I didn't catch this debate last night. Why were former candidates "on a panel" and asking questions? That seems pretty dumb, and a surefire way to re-litigate pre-primary issues. I mean, I wish Farrell or McGinn had won... But they didn't, and now I don't need to hear from them regarding mayoral stuff.

Also:
Reality is both women entered the race after me and had equal opportunity to support the candidacy of a qualified woman of color.

"Qualified?" LOL. She doesn't even vote 75% of the time.

I don't think JD was saying CM shouldn't have run against NO, JD was saying CM wouldn't have beaten NO w/o generously self-funding her campaign. To NO's point that they both blocked a "qualified woman of color", well, one of those descriptors is subjective.

Dan, read this twice and I'm not sure what you're point is. Is it:

[A] Durkan sucks for trying to inflame identity resentments to split the anti-Durkan vote.
[B] Oliver's identity resentments have drifted into ridiculous territory that would turn electoral politics into a first-come-first-served race for the most aggrieved candidate.
[C] Both

Bottom line: Your bottom line didn't really get to the bottom of anything....

....bottom..... he he!

A more honest Jenny would acknowledge that the only reason she is in the race at this point is the mountain of cash that has been thrown at her campaign. It is not her record of activism, grasp of the issues or or shovel ready ideas. It is money, and money alone that has kept her in the race. And she is right, Oliver would have finished first with that much money.

That's not how democracy works. Oliver didn't win in the primary because not enough voters wanted her to. There are enough differences between all three candidates for voters to have legitimate reasons to not voter for Oliver. This concept of Moon somehow doing something wrong because she didn't step aside because she didn't deserve to run is a dangerous one for a democratic society. The voters decide who is deserving and Oliver clearly didn't convince enough of them.

“Candidate Cary Moon, meanwhile, has raised about $278,000. As of Monday, when she donated $35,000 to her own campaign, more than half of Moon's campaign chest comes from her own pocket.”

Thats almost hundreds of thousands....at least 143k.

Also I don’t get where she was saying that Moon should never had run at all....

Oliver is hilarious.

She just proves the point that there's a hierarchy built into identity politics.

Ugh, November please get here.

Does Oliver suggest just the white women should step aside? Why don't the white men have to, or is that assumed?

Oliver is pointing to a problem that's obviously real, but asking all white candidates to drop out entirely is... too much. Not even that it's unfair to those candidates, i can argue it's perfectly fair, but it's bad politics.

Look at it this way, what if this happened? Well first of all, one of our Seattle Nazis probably tones it down enough to get the shitty white people vote and win.

But let's say that doesn't happen, and Oliver gets in as the mayor. She would not have any kind of a real public mandate, she would not be able to lead the city, and she could not get much done. Not even her fault, but that doesn't matter. You can't care what's your fault, you have to get shit done for the people. Radical change is good, radical falling on your face is bad, and there are no points for virtuous effort.

Wow, Dan, I think you are confused. Like @2 said, it was a simple, smart-ass comment about her spending so much money. She could have easily picked Farrell, but picked Oliver. Either way her point was that without your money, you wouldn't be here (to run against me).

As for Oliver's comments, they are absurd. She thinks everyone should step aside for her, despite the fact that she has never held elected office, or has even bothered to vote in several elections. Really? Her political experience is minimal. It is just bizarre, and suggests that she is narcissistic and feels sorry for herself. When Bruce Harrell ran for mayor and lost, he never said that others should have just stepped out of his way, because he is a man of color, and more qualified than any of our recent mayors. Harrell just went back to doing his job.

I don't think the line of reasoning any one of these three is trying to use makes a damn bit of sense. It doesn't matter that much what anybody thinks about Oliver. Moon only needs to not piss anybody off.

Durkan. If Durkan wasn't desperately trying to salvage a losing race, she would never have been there. She certainly wouldn't be pulling these convoluted and disingenuous attacks on Moon out of her ass. Durkan is the candidate of the common people! Holy shit, lady. If she wasn't standing on the edge of a cliff, she'd be flying high on her unassailable lead and saying conciliatory things to try to sweet talk even more voters from the other camp over to her side.

Her motive for this scorched earth shit (and record-shattering levels of spending) is that she's losing.

(Oliver has worked hard to delegitimize Moon's win over her and wound Moon in the general by citing Moon's donations to her own campaign. Durkan has done all she can amplify Oliver's gripes.)

Man, you are so full of shit. If you don't want people to mention you're a wealthy person self-funding your campaign, then don't do it. It's that simple. I'm voting for Moon, but insufferable commentary like this is making it harder than it should be. If anyone is driving a wedge between the voters that supported Oliver in the primary and Moon's support in the general, it's people like Dan Savage who take a cruel amount of joy in relentlessly beating left wing candidates into the ground after they've already lost.

For context, I'll put the entire exchange below, since Dan has already decided to treat a Facebook debate like campaign press release. Here's the post to which Oliver is responding:

Can someone explain this to me: Nikkita Oliver hosts a debate between mayoral candidates, and during said debate explicitly "asked the candidates what they would do to earn her endorsement," but later suggests it was "racist" to use her as "a debate tactic" because both candidates should have supported her instead??

Here's Oliver's response:

For the record... Below is what actually happened.

I did not moderate a debate between mayoral candidates...yet.

I was on a panel of questioners which included Jessyn Ferrell, Mike McGinn and numerous community journalists.

The forum was moderated by Sharon Maeda and can be heard on KVRU for the next few weeks.
My questions was not what would Moon or Durkan do to earn my endorsement. My question was, (paraphrase) “Given that so many people have repeatedly asked me why I will not endorse either (and even criticized me for the decision), I now put the question before you. Why should I endorse either of you? Please provide practical answers which go beyond campaign platitudes."

Bottomline: The exchange between Durkan and Moon was racist/white supremacist. Neither supported my candidacy (though both had the opportunity to). There has been a lot of pandering to the strength of the Seattle Peoples Party's campaign and my candidacy since the election as attempt to earn the votes of those who voted for me/us.

During the debate, instead of sticking to points about wealth and corporate donations Durkan states, "If Cary had not used her own wealth to run for office, it would be Nikkita Oliver and I sitting here."

Reality is both women entered the race after me and had equal opportunity to support the candidacy of a qualified women of color. For Durkan to utilize me in front of a fairly POC heavy audience as a "low blow" is a racist thing to do. For Cary to give me the opportunity to respond, but not first call out the racism herself is to be a poor ally.

The last paragraph clarifies Oliver's thinking quite a bit, but Dan decided not to mention it. Why?

There’s a ballot initiative for Ranked Choice Voting gathering signatures right now.

Could that be a better approach?

SJWs don't believe in democracy. This should be patently obvious to everyone. We should put them and the Trumpers on an island together and leave the rest of us alone.

"Does Oliver suggest just the white women should step aside? Why don't the white men have to, or is that assumed?"

And should fair skinned black women step said for dark skinned black women? And should dark skinned black women step aside for one legged, lesbian dark skinned black women with self diagnosed mental disorders?

”Durkan was talking about fundraising, yes, but she strongly implied Moon did something wrong by getting in the race in the first place, not just by spending more of her own money.”

Joining the chorus of people who think you’re misinterpreting here, Dan. Durkan was being snarky about self-funding; it’s Oliver who is judging whether each candidate deserves to be there.

"Neither supported my candidacy (though both had the opportunity to)... Reality is both women entered the race after me and had equal opportunity to support the candidacy of a qualified woman of color."

Unfreakinbeleivable. First we have the SJW's yammering for McGinn and Hasegawa to give up their right to run for political office and bow out so a woman can win and become mayor. Now they're saying two white women to drop out so a POC of color could win. This is what "equality" looks like?

.Too funny.

Reposting Nikkita's last paragraph again because it torpedoes this entire stupid, malignant post:

"Reality is both women entered the race after me and had equal opportunity to support the candidacy of a qualified women of color. For Durkan to utilize me in front of a fairly POC heavy audience as a "low blow" is a racist thing to do. For Cary to give me the opportunity to respond, but not first call out the racism herself is to be a poor ally."

She's pretty fucking clearly separating the two candidates.

"Reality is both women entered the race after me and had equal opportunity to support the candidacy of a qualified women of color."

Seriously, she doesn't think both women had thought and planned for this for years? It all boils down to who fills out the paperwork and announces first? Is she really that stupid and naive to think we'll buy that argument? Should everyone just have bowed down to her spoken work magnificence and handed her the thrown to the city? Hell, let's just get rid of voting and give it to the person who says "QUEER WORKING CLASS ONE LEGGED MENTALLY ILL WoC!!!" the loudest on a stage?

SJWs are total idiots.

Nikkita Oliver. The Charlie Sheen of winning in Seattle politics.

I totally understand why Ijeoma Oluo chose not to write for the Stranger anymore. I used to come to the Stranger for good, solid thinking on progressive ideals. But now I find transphobic articles here. Now I find half page articles by Tim Eyman so he has one more platform to tank our state. Now I find articles attacking women of color here. Now I find think pieces on picking apart a candidate who asks white candidates to check their privilege and seeing no veracity for this question. White privilege defends itself at every turn, and there are plenty of reasons why. You can point to all kinds of establishment reasons, but did rich white people vote overwhelmingly for Durkan because they thought she would protect their interests? Yes, they did. So don't say Nikkita Oliver doesn't have a point when she absolutely does.

@21 Well, you always have the South Seattle Emerald, journalism launch pad for Seattle's community college pastry arts majors.

@12 and 18: Thank you.

Roger, you really don't know when to stop. What?

@21 So now we need to have affirmative action for our mayors, because white privilege? Did you ever stop to wonder if maybe, just maybe, people should vote for who they think is best for the job? Or is that too "white" s suggestion?

The bottom line is that if Nikkita Oliver was white she would have had been promoted by papers like oh The Stranger?. We don't teach civics in school anymore so how are people to learn how to vote or who to vote for?

Guess what they read news papers who endorse people. They watch television to see who the TV likes; sure Commercials play a large role here. But to think that Commercials are the be all and end all is a joke.

I think I have white skin? it's really kind of pinkish I was raised Irish so I know the stereotype and how we treat each other as lesser because of who gave birth to you.

So it could be (falsely) argued that Nikkita's only problem was her mother and father were not of the right color.

Lastly; anyone who thinks that we need to end affirmative action needs some education to understand that yes it needs to be broadened.

How many women are Senators? 21 out of 100 so that's 21% ouch

61 women of color (57D, 4R) have served in the U.S. Congress to date: 37 have been Black, 11 Asian American/Pacific Islander, 12 Latina, and 1 multiracial.

Lastly yes I am male. I identify as a man. I think I was raised as a feminist but I suspect others would disagree.

The color of your skin matters; just as much as what is between your legs. Blame it on whatever damned excuse you want it's just repugnent

@18: I'm not sure if your comment was addressing my #17. But what Oliver was pretty fucking clearly saying is Both Moon and Durkan should have endorsed her simply because she is a POC. As The Stranger put it:

"Bottom line: Oliver is arguing, essentially, that all of the white female candidates who claim to be non-racist should have supported her instead of staying in the race. To do so, those candidates—Durkan, Moon, Farrell—would have to also agree with Oliver that she is as or more qualified than they are to be mayor. Is she? A majority of the SECB didn't think so."

My got these white supremacists here are creaming themselves.

Old white man has a gaffe and we laugh and forget about it. Person of color says something done and these racist assholes are having the best day of their lives. A person of color who isn't even running for mayor any more.

I'm kind of disappointed in Oliver but the whole thing just isn't that important and I'm not paying that much attention to her. I'll look at her more closely next time her name is actually going to be on a ballot.

But you racists assholes. Holy shit, get a life. It's disgusting. It's disgusting that the Stranger let's Stormfront and the KKK post here at all, but it's even more disgusting seeing you happy.

Here watch this.

I believe you took Oliver's words out of context as many of the commenters have noted. She is calling the candidates out on how they are co-opting the success of the People's Party to get more votes. I noticed how both candidates jumped at the chance to take credit for Oliver's efforts during KEXP's Seattle Mayoral Forum on Arts and the Environment.

It's unreal but unfortunately not surprising that the stranger is attacking and misrepresenting Oliver's pursuit to call out the nasty, half-cloaked, self-serving habits of white politics and people. This city has a problem of representation, the incredible people of color here are expected to jump through all the bullshit obstacles we white people throw in their way, are called unqualified because their expertise is radical and not based in whiteness, and then tokenized and punished because they care enough to keep speaking up and standing up for change. It's infuriating. Focus on the issues, Stranger, stop the petty and racist gossiping and take a look at your role in fucking up journalistic integrity and a people's right to real information.

" This city has a problem of representation"

No it doesn't. 5 our of 9 of the council is people of color, far more than their population in the city.

If anything, they're over represented.

5 out of 9 on the council are people of color, far more than their population in the city.

To those of you like @21, @28, @29 who claim Nikkita Oliver’s words are being misrepresented, please re-read the part where she straight-up called Jenny Durkan a “racist”. That’s a vile statement to casually toss at someone who has done nothing (as far as I can tell) to merit the label. Do you not see how that cheapens the evil of racism?

Bottomline: The exchange between Durkan and Moon was racist/white supremacist.

As @32 nicely notes, words have meanings. Specifically, "Racist" and "white supremacist" have meanings which in no way apply to the verbal jousting between Durkan and Moon over how their campaigns are funded. Oliver's nasty, spiteful throwing of these terms at the candidates who had beaten her adds nothing to our civic dialog.

Now, Oliver's ire is understandable. Duran was making a jab at Moon's ability to self-fund her campaign, but it was also a sly bit of knife-twisting at Oliver: had Oliver acted like a real candidate, not a statement candidate, she might have edged Moon in the primary election. Oliver's failure to use the resources she had -- a mistake Durkan is clearly determined not to repeat -- cost her whatever chance she may have had to beat Moon for the second spot on our general election ballots.

Oliver reacted to Durkan's jab by lashing out at the candidates who had beaten her, even going so far as to imply they didn't deserve to enter the race at all:

Reality is both women entered the race after me and had equal opportunity to support the candidacy of a qualified women of color.

Once again, it's time to recall exactly what that self-described "queer black woman of color" means by describing herself as "qualified":

ECB: Did you support the housing levy?

NO: Which levy?

ECB: The one that passed last year, that will bring in $290 million to build affordable housing.

NO: Honestly I don’t remember.

ECB: It was a property tax levy that doubled the amount the city is spending to build affordable housing.

Bland and casual ignorance of how our city's actual voters had actually behaved in a real election less than a year before: this is what Oliver means when she called herself "qualified"-- she believes herself so "qualified", in fact, that she automatically deserved the support of candidates who have actual ideas for how to move our city forward.

I'm glad Oliver gave us yet another reminder of why voters were fully justified in choosing other candidates for our Mayor's office, and I thank The Stranger for bringing us her reminder.

Nikkita Oliver truly is the Donald Trump of the Seattle left. Ignorant, spiteful, narcissistic, woefully unqualified, uninterested in local politics (until recently), and a dangerous demagogue wielding identity politics as a cudgel. I'm not sure I honestly trust Durkan or Moon to do what's best for the city, but I have no doubt we dodged a bullet by not electing Oliver. I sincerely hope we do see a woman of color elected mayor of Seattle, but one who wins on her own merits, not through some entitled me-first attitude and vindictive identity shaming. That person Nikkita Oliver is not.

The people that NO needed to support her, were the voters. But, they in their wisdom chose not to support her. She sounds more idiotic every week.

Oliver's supporters were attacking Farrell with this line of attack during the Primary. Two things - One, Oliver isn't as qualified as Farrell (or Durkan for that matter, and I say that as someone who's not a fan of Durkan). She's a great speaker who built a movement, but that doesn't mean she knows anything about government. Two, no one was asking McGinn to step aside for Oliver. These attacks have only been leveled against white women in the race, for reasons I can't figure out.

She's an inspirational candidate, and if she had run for Burgess' seat she'd be a shoo-in (and I think the same of Moon, before you go off a accusing me of being a racist). This idea that people should drop out of a race, and give up on their own ambitions to allow a neophyte to walk into political office is as insulting as it is absurd.

"Oliver's nasty, spiteful throwing of these terms at the candidates who had beaten her adds nothing to our civic dialog."

SJWs having ben doing this on campus for years, to the point where all white people are, by default, racists and white supremacists.

@37: It’d be lovely if you focused on being a better person versus getting “triggered” over how you’re seen to others.

That said, still have yet to encounter anyone who unironically uses “SJW” and isn’t terrible.

It's really hard to believe that anybody who still uses SJW is even human. I'm tempted to say any use of that term is an automatic failure of the Turing test and proof that the account is a Team Putin troll bot.

But at the margins, there are some extraordinary people -- genuine humans -- whose best self is worse than a very simple chatter bot AI designed by non-native English speakers to piss off Americans with rope-a-dope nonsense. The idea that Tyler "You're not a beautiful and unique snowflake" Durden was a satire of a fascist asshat, not a role model, is something that apparently doesn't translate into Russian. Sad.

@39 Triggered snowflake?

That said, still have yet to encounter anyone who unironically uses “SJW” and isn’t terrible.

While I don't have a solid definition of "SJW", I do have solid definitions for "racist" and "white supremacist", and I resent Nikkita Oliver's abuse of those terms in her spiteful attempt to score cheap political points against candidates whom voters preferred over her. She lost; it's time for her to join all of the other losing candidates. (Perhaps she could spend her time asking real voters across our fair city for the reasons why she lost, but then, she hasn't shown much of an interest in how they behave or why, now has she?)

She [Durkan] certainly wouldn't be pulling these convoluted and disingenuous attacks on Moon out of her ass.

There was nothing convoluted or disingenuous in making a joke about how Durkan has a larger donor base than does Moon. It's a true statement, and one which a candidate in Durkan's position might be expected to make, since broad support is generally a good thing for a candidate to have. That you just don't see the humor in it doesn't make it any less true, and your inaccurate description of it does not harm Durkan in the least.

Her motive for this scorched earth shit (and record-shattering levels of spending) is that she's losing.

Again, there's nothing "scorched earth" in making a joke at another candidate's relative lack of support, just a desire to make a serious point in a humorous way. Yes, you don't see the humor in it, but that's your problem.

Oh, and have you actual financial statistics to support your claim that Durkan has supplied "record-shattering levels of spending", or did you just think that was a learned-sounding way of attacking her? I'm guessing the latter. Feel free to show the numbers to support your claim.

Dan Savage, your argument is so stupid and unaware of its privileged perspective that I had to double-check which section was the comments and which was the article.

You reference as fact other opinions from The Stranger, and in other cases mischaracterize if not misstate what has been said and done by Oliver. This practice is fairly labeled fake news, and is unacceptable and deeply undermines The Stranger's credibility.

It's time for you to step down and stay in your lane, as the best way for you to elevate discussions and use The Stranger's influence to improve Seattle. We have have renowned experts on people of color in politics in Seattle, and you're not one of them. Ijeoma Oluo, for example, is. I hear she's a good writer.

@43 doesn’t reference any misquotes or actual errors. Just protests of undefined “mischaracteriz[ation].”

Dan shouldn’t step down or “stay in his lane.”* He helped build this lane. Go build your own fucking independent alt-semi-weekly if you want it so badly.

* What does that mean — specifically? Dan should not write about anyone of color? Not write about issues relating to people of color? Not portray people of color in less-than-positive terms? What exactly is Dan’s “lane”?