Seattle’s mayoral races do not always showcase the city’s best and brightest. Some years — might as well admit it — it’s a slate of unqualified cranks. But this year, people have been pitching their hats into the exploratory campaign ring with such abandon that you might have lost track already of who’s running. Are you 100 percent sure you aren’t? Let’s take a moment to check.
1) Are you now or have you ever been a member of Seattle’s city council?
From the current council ranks, we have mayoral contender Tim Burgess, a progressive-values law-and-order candidate that the Seattle Times editorial board seems to have developed a crush on. Data geeks will like his evidence-based approach to problem-solving when it comes to most effectively applying resources, whether that’s police patrols or city government. If you follow his City View blog, you know he gives thoughtful consideration to a wide range of topics, while pushing steadily in areas where he wants to see change. Works well with others. He was wrong, of course, on the deep-bore tunnel, but then the city council had no leverage there to begin with.
Former council member Peter Steinbrueck is a perennial Seattle-lefty’s darling, a Harvard-lecturin’ populist-architect whose campaign, officially announced this morning, has gotten backing from Real Change Executive Director Tim Harris, the council’s Nick Licata, and David Bloom, the former deputy director of the Seattle Church Council. He extended his father’s preservation-minded brand by standing up to development-gone-wild mayors, but his latest lobbying, as a consultant to the Port of Seattle, against a “Sonics” basketball arena in the stadium district has gained him enemies. He was right on the deep-bore tunnel, but refused to run for mayor last election — now that he’s ready, is Seattle?
2) Have you ever been on the Greenwood community council?
Kate Martin is “a planner,” she told the Seattle Times, while fellow Greenwood activist (and current mayor) Mike McGinn is a lawyer. Her previous foray into political campaigning was just last year, when she ran for a position on the Seattle School Board, but lost. You may not have heard of her — older readers of the Stranger may remember her as the “Skate Mom” who built a skateboard park in her front yard — but she’s well known in Seattle school reform circles. Her challenge, as that Times story demonstrates, is to persuade people to return to the Greenwood-activist well after the McGinn administration’s rookie outing.
Mayor Mike McGinn, former president of the Greenwood community council, may be feeling unloved these days, with previous supporters falling in with old flames like Steinbrueck. This is largely a situation of his own backroom-deal-making, sharp-elbowed devising. His record on paper — haters to one side — is much more likable: After finally moving on from his doomed stand against the deep-bore tunnel, he’s kept the city’s credit rating strong despite the Great Recession, overseen the structural realignment of Seattle on a downtown-South Lake Union axis, pressed for a streetcar network that Seattle will fall in love with, cooked up a basketball arena deal, and just announced fiber-optic broadband for Christmas. Negatives: an austerity budget that’s left Seattle looking shabby, the Seattle Police Department, and his combative relationship with…most of the city, at one point or another.
3) Are you a popular gay legislator with a reputation for incremental victories or a former King County executive known for being greener than Kermit?
When state senator Ed Murray announced he was exploring a mayoral candidacy, he worried aloud whether he’d be able to keep up with fundraising, since he’s limited in that area while the Legislature is in session. More than $122,000 later, it doesn’t look like such a handicap. He told the Seattle Times that he’d work to restore Seattle’s influence in Olympia, something recent Seattle mayors have struggled with; and that he wants new leadership in the police department, better public schools, and to prepare Seattle for climate change (Murray was a cheerleader in devoting $4 billion to a tunnel without a transit element but he’s been more critical of the 520 bridge replacement project).
Unannounced as of yet are any formal ambitions that Ron Sims may have. The 12-year King County Executive and former HUD deputy secretary is more beloved in Seattle than in King County’s hinterlands, where his growth management strategies brought not-so-veiled threats from homeowners with soggy bottoms. A fiery speaker and visionary who’s (too) willing to touch on political third rails (like a state income tax), Sims has also been criticized for letting big ideas overtake his fiscal management of King County. Murray v. Sims would represent a real dilemma for greens and progressives who haven’t been seduced by Steinbrueck.
4) Are you a native Seattleite?
Charlie Staadecker is. 4th generation. Graduated Franklin HS. Staadecker got into the race early, to compensate for being a dark horse candidate without substantial political experience (he was elected twice to the Vashon Island School Board). He’d raised $40,000 by mid-November, with a strong core of retirees supporting the 69-year-0ld, who runs a commercial real estate company. You can’t count him out, just as you can’t count anyone out in a field this crowded, as the primary may make for some fine-slicing of electoral support.