Tuesday, October 20, 2009

Election thoughts, 2009

Has it really been almost a full year since we elected Barack Obama as the 44th President of the United States?

Apparently so.  This year’s election concentrates on local offices—King County officials, Seattle leadership, and the like.  I’ve placed icons representing a number of the important issues and people I’m supporting over on the sidebar.  Though they’re listed in ballot order, they’re also generally shown in descending order of importance.

Even more troubling than the danger of Susan Hutchison being elected King County Executive—this is a person who makes the similarly wingnutty fundamentalist Sarah Palin look like an experienced, competent public official—is the possible success of Tim Eyman’s latest and most invidious state initiative.  I-1033 will do more than just hamstring essential state, county, and municipal programs.  It will do more than just screw over the low-information voters who’ll support it while further enriching Eyman’s treacherous cronies.  What’s especially insidious and evil about it is that it will continue to ratchet down state revenues year after year after year without even the slightest possibility of catching up in good times.

Sadly, in this low-turnout odd-numbered year, an Eyman initiative is really difficult to defeat.  Perhaps the urban turnout in support of R-71 will spill over to help us with I-1033.  But I’m not all that optimistic.

You’ll notice that I haven’t displayed an icon for one of the candidates for Mayor of Seattle.  That’s because I still haven’t made up my mind.  I voted against Greg Nickels for Mike McGinn in the primary, and I’ve been leaning toward him throughout the post-primary campaign.  But I don’t feel strongly enough about it yet to make a final decision.  I worry that he might be too quixotic, too my-way-or-the-highway on some issues.  With Joe Mallahan, my concern is mostly that he believes his experience as a T-Mobile manager can guide him in running city government.  However, private sector management principles simply don’t translate directly to the public sector.  In addition, I still don’t get a picture of what compelled him to run in the first place.  I’ll make my choice before November rolls around, but it’s more likely to be a nose-holding decision on which one I find less unappealing, rather than a positive vote for a mayoral candidate.

There are other races on the ballot, but I just don’t find them all that compelling.  For instance, I don’t particularly want to vote for either Bagshaw or Bloom in their City Council race, and don’t know all that much about the School Board races.

All in all, I don’t have a good feeling about the outcome of this election cycle.  I expect the horridly destructive I-1033 to pass, and I’m concerned that the incompetent, reactionary, oblivious blow-dried TV newsreader will take over Ron Sims’s former position.  Either of those eventualities would be highly deleterious; the combination could be disastrous.