Former Stranger scribe-turned-political-consultant Sandeep Kaushik, who covers media and politics part-time for PubliCola, is working as a spokesman for Mayor Greg Nickels’s reelection campaign. Stories in both the Seattle Times and seattlepi.com quote Kaushik defending Nickels’s record on the environment and noting that two legs of McGinn’s campaign platform—fixing the schools and improving public transit—have to do with entities that aren’t overseen by the city.
PubliCola has been unabashedly enthusiastic about McGinn’s campaign, which puts the publication in an interesting position (summed up by one commenter as “too much (in a good, sort of weird way)!!!!”) Kaushik, stating the obvious, says, “I can’t control what Josh writes,” adding, “I don’t write about things I’m working on.”
And now, please enjoy this classic Stranger video, in which McGinn—one of the chief opponents, along with the Stranger, of 2007’s roads and transit ballot measure—tears into proponents of the measure, including Sandeep and the Transportation Choices Coalition’s Rob Johnson (that bus, by the way, is still on my desk):
What’s Sandeep’s salary working for the mayor’s campaign?
How did Sandeep manage to become such a tool?
@2 become?
Watching video without sound is like my imagination thinking the “sky-cops” here-to-four-after known as “the world wide web of surrealistic rotational observational capture devices” recording your and my every move with a lip reader and a satellite director and billions of dollars between your future and your past getting sold to someone elses bank account.
Sandeep Kaushik is a god!
Um, Daniel B. Kieneker for mayor! Anyone? Please?
I bet Nickels thinks he has a much better chance at getting the Stranger’s endorsement by hiring Sandeep.
Not true, Trevor. The mayor’s people are well aware of where the Stranger stands on the Nickels administration.
so, what’s the salary ?
Greg who?
Based on that video alone, McGinn has got my vote. So far.
@8: Are you saying that Nickels has given up on getting the Stranger’s endorsement?
Mc Ginn sounds like he is running for mayor of some small town north or south – not ready for prime time. His video is horrible, his concepts, all three are off base.
How could he win? But then, maybe he is fucking someone important and after all is liked by the oh so terrific Sierra Club.
Gosh, what a let down.
Feels like Nobody is running …. at least he was a legend of sorts.
Jamie didn’t need the Stranger and he is in the same Legislative district … some call the Danger the kiss of death … and if Dan really runs … the serious nature of it all will escape most everybody who is not loaded on good pot and mr. martini …
@14: Jamie didn’t need the Stranger endorsement because he is a rich lawyer who collected big bucks from other rich lawyers and sent out more mailers than Netflix.
so anyone ask mcginn his position on the Sierra Club’s anti-immigrant feud in 2004? when he was president of the local group?
Latest TOP 10 most popular names for hizzoner so far:
1. MAYOR McCHEESE–by a landslide
2. MAYOR McCONDO
3. MAYOR NOPLOW
4. MAYOR SNOWJOB
5. MAYOR GRIDLOCK -climbing the charts
6. MAYOR FIVEPENNIES
7. MAYOR McSLEAZE
8. BOSS NICKELS
9. MAYOR GREENWASH-new, with a bullet
10. MAYOR QUIMBY
All the names that are just too mean to such a nice fellow, like MAYOR McFATTY, MAYOR PORK, MAJOR PORK, MAYOR BIGMAC, etc. will not be included in the Top 10 names for HIS HONOR. This is Seattle, a nice city, after all.
We are monitoring the TIMES, P-I, Weakly, Strangler, Crosscut, Publicola, and a few blogs for the most mentions in comments from the citizenry.
Newest contenders:
MAYOR FAILure, MAYOR DISASTER, MAJOR DISASTER, MAYOR NOSALT, MAYOR NICKELBAGS, MAYOR KNUCKLEHEAD, MAYOR FUDD, MAYOR CHUMPCHANGE, MAYOR KNUCKLES, MAJOR NOPLOW, MAYOR 5-CENTS
And………………THE KING IS A FINK!
@16: kiss of death for McGinn in this city if he pulled an anti-immigrant stand during those battles.
@14: True that Jamie didn’t need the Stranger to win a close six way race by 229 votes. He won the Democratic primary (the only election that mattered) with only 23% of the vote. Which is to say that 77% of Democrats in his district preferred that someone else get the party’s nomination. And that’s among the more conservative voters who show up to primaries. If the Stranger had endorsed Jim Street instead of Stephanie Pure, I bet Street would have beaten Pedersen. Not that the Stranger is that influential. Just that the race was that close. As for Nickels now: no he doesn’t need the Stranger’s endorsement. But with poll numbers as low as his, he needs all the help he can get.