good article. i still like mcginn and am not particularly fond of the city council, but i've really liked obrien since 2009, and that infatuation has only grown since. i'd love to see an obrien mayoral ticket in 2017.

O'Brien has been great on the city council, proud to have voted for him. But to compare someone - anyone - on the council to a mayor is stretching things too far. I'm sure McGinn would have loved to focus only on crowd-pleasing things like phone books, plastic bags and car campers. Instead he has to tackle the contentious issues where nobody agrees, like fixing the police department or transportation. And unlike O'Brien, McGinn has had half the city council gunning for his job since the day he took office.

McGinn hasn't performed as badly as this article makes it sound, but he has had his struggles. Some of those are self-inflicted wounds, but it's not as if the city council or the nature of the issues he faces make his path very easy. So yay for O'Brien, but I don't see how McGinn could have followed the same path.

After the bag-fee was revoked/voted down via initiative the bag-ban was passed by the city council 9-0. O'Brien was the main sponsor this time, Conlin and Nickels pushed the bag-fee measure.

O'Brien is also one of the louder supporters of the SoDo arena plan on the city council.

He's also got the Mercury Group pushing his reputation. http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archive…