Seattle Mayor's Race: Viaduct is problem/opportunity for both

What comes next?* As Mallahan and McGinn now turn their attention to the general I thought I would post my $0.02 about what could happen next. I could be totally wrong about my sense of this but, from a political perspective, I think this is how to win.

Read Roger Valdez' opinion: How To Win In November | hugeasscity.

Here's my two cents:

The issue is a tough one for both Malahan and McGinn. If Malahan pushes his pro-tunnel view very hard, he loses — so many people see the tunnel as unwise, too-expensive, too-risky financially, too much money focussed on a ten block section of Seattle etc. If McGinn pushes the surface/transit option very hard, he loses — so many people think surface/transit is impractical, high-risk, politically-impossible in a regional perspective etc. And since I understand that McGinn sincerely believes in surface/transit, he may find it difficult to step away from it. So maybe thar favors Malahan. He seems less ideologically-committed to the tunnel. He may be able to step away gingerly from it by saying something like he favors tunnel so long as some (practically impossible) condition can be met e.g. Seattle voters will take no financial risk whatsoever because ALL cost overruns will be responsibility of "someone else" such as the State Legislature, the design-build contractor, the tooth fairy. Of course he still has the huge problem of where Seattle gets the $1 billion down payment. (Yes, that's what our initial contribution will be called: down payment.)

Or perhaps the winner will move toward the Repair option as quickly and gracefully as possible. Maybe that means McGinn; he has an advantage because he can (justly) claim that what he really wants is "Repair and Prepare." (Repair viaduct for short-run as we Prepare to take the viaduct down over longer-term, which will in fact take years e.g. actually planning the whole operation in terms of traffic flows, putting the public transit hardware in place, winning the environmental law suits etc. You really thought surface/transit could be done quickly? In Seattle?)