A nobody will become a somebody on election day

Seattle faces an interesting election. The two-time incumbent (Nickels) didn't make it into the finals. Pretty amazing considering that he had been a 'not bad' mayor. Arrogant, maybe. But a perfect-pitch Seattle liberal with no financial or sex scandals (his own or in his city government entirely) in his 8 years in office. Amazing and admirable, even if I disagreed with much of his policy.

So now we have two guys running for Seattle's top job — neither of whom has held or even run for any public office. Since they agree on so much, the debate comes down to two prongs: the deep-bore tunnel and basic competence.

Here's a plug for Mr. McGinn: The Party of the Future. My own take on his opponent Mr. Mallahan:

I was at the Maple Leaf election meeting last night and I asked Mr. Mallahan how he expected us to pay for the tunnel’s cost overruns.

His response was that with his leadership as Mayor there wouldn’t be any cost overruns.

Such an answer is absurd and patronizing.

What strikes me about Mr. Mallahan is that he simply is not a smart politician. A smart politician would have said something like “Wait a second. I am committed 100% to the tunnel but we do have to clarify this issue of cost overruns. I am fiscally responsible and I want to make sure that Seattle is not stuck paying for management errors when we are not responsible for management.”

Such an answer would have reassured the tunnel advocates AND the tunnel waverers (though not tunnel adversaries, I admit.) But as it was, Mr. Mallahan’s answer made him look like a patronizing fool — trying to tell us that HE can prevent cost overruns. Talk about arrogance.