to have cost Nickels needed support and angered a whole swath of potentially neutral folks.

"Tim Eyeman’s roads and rails push"?

What in the world does this refer to? Eyman once had a transportation ballot measure that the Seattle City Council voted against unanimously, Nick Licata included. The roads and transit ballot measure was a regional effort. It was not sponsored by Tim Eyman.

And for the record, Mike McGinn did not bring back rail in 2008. Greg Nickels did.

I hated each of the five or six robo-calls I received. I loved the Sonics. Nickels didn't get my vote.

The tunnel is critical to keeping freight moving and keeping industrial jobs in Seattle, yet the Seattle Chamber's heavy hand has not been helpful.

Most of the downtown interests have spun it as a beautification project, reconnecting the waterfront to downtown, which frankly would be a luxury in these down economic times. Well, it's in fact not a luxury, it is critical to making sure Seattle keeps a diversity of industries and good paying blue collar jobs right here in town.

Tayloe Washburn/Jim Warjone and company have made a huge mess of things by trying to play power brokers in both the City of Seattle and Port of Seattle races. By playing a heavy hand against McGinn, they only made him stronger.

Tayloe/Jim will you please, please stay out of this?? Seattle NEEDS the Tunnel, it is critical to our competitiveness. What the industrial/port/freight/labor community doesn't need (in the immortal words of a McGinn campaign poster) is you two "effing" it up.

Biff,
Assigning Licata/Eyeman the "roads and rails" push caught my eye too. Best not to be so focused on "progress" that one forsakes history. Mixed-up accounts repeated enough have a habit of getting wilder, and if not harmful, certainly as laughable as the results of the telephone game played at children's parties (history now too—my personal favorite was the Boeing Airplane Company game taught at Neighborhood Leadership workshops one or two city administration ago).

The difference between opinion pieces and straight reporting is over exaggerated. Accuracy serves both equally well.

This wasn't too hard to understand.

The situation changed once the jobs dried up, the housing crashed and the stock market sank. It went from "we're all getting rich together" to "what's in it for me". When Joe Seattle looked at what was in it for him...a light rail he'll never ride, a Viaduct that will bankrupt him, scads of his money funneled up to the fat cats, Joe says...whoa.

That picture of Greg suffering from too much green? Was funny, but is beginning to turn my stomach. Take it down?

Just a word to whomever is elected mayor:
ALWAYS DANCE WITH THE ONE WHO BROUGHT YOU