Election results were certified on Tuesday evening, formalizing wins for all four progressive Burien City Council candidates running against the “Burien Proud, Burien First” slate.
City Council member and candidate Debi Wagner had previously published a concession statement that blamed “powerful Democrat and union machinery” for her loss. On Wednesday, Burien Proud, Burien First candidate Joel Manning, who lost to Latino labor organizer Pedro Olguin, took a similar tack.
In a statement published to his campaign Facebook page, Manning wrote that Burien “has lost its independence to outside special interests and the entrenched partisan elite of Seattle and King County.”
“The region’s dominant political force purchased our city council with money, Democratic party power, and divisive lies,” Manning continued.
The post was accompanied by an image of four finger puppets, including what appears to be an ass. (UPDATE: Reverse Google image search reveals that the animal is a llama, and the tableau is a portrayal of characters from Napoleon Dynamite.)
When asked about the concession statement and the image, Manning’s opponent Pedro Olguin said he didn’t know what the finger puppets meant. “Is it Joel? Is it us?” he asked. “It’s like three people and a horse or a dog or something. It’s really bizarre. That’s really childish.”
On the win, Olguin said that he felt vindicated by voters. “And I think at the end of the day what matters is stay true to your values and get out into the field,” Olguin said. “I think that’s what made the difference in the last three weeks of the election. We went through 12,000 phone calls to make sure people could turn in their ballots.”
