By Peter Masundire
In most election cycles, conventional wisdom dictates that if you want to win, you have to raise as much money as you can. And if you are running for re-election, usually raising money or lining up support from labor groups, the business community or other groups and individuals you have helped (or done favors for) while in office is never an issue.
However, results from this year’s primary election, particularly in the mayoral race, have left many political pundits and candidates scratching their heads wondering “what happened?” And for elected officials, the results should be taken as a warning and a reminder that no politician, however long he/she has been in office, or how powerful they think he/she is, should ever take their positions for granted.
After all, Mayor Nickels was supposed to be so entrenched in his position that no established or well known politician dared to enter the mayoral race. And the mayor was so confident that at his kick-off fundraiser, held at the plush Westin Hotel where his campaign claimed to have raised more than $50,000, he joked about sticking around for “another four, eight or twelve years”.
Nationally, Nickels was seen as a rising star; President Obama praised him for his environmental leadership and in June, he was elected as president of the US Conference of Mayors. At home, Mayor Nickels raised (and spent) more money than anyone else in the race and his campaign rolled out press releases almost every other day, touting this and that endorsement. So what happened?
I am sure that in his campaign, the post-mortem began immediately after the first set of results were released on Tuesday night when mayor Nickels came in third behind Mike McGinn and Joe Mallahan. If the people in his campaign thought that the first results were a fluke, their doubts were removed as each batch of results saw Mayor Nickels lagging further behind.
For those of us who followed the mayoral campaign, the results were not a surprise. We knew that Nickels was unpopular with voters and his campaign was in trouble. He failed to receive endorsements from local legislative Democratic organizations apart from a dual endorsement from his own district, the 34th LD.
In my view, Mayor Nickels committed a common mistake made by elected officials who have been in office for a number of years. They forget that, as Thomas “Tip” O’Neal, the longtime Democratic speaker of the House in the US Congress put it, “All politics is local.” It doesn’t matter what powerful committee you sit on, or how well you are know statewide or nationally; if you are not taking care of the business at home, voters will notice and you will pay the price at election time!
From a city wide perspective, the results in the mayoral race was a reminder of the power we hold in a democracy when we exercise our constitutional right to vote. While a candidate can raise all the money they want, garner all the endorsements they can get, at the end of the day, it’s us, the voters who actually get to decide their fate. Just as we can vote them into office, we can vote them out!
For Mayor Nickels, this reality hit home last Friday morning as he walked up to the podium to concede the election to Joe Mallahan and Mike McGinn. I attended the press conference at City Hall, and saw the look on most people’s faces, especially those who worked for the mayor, that seemed to ask, “What happened?”
Primary elections are supposed to winnow out candidates. Under our current election rules, the top two vote getters go through to the general election where, once again, we the voters are suppose to pick the winner. In this election, voters spoke and chose Mike McGinn and Joe Mallahan to advance to the general election. Most people thought that this had been decided. Today, however, there are rumors in the press that some people who supported Nickels and are unhappy with either McGinn or Mallahan, are encouraging others to jump into the race and mount a “write-in campaign”. According to The Seattle Times, the Stranger and Publicola, State Senator Ed Murray has confirmed that he is considering entering the race.
As a resident of Southeast Seattle, I was disappointed when Mayor Nickels chose not to participate in our Candidates Forum and thought the result of the election was befitting of his dismissal of our importance. Throughout last week, like most of the 75% of the citizens who didn’t vote for Nickels, I was ecstatic of what we had achieved. However, my euphoria was put into check, when the King County elections office released a breakdown of the votes by legislative districts last Friday. Contrary to popular belief, a closer look at the results shows that, as of election night, a majority of the people who actually voted in the 37th and 11th Legislative Districts, voted for the mayor! Yes, the mayor won in Southeast Seattle!
Just like the mayor, I too was left scratching my heard wondering how could this be? After all the reported displeasure with the mayor’s performance, I was stunned! The mayor didn’t even win in his own legislative district, and yet here in Southeast Seattle, in the 37th Legislative District, we voted for him in larger numbers than we did for each of the two eventual winners (Nickels = 2,631, McGinn = 2,041, Mallahan = 1,724). Assuming that the trend on election night holds as the final votes are counted, it’s possible that although the mayor was voted out of office, it wasn’t by the residents of southeast Seattle.
Just like you, I am left wondering and have to ask, what happened?
Also From Peter Masundire:
Peter Masundire is a long-time Rainier Beach resident and active member of the community. He is a member of the Executive Board of the 37th Legislative District Democrats and has worked on a number of local and federal political campaigns including the successful campaigns for Deborah Senn for Insurance Commissioner, Kathy Keolker Wheeler for mayor of Renton and Dawn Mason for State Representative. Peter served as the media and communications coordinator for the state’s grassroots Obama campaign and was elected as an Obama delegate to last year’s Democratic National Convention.
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Sixteen Rainier Beach community members have been selected to serve on a newly-formed Neighborhood Advisory Committee (NAC), which is designed to advise and collaborate with the City on the neighborhood planning update process.
Senator Adam Kline was first appointed to the senate in January 1997 and was elected in November that year. Since then, he was re-elected in 2002 and 2006. Kline is the chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee and also serves on the Labor, Commerce & Consumer Protection and the Ways and Means Committees. Before he was appointed to the state senate, Adam Kline was a lawyer in private practice where he represented people injured in auto collisions, especially the victims of drunk drivers. He has volunteered as a pro bono lawyer for the ACLU, was a co-founder and chair of Washington Conservation Voter’s local chapter; served as a board member and chair of the political-action committee of NARAL, the pro-choice advocacy group; and was a member of the Legislative Committee of the Washington State Trial Lawyers Association. He retired from his law practice in 2004, to take a job as an organizer with the Laborers Union. Adam and his wife, Laura Gene Middaugh, live in the Mount Baker area.
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