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Five to Four

The Real Election Story

by Josh Feit

Even if Mark Sidran eventually wins the mayoral election, the mainstream media spent last week ignoring a story that was staring them in the face. Starry-eyed about their man Sidran, The Seattle Post-Intelligencer and The Seattle Times simply couldn't bring themselves to acknowledge that Greg Nickels' impressive eight-point Election Day margin was big news. In the days following the election, the story the press hyped was that their man Sidran could still eke out a victory. While that's true, Sidran was never supposed to be playing catch-up in the first place. The real story was this: Greg Nickels, the underdog candidate (a November 2 KING 5 poll had Nickels losing by six points), defied the conventional wisdom that Sidran was the inevitable mayor.

Face it--on Election Day, did you know anyone who thought Nickels even had a chance? Indeed, Sidran scored both the P-I and Seattle Times endorsements and won the primary, and best of all, Sidran supposedly had that infamous "secret vote" lined up. You remember the theory: Liberal Seattleites were too embarrassed to admit they liked Mark "Republican" Sidran, but once they got into the privacy of the voting booth, their conservative brains would take over and they'd vote how they "really" felt. We ridiculed this theory weeks ago [Five to Four, Sept 6].

Creating the idea that a politician has "quiet support" is a cockamamie faux-populist strategy that folks like Richard Nixon once used. Nixon called it the "silent majority." The strategy is aimed at creating a "buck the establishment" momentum, so a politician's supporters feel like bold contrarians, flipping off the liberal establishment. In this instance, the establishment was supposed to be Democrat Greg Nickels. Sidran was supposed to be the hip vote of "dissent."

Given Nickels' numbers (at press time, he led with nearly 51 percent of the total vote and had 56 percent of votes from the polls), the real secret vote went to Nickels, against the real establishment vote, Sidran. In truth, there was nothing contrarian or anti-establishment about Sidran's support. Sidran had the endorsement of both daily papers. He also had the backing of the incumbent mayor, the governor, Seattle City Council President Margaret Pageler, and Seattle State Rep. Ed Murray. Meanwhile, nearly half of Sidran's richy-rich donor base tapped out at the $600 donation limit.

So what happened? Here's what: At least 50 percent of voters bucked the establishment by choosing Nickels. Sidran's odd interpretations of the Constitution, his fake transportation platform, and his attacks on the city's homeless undermined any public mandate that Sidran (who very well might eke out that victory) was supposed to have.

josh@thestranger.com