With Sims out, how does the mayor's race stack up?
It's close among Mayor McGinn, Tim Burgess and Ed Murray, with the likelihood of a Murray-Burgess face-off in November. Events and spoiler candidates could easily tip the balance.
John Stang
Ron Sims’ announcement that he would not, after all, be running for Seattle mayor was particularly rich, even for this self-dramatizing politician. After describing the kind of charismatic mayor the town desperately needs (namely Sims), he said that he was looking for a higher calling. Too bad, Seattle!
Sims, the former King County executive, had loomed over the race, throwing the major contenders off stride and forcing some big money interests, especially labor unions, to keep their wallets in reserve. Now we can get down to the real race, with filing closing on May 17.
With Sims out, my canvas of observers produces this consensus forecast: State Sen. Ed Murray, Mayor Mike McGinn and City Councilmember Tim Burgess could each survive the August 6 primary. Either challenger would probably defeat McGinn in the November election, while Murray, more attuned with mainstream liberal Seattle, would probably best Burgess if they are the two finalists.
In a crowded race — eight at the moment — it won’t take many votes (or sudden developments) to tip the outcome in the primary. The role of the “spoilers” will also be enhanced, given these slight margins.
One way to look at the race is to consider that there are two primaries going on. One is for the moderate and conservative votes, and here there are just two candidates: Burgess and marginal candidate Charlie Staadecker. Burgess will get the bulk of the “moderate primary,” advancing to the general election on Nov. 5. Over on the left, McGinn, Murray, Peter Steinbrueck, Bruce Harrell and Kate Martin will divide up the “liberal primary,” with none getting enough votes to push out Burgess, though one will get enough to advance to the general election. McGinn would be too bloodied to go on to win the general against Burgess. Murray, if he makes it to the general, would have the liberals’ vote advantage in the bigger-turnout November election.
Another analysis would show Murray with the most momentum, now that Sims has departed. Murray signaled to his supporters on Thursday by shifting his campaign from exploratory to officially in the race. He has an emotional issue, gay marriage, which will turn him into a national figure and draw many young volunteers energized by the recent statewide referendum. As a powerful state senator, Murray will raise money from grateful special interests, particularly unions. He’s got the A-team of local political consultants. (“I don’t bet on horses,” says one local business leader, “I go with the jockey.”)
McGinn continues to trip himself up, as this past week over the police reform issue, where "the bad McGinn" suddenly reappeared. Burgess has the usual problems of running from the city council, where few can stand out in the eyes of the voters and differing with the mayor comes off as envy or sour grapes. Advantage Murray, start to finish.
A third sway to assess the contest is to look at the insider/outsider contrast. McGinn, who ran as an outsider and a bomb-thrower, has put that part of Seattle politics under a cloud. That means that those candidates working that alienated side of the field — particularly McGinn, Peter Steinbrueck and Bruce Harrell — will look less attractive than someone like Murray, who combines mainstream liberal values (civil liberties, gay rights, transportation) with insider effectiveness. He will fare better in the primary than in normal mayoral races, where voters indulge themselves with an outsider, at least in the primary. So if Burgess has an inside track on his moderate side of the primary, Murray has the inside track in the liberal primary.
Meanwhile, as regards fundraising by the candidates, the figures as of the end of January are: Burgess, $133,000; Murray, $124,000 (raised in December before the legislative moratorium); McGinn, $120,000; Staadecker, $94,000; Steinbrueck, $18,000, and Harrell, $11,000.
Mayor McGinn had been doing better, buoyed by his seeming success in bringing back the Sonics and his two-year charm offensive. Then he had another bad week in his public tiff with City Attorney Pete Holmes over that court-appointed monitor trying to reform the Seattle Police Department. McGinn has been trying hard to appear reasonable and effective, even getting along with others at City Hall, so this reminder of his combative and isolated style hurts him. And once again, after his bluster, he had to fold his hand and retreat, enduring a pretty firm tongue-lashing by the federal judge in the bargain. All this is a reminder of McGinn’s monumental toe-stubbing over the waterfront tunnel.
For insiders, the McGinn-Holmes smackdown points up the weakness of McGinn’s staff. His staff attorney, Carl Marquardt, eagerly tears into Holmes, who seems unfortunately happy to goad him on. Had McGinn a strong deputy mayor and other good topsiders who knew much about police, they would sit on Marquardt and force the parties to work out differences behind closed doors.
Another problem for McGinn, who is abysmally low in the polls for an incumbent (The Survey USA Poll had McGinn at 15 percent, followed by Burgess at 10, Murray at 9, Steinbrueck at 7 and Harrell at 5), is the absence of a strong political base. His main appeal is to urbanist elites like bike commuters and green energy advocates, and this fickle group can be easily won over by other candidates. McGinn’s other base, minorities and some social service agencies, is under attack from City Councilmember Bruce Harrell, a Japanese-African American, and former city councilmember Peter Steinbrueck, an urban planner with appeal to poverty and homeless advocates and neighborhood activists.
Burgess, who radiates competence, substance and reform themes, such as data-driven, outcome-based policies, has run citywide, getting strong support (Murray is mostly known in his 43rd district, Seattle’s liberal bastion). Burgess stresses three issues: school reform (he is a stalwart, which will cause teacher-union push-back), police reforms (he’s an ex cop), public safety and jobs (he managed a successful national firm advising non profits on marketing issues).
All this will appeal to moderate, older, good-government North End voters, who tend to dominate in a low-turnout primary. But Burgess has had trouble getting much attention, or rallying passionate supporters, who can be critical in a primary. He’s stiff, a bit condescending and a shade too conservative for the ever-more-liberal city. His hope is that after all the clumsiness of the McGinn era, voters will not want to take a chance on another outsider like Murray or one with little managerial experience.
When you think about it, the table is pretty much set for the next mayor with a lot of daunting challenges: the Big Bore waterfront tunnel, finishing SR 520, the Department of Justice supervision of police reforms, the Sodo Arena and industrial zoning issues, the central waterfront park, Yesler Terrace redevelopment, decaying streets, unfunded parks and regional issues like Metro. No time for on-the-job training, Burgess could well argue, as would Murray..
As a senator, Ed Murray is precluded from raising money during the legislative session. If the session drags on beyond its scheduled April 28 adjournment, Murray may be forced to make a tough decision about resigning his seat so he can raise money and turn full attention to the mayor’s race. He did raise more than $100,000 before the session and has been able to assemble a top team of campaign advisers, including Burgess’s former campaign consultant, Christian Sinderman.
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Comments:
Posted Fri, Mar 15, 7:44 a.m. Inappropriate
I attended a breakfast forum last weekend where Murray and a couple other candidates appeared. The wisest comment I heard afterwards was that Ed Murray is so great we need to keep him in the State Senate. We can't let him get elected mayor because that would take him away from where he's most needed and most effective. Makes sense to me.
Posted Fri, Mar 15, 7:49 a.m. Inappropriate
I won't even consider Burgess anymore now that he has crawled in bed with the Education Reform crowd.
Posted Fri, Mar 15, 8:59 a.m. Inappropriate
excellent update. A great talent pool, if not very diverse in gender or ideology or race.
Posted Fri, Mar 15, 10 a.m. Inappropriate
Sims is a better legislator than administrator. The legislative arena offers a superior forum for his free-floating "big ideas".
Posted Fri, Mar 15, 5:55 p.m. Inappropriate
"Burgess stresses three issues: school reform (he is a stalwart, which will cause teacher-union push-back)..."
If Crosscut thinks it's only the teachers union who might oppose Burgess, you'd be wrong. Burgess ran (and mightily) away from the question of his position on charter schools during the 1240 campaign. Seattle voted AGAINST charters so he might keep that in mind.
Burgess also had a fundraiser recently that was a who's who of ed reformers in Seattle. You'd have to be dim to not get who he's aiming for in public education.
Well, the voters in Seattle who said no to charter schools are not going to vote in someone who loves ed reform. That's going to cut into his vote count and could make the difference in the primary (where he and every other candidate is going to need every single vote).
Posted Fri, Mar 15, 10:47 p.m. Inappropriate
Since the Mayor of Seattle plays no significant role in running Seattle's schools, hopefully only the most obsessed or uniformed voters are going make their decisions based on a candidate's position on schools. Let's break with the past and select a mayor based on their competence to run the parts of the city for which they have responsibility.
Posted Sat, Mar 16, 11:03 a.m. Inappropriate
Agreed. But if Burgess is going to make it a central theme in his campaign, I'll take him at his word. And I don't like his ideas for public education in Seattle, so yes, it would be a reason I would vote for someone else who IS thinking of what the mayor's real responsibilities are.
I like that idea of Burgess for Chief of Police.
Posted Sun, Mar 17, 11:20 a.m. Inappropriate
The responsibility is sometimes awarded to those who can only act on gut instinct. Therefore, Mayor Mcginn will win on gut instinct originally opposing a machine, only recently seeing a Los Angeles bid to own and wear-out there instead of a worm 'wriggling' through unstable soils beneath vulnerable buildings and their historic preservation.
!!MAYOR MICHAEL PATRICK MCGINN!!
!!TWO-TERMER!!
Posted Fri, Mar 15, 8:30 p.m. Inappropriate
I pretty much predicted this last December in my 2013 Predictions:
#1 - Re-run from 2012 (some things take longer than a year to happen): Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn will lose the 2013 election in 2012.
As I said in 2012 - I know it looks like it is already over, but he still has parts of a fragile coelition that he has yet to break apart. He's got a basketball Jones, but doing the right thing for the right reasons isn't good enough for the rabid sports haters that have pooled up as one of McGinn's groups of support.
And here is why...
#2 - Peter Steinbrueck will strip enough of McGinn's lesser Seattle and rabid sports haters to sink both their hopes to make it past the Seattle mayoral primary election. At this point, Steinbrueck is saying that he is running for mayor, but the sad truth is that this is just a further extension of his lobbying activity for the Port of Seattle.
This is Peter Steinbrueck doing his version of Mike McGinn's 2009 anti-tunnel rhetoric:
Steinbrueck, who was paid by the Port of Seattle to oppose the deal—which has now been endorsed by both the City Council and the King County Council—said he would "honor the process," but indicated that he would use the process to explore better locations. - Publicola, And Steinbrueck Makes Six
Seriously, 2013 is the Year of Moving On. You lost the 2013 election when you didn't run in 2009.
#3 - Seattle will elect Ed Murray as Mayor of Seattle
So, why does Ed Murray win? Because it's the Year of Moving On.
"I’m not here to run against Mike McGinn or any particular candidate; I’m running because there are too many internal pissing matches in politics in Seattle," Murray said. "I think that our styles are very different. That’s one of the reasons I’m running." - Publicola, Ed Murray's Running for Mayor
#4 - not a prediction, but a thought people should consider, Tim Burgess should be the Chief of Police in Seattle.
http://manywordsforrain.blogspot.com/2012/12/predictions-2013.html
Posted Mon, Mar 18, 3:48 p.m. Inappropriate
You are not fooling anyone. You want a second publicly funded NBA arena, and badmouth Steinbrueck only because of that.
Posted Sat, Mar 16, 9:26 a.m. Inappropriate
It's interesting to note that the SurveyUSA poll published 9 days ago showed that with Sims out of the race, McGinn led the pack of mayoral candidates with 19%. The candidate coming closest was Burgess (with 11%), and he was closely trailed by Steinbrueck (at 10%). I have said before that it would be VERY interesting if the winners of the primary should turn out to be McGinn and Steinbrueck. Why? Because it would completely upend all of your 'conventional wisdom' assuming that McGinn has no path to victory in November. And why is that? Because suddenly McGinn would look like the moderate, insider-schmoozy type of guy that the Seattle power elite prefers, favoring this year's replacement issue for the Deep Bore Tunnel (i.e., the SODO basketball stadium), which Steinbrueck will be running against in McGinn fashion circa 2009. The establishment would be forced to close ranks behind McGinn in order to keep this newest bomb-thrower out of the mayor's office. Of course, in such circumstances, Ed Murray might attempt a write-in campaign this time around (which he mulled in 2009 but got cold feet); and that would make this year's mayoral race VERY INTERESTING INDEED.
Posted Sat, Mar 16, 6:53 p.m. Inappropriate
We need a new candidate.
Posted Sun, Mar 17, 1:03 a.m. Inappropriate
All of the leading candidates stink. It feels like a choice between Iraq, Iran, Syria, and Saudi Arabia. That much said, McGinn is such a flaming jerk that I'll vote for whoever survives the primary to run against him.
Posted Sun, Mar 17, 11:32 a.m. Inappropriate
You transit and highway armchair experts make me sick.
You are so being had, by your paid experts.
You just can't believe it, or,
you just can't admit being stupid and wrong.
The DBT must STOP.
It is a LIE.
It is a ruination of infrastructure.
It is NOT earthquake-proof by more geologist recommendations.
Those who aren't paid to calmly predict low-risk despite evidence.
Mayor McGinn will win if Michael McGinn STOPS the DBT!
Governor Mcginn, a grateful State highly respects your guts and prudence.
Posted Mon, Mar 18, 5:28 a.m. Inappropriate
McGinn is counting on his opponents battering each other and dividing supporters during the primaries, and that's probably how things will play out. Each are essentially niche candidates playing to a smaller percentage of the electorate rather than the whole.
I'm not a fan of McGinn, who is at best less incompetent than his predecessor, but after three-plus years in office, he knows where the money is while the money knows where (and how) to find it. Plus, elections being at least as much about name recognition as anything substantive, he IS the incumbent. Still, even though this election is McGinn's to lose at this point, never discount his ability to lose it via his own hubris.
For those living in Seattle, a truly informed choice needs to be made (unlikely as that may be). For thoose of us living outside Seattle, this is going to be entertaining...especially as summer becomes fall and things really heat up.
Let the Games begin.
Posted Mon, Mar 18, 5:16 p.m. Inappropriate
"he knows where the money is while the money knows where (and how) to find him." Making him ever less desirable, IMO.
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