Everyone in the mayor's race supports and opposes the same things, more or less. Except for one guy. Mike McGinn, an environmentalist with bona fides that include heading up last year's park levy and chairing the local Sierra Club chapter, isn't just being contrary for contrary's sake. Quite the opposite. His positions are unexpected, smart, and progressive.

At a mid-July mayor's-race forum organized by Friends of Seattle at the Spitfire, red-bearded McGinn filled out a giant flash card for a lightning round of questions. Does he support repealing the so-called head tax? Passed in 2006, it requires businesses to pay $25 for each employee who drives solo to work more than once a week. The revenue goes to neighborhood street improvements, such as building new sidewalks in the 30 percent of Seattle that currently lacks them. The head tax is something no one cared about—it's only $4.5 million in the city's annual budget of $3.6 billion—until the mayor's race heated up. Soon after mayoral challenger Joe Mallahan mentioned that we should repeal it, Mayor Greg Nickels said he planned to repeal it. (Nickels proposed the tax in the first place, but now that he's seeking reelection he's against it.) Former SuperSonic James Donaldson also indicated that the tax should be repealed, as did city council member Jan Drago (who voted to approve the head tax three years ago).

But McGinn is for keeping it. Most candidates can't resist the campaign staple of promising to repeal taxes, but he argues this is a tax that makes sense. The argument for repealing it is, essentially, that in this economic climate, businesses can't shoulder any more costs—and that a tax on businesses, even a very small one, might cost jobs. "It's hard for me to see how eliminating this tax will create a single job, but I do know how eliminating this funding source will take away jobs in the community," says McGinn, a member of the city's Pedestrian Master Plan advisory committee. Since the head tax pays for things like street improvements, the revenue the tax generates is keeping people employed. "People who build sidewalks or repair streets, those people have real jobs," McGinn says. (Drago insists that she can keep those workers employed using revenue from parking fees, which have exceeded forecasts. However, McGinn points out that the city's finances are tighter than they have been in years, largely due to the recession, and that street improvements will be on the chopping block if the head tax is removed.)

And anyway, McGinn has a bigger bone to pick—in terms of dollars, more than 200 times bigger. While his competitors bray about this token tax, McGinn points out the other candidates for mayor are "simultaneously backing billions of dollars for a deep bore tunnel on the waterfront to replace the viaduct." The city would have to shell out $930 million of that money, primarily by hiking taxes and utility rates, in support of an infrastructure that only benefits cars, which might not be the wisest investment for transportation or the planet. He prefers the surface/transit option. When you talk to him, McGinn answers virtually every question by talking about the city and state's current plans for a tunnel under downtown, which every mayoral competitor but McGinn supports (except no-chance candidate Elizabeth Campbell, who wants to rebuild the godforsaken viaduct). "If I am mayor, I guarantee you, they are not going to build that tunnel through town," he told the Spitfire crowd.

It's a wise tack, considering polling conducted by his campaign in late May shows that McGinn jumps from fourth place to a commanding lead when voters are told the tunnel's cost overruns could fall on the city and that McGinn is the only mayoral candidate who opposes it. "I could be like the other candidates and claim that I am for walking and biking and transit and public safety and social services and for spending billions on a tunnel," says McGinn. "But they are not being realistic with the people. You cannot be for all of those things simultaneously, because we don't have the resources to pour $930 million into a tunnel and work on our other priorities."

To earn favor with voters in the next four weeks, McGinn must capitalize on his contrasts with the other candidates for mayor, or he's out of the race. He is consistently polling behind Nickels, Drago, and Donaldson. Ballots for the primary will be mailed July 30 to all King County voters, who have until August 18 to mail them back. Only the top two candidates for mayor will advance into the general election.