Tue 10 Nov 2009
McGinn wins
Posted by Ronit under Mike McGinn '82 at 2:39 pm
Surprising Victory in Seattle Mayor’s Race
A former Sierra Club leader who rode his bicycle to campaign events and relied heavily on volunteer support claimed a narrow and surprising victory on Monday in the race for mayor of this environmentally friendly city.
“You cared, you believed, and we’ve got a lot more work to do,” Mike McGinn told supporters after the city’s mail-in election showed him winning 51 percent of the vote, by a margin of 4,939 votes out of about 190,000 cast in the mayor’s race.
He was met by the same chant he heard on the campaign trail: “We like Mike!”
His opponent had conceded a few minutes earlier.
Mr. McGinn, who was outspent more than 3 to 1 and did not receive endorsements from major political and business leaders, defeated Joe Mallahan, a vice president with T-Mobile who contributed more than $200,000 to his own campaign.
Both men are Democrats and were largely unknown before entering the mayor’s race, but Mr. Mallahan raised far more money and received major endorsements, including that of Gov. Christine Gregoire, a Democrat.
(h/t ‘11)
The Stranger sums up some local reactions:
Print • Email“Mayor Mike McGinn” Has a Nice Ring to It: The mayor-elect accepted Joe Mallahan’s concession last night in a campaign office in southeast Seattle, before cake and pizza and beer materialized. Seattle Times, which endorsed Mallahan (as well as Susan Hutchison, Robert Rosencrantz, and Jessie Israel),editorializes about McGinn’s victory today, explaining that “Seattle voters are in a testy mood” and “Seattleites are naturally drawn to nonconformists.”
And Here’s the P-I’s Take: “That noise you heard Monday night in Seattle was the collective wailing of the city’s big shots as they came to grips with the fact that Mike McGinn will be the next mayor.”
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7 Responses to “McGinn wins”
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JeffZ says:
Sweet! So barring something expected in Coakley’s election, we’ll soon have two Eph U.S. Senators, one Mayor of a major city, and one Congressman. And I forgetting anyone? Not too shabby for a school of 2000.
PTC says:
Cool! Guy seems like he will make a good mayor.
… I agree Jeffz- Coakley looks like a shoe in right. Too bad on that one.
JeffZ says:
Hate to say I told you so, PTC, but …. and I note that she has been endorsed by all sorts of people who know NOTHING about firearms, such as, for example, the POLICE. I would think you’d at least be happy that a North Adams resident overcame the odds to become a Senator …
JeffZ says:
I should probably not jinx her — overcame the odds to be on the BRINK of becoming a Senator …
PTC says:
Jeffz- Oh, she beat the odds. The Kennedys stayed out of it.
Just because a person is from my home town or went to Williams that does not mean they will represent the nation well.
I want a person who I know is going to support our Constitution. The major problem that I have with her politics on guns is nothing in comparison to what I see as a pattern of negligent prosecutions … she seems to prosecute people for political reasons, and be unwilling to admit when she makes mistakes in that arena- which hurts innocent people.
That is a big deal, for me. You and I have focused a lot of our arguments about her politics on the gun control issue, but if you read back you will find that that is really our debate, and secondary to the issue I have with the manner in which she has used her power to enforce the law.
jeffz says:
Well, PTC, I know her history better than you, and I can guarantee you that, in the world of prosecutors, she is about as un-politically-motivated and fair as you could possible ask for. Certainly in her time as Middlesex D.A. she placed a tremendous emphasis on doing JUSTICE as opposed to winning at all costs. That was a firm and consistent message from the top, right on down the line, in that office. I don’t have any first-hand knowledge of her time as A.G., but I’ll just make a general point that (a) you don’t know the whole story behind the prosecutions you found objectionable; certainly there is often many aspects of an investigation that are never, and can never be, made public, and (b) hindsight is 20-20 and even if a few cherry-picked prosecutions out of literally TENS OF THOUSANDS she has been involved with and/or ultimately responsible for in her career appear in retrospect to have not been handled perfectly, that in no way indicates she is someone who is generally hostile to the Constitution. That is a very grave and, in my mind, wholly unsupported charge by you. She is anything but a Mike Nifong-type who bases her decisions on the political winds. Not to say she is totally immune from political calculation; no successful politician is. But in the grand scheme of things, I most definitely trust her to do the right thing far more often than almost any alternative in that office. And I’m thankful, on the subsidiary gun point, that someone at least has the guts to stand opposed to the NRA’s massive special interest money machine, which in recent months has led to stupidity like legislation allowing guns in bars.
PTC says:
Well… I look at the aqua teen hunger force fiasco differently than you I guess. It does make me feel better about it that you think she is fair though Jeff… honestly. You have much better visibility on her record as a prosecutor than I do, no doubt about it.
As far as the gun control position she has… I think we have inflicted that debate enough on Ephblog. I strongly oppose her severe position on gun control…