McGinn's tunnel cave
One reason not to vote early in Seattle: From here to election day is an eternity, especially with two mayoral candidates like Joe Mallahan and Mike McGinn.
Mike McGinn for Mayor
Editor's note: A version of this story ran yesterday on the Crosscut Blog and received several reader comments there.
Some Seattle voters seem proud to announce to you that they've already voted, like smug students who turned in their homework assignment early for extra credit. In an election like this, I don't see why an early vote has any upside: There's a long way to go before election day with Mike McGinn and Joe Mallahan running for mayor. The next two weeks could be a political eternity.
Case in point: McGinn's long-anticipated pivot on the Viaduct tunnel. Political watchers have expected, and some McGinn supporters encouraged, a softening of his tunnel stance. Tunnel-hater McGinn started out with "an over-my-dead body" message on the tunnel, and in fact built his campaign identity on that. When Crosscut met with McGinn after the primary, he indicated that if the people of Seattle insisted on a tunnel, say by voting for it again, he'd go along. Now, with the City Council's vote, he's moved even further: He won't sabotage what he thinks is a terrible idea, but will continue to "ask tough questions" about it. In other words, in a John Kerry-like moment, McGinn was against the tunnel before he was, begrudgingly, for it.
This undercuts one of McGinn's primary arguments against the tunnel, which is that city voters already held a referendum on it and voted against it. This has always been arguable, but now McGinn is essentially saying that the voter mandate (which he believes in) has been overturned by the council vote, and that he will accept that outcome. Is McGinn admitting that a central premise of the centerpiece of his campaign was wrong? Is his wriggle on the tunnel an admission that, in fact, more voters want a tunnel than not? Is a visionary one who has misread his city?
The upside of the switch for McGinn is that it might win him votes, and observers (like the pro-McGinn folks at Publicola) think he looked at his polling numbers and realized he had less to lose by flip-flopping than by sticking to his guns. And it's true that McGinn was leaving a lot of votes on the table with his tunnel opposition. McGinn supporters can spin this that their candidate is a pragmatist, not an obstructionist, and that his positions are more nuanced than they appear, his understanding of the job more realistic.
But it's worrisome that McGinn has been shedding core positions that have been cornerstones of his campaign: Tunnel opposition was one, taking over Seattle schools was another.
In his campaign announcement, McGinn emphasized making Seattle schools a priority, and there's much a mayor can and should do to help make that happen. But McGinn later went further suggesting the city could take over the schools, then that if they did not improve within two years, it would be time for a "governance change." In his Chamber of Commerce debate with Joe Mallahan, he chided Mallahan for not being eager to expand the mayor's portfolio to include the school district.
But the effect of McGinn's stance was that one, he didn't seem to realize that there were significant changes already underway at the school district, with a new regime and revamped board. This infuriated some folks deeply involved in improving the Seattle school system. The time marker he put down didn't make sense, plus two, his bluster made him look naive and power-hungry. Supporting schools is one thing, running them is another. McGinn seems to have softened, then dropped a schools takeover from his talking points.
If Mike McGinn is a conviction candidate — as contrasted with Mallahan, who seems to be an avatar (or is it shill?) of Seattle's power establishment — he's undercutting his main strength, which is to take bold, challenging stands against the conventional wisdom. You can say this is smart politics, and I suppose it would be if he were running as a conventional politician, but everything about his campaign's appeal — the low budget, the accessibility of the candidate, the insurgent tactics, even the beard — have pointed in a different direction. Are we going to discover that McGinn is now just a more rumpled, perhaps more articulate but also more lawyerly version of Joe Mallahan?
One reason not to decide yet in this election is that these two mayoral candidates are still telling us fundamental things about themselves, what they believe and how they do politics. For undecideds like me, there's nothing to lose by waiting a little longer before I mark my ballot.
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Comments:
Posted Wed, Oct 21, 8:50 a.m. Inappropriate
It is apparently not too soon to single out one candidate for epithets while ignoring the right-wing tactics of the other. On what basis do you suggest that Mallahan is someone's shill or avatar? Is it because he invested his own money? Has a degree from the Jackson School? Worked in D.C.? Been a successful businessman? This is an odd end to a piece about two candidates who are very similar in their progressive politics. One candidate tried and failed to make opposition to the deep-bore tunnel a litmus test for a good environmentalist. The jury is out on which candidate on which candidate is more progressive or even more environmentally friendly than the other. The jury is not out on which candidate will sacrifice his principles to become mayor.
Posted Wed, Oct 21, 9:13 a.m. Inappropriate
Wait to vote? No need. This election is over. Mr. McGinn has not only flipped, he's flopped. His big issue is toast. He thought he could woe voters on the grounds that the City's penchant for revisiting decisions would sell. Nine people close to the voters thought otherwise. A candidate who is more than an ideologue would have seen that coming.
Posted Wed, Oct 21, 9:33 a.m. Inappropriate
Ya, that was bad form, "schill", you act like he was brokering development projects and getting paid by Vulcan to do so, Great City, great lobbyist.
Posted Wed, Oct 21, 9:36 a.m. Inappropriate
On September 14, I wrote, "Before the primary, the mindset of Seattle voters was 'anybody but Nickels.' The two guys with Irish-sounding names won, even though most voters were not really familiar with either one. After the election, folks started to pay more attention, Mallahan started to get a lot of airtime, and his radical tunnel views publicized - a rude awakening for many. Given the current economic hard times, uncertainty, and voters' aversion to anything that smells like new taxes, McGinn's future is looking brighter every day."
If McGinn flip-flops on the tunnel issue, there is really no reason to vote for him. He will have betrayed the hopes of those who regarded him as the alternative to "business as usual" - another politician beholden to he moneyed-interests of the elite political class. Sadly, that means there really is no candidate to vote for in the mayoral election. Whoever wins, Seattle taxpayers lose.
Posted Wed, Oct 21, 11:29 a.m. Inappropriate
"Nine people close to the voters thought otherwise."
City council positions are at large just like the mayor, and generally represent the views and positions of those interests that enable their election. In general, the media portrays the council as weak and complacent in relation to Mayor Nickels strong-arm style. Never explored, but easily deduced by what ACTUALLY is accomplished, is the fact that a consensus DOES exist amongst moneyed interests and influence peddlers. The tunnel vote is merely the glossing of a democratic decision-making process that has been anything but. McGinn pathetically represented an voice of fiscal sanity even if framed in the undemocratic form of either/or preferred by ideologues, and a mark of our captured system.
Posted Wed, Oct 21, 1:31 p.m. Inappropriate
I'm not sure I see your point, Fly. Both Mayor and Council are elected by all Seattle voters, so the Council's support for the tunnel linked with McGinn's abandonment of his anti-tunnel position in hopes of getting elected tends to indicate general public support for the deep bore option. If the people of Seattle were indeed ready to rise up and stop the tunnel, wouldn't McGinn have stuck to his guns?
Posted Wed, Oct 21, 4:50 p.m. Inappropriate
The one realistic tunnel poll I've seen told a clear story...while a minority "supported" the tunnel, a clear plurality supported going forward with it.
This reflects some things that have been pretty clear all along, in my opinion: No option will ever be the favorite of a majority. But the deep bore has fewer "extreme nos" because it doesn't involve the worst nightmares of many people -- another 60-year aerial mistake to look at, and/or a half-decade of construction mess, and/or a permanent transportation mess that causes companies to leave and makes Downtown less functional or inhabitable. Since people also have a strong desire for something to get done, more say go ahead than not.
As for McGinn, he read the polls. It's a desperation move.
Posted Wed, Oct 21, 5:25 p.m. Inappropriate
Uh, McGinn's most recent statements on the tunnel are in response to the Council vote and is respectful of that authority. Disagreement and debate are crucial to serve the public interest, doing so well leads to good decisions.
The tunnel was **not** developed through such a process, and is challengeable on that basis, should someone choose to do it.
Posted Fri, Oct 23, 4:04 p.m. Inappropriate
During the mayoral candidate forum at Seattle U last Saturday, McGinn mentioned in his answer to a tunnel question that north-south traffic on the west side of Queen Anne constitutes 60% of current viaduct traffic. With the viaduct this traffic is handled by ramps connecting to Western and Elliott. The proverbial guy from Mars looking at the deep-bore tunnel proposal might question what problem it was intended to solve: it redirects west-side traffic to Aurora and downsizes capacity. The elephant in the room here is that a central waterfront redevelopment plan and green agenda for mass transit have been saddled to the seawall and viaduct replacement projects, with lots of consequences.
In his hour at the same forum, Mallahan was asked to defend the tunnel from the standpoint of traffic to/from Ballard. Wouldn’t it be inconvenient for north-bound traffic to have to jog around the east side of Queen Anne before proceeding on 15th Ave West? He conceded the inconvenience. His solution was to beef up Mercer between the north tunnel entrance and Elliott, routing traffic along Mercer as a feeder line to/from the waterfront. How this would affect life on that end of Mercer, no one asked. But the take-away seemed to be that the tunnel doesn’t work very well for north-south traffic west of Queen Anne without a redo of Mercer west of the tunnel entrance.
If McGinn has backed away from standing in front of a bulldozer to stop the tunnel, maybe he’s hoping that the drowsing public will revive once revised construction figures for it come in. Then the costs, if not the chutzpah of the thing, should sink it. To read Knute Berger’s recent account of mega-projects sailing ahead on guile and wishful thinking, though, that would make it an exception.
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