Strikes me as a bad move

One of my favorite candidates for Seattle City Council -- Casey Corr -- has switched opponents to run against the monorail. Questionable move. Such a quick turn suggests opportunism and disloyalty, kicking someone when they are down. Moreover, his new opponent -- Jan Drago -- is not popularly identified with the monorail's now-dead financing plan, which plan even I, as a firm monorail supporter, do agree was a bad one.

Drago can easily back-off from that plan (as she should and probably has) and yet keep the faith with the basic monorail program, showing flexibility, commonsense and most of all, steadfastness...admirable personal qualities not found in great quantity in political circles. (The Council's most visibly pro-monorail councilmenber -- Nick Licata -- correctly and astutely innoculated himself against the mono-phobes with some hard "tough-love" statements to the independent Monorail Board a few weeks ago. Drago can still easily do the same.)

Casey would have been smarter to "out-monorail" Jan...attack her from the monorail-supporter side --suggesting that while she may have favored the monorail, she didn't have the skills to make it happen and that his leadership was needed to make the monorail a reality etc etc. Casey may have access to polls which suggest a massive move against the monorail (wishful thinking, guys!) and buckets of campaign contributions.  But if there is one thing which the election of GW Bush shows, people overlook policy positions in favor of "character," sticking with your core values etc etc.

I wonder which "campaign consultant" thought up this brilliant stroke for Casey. Too bad, because I was for sure looking forward to seeing him on the City Council. I ran into him at a political dinner a few weeks ago and I like the guy -- he just has some bad advisors.

Comments

[Jon Stahl]

Casey may be a good guy, but he's a stooge for Nickels' often-questionable priorities.

That said, I'd rather see him running against Drago than Conlin, who -- although I don't agree with him on every issue (e.g. monorail) -- is a thoughtful an independent guy who tries really hard to build consensus and do the right thing.