Burgess is not a progressive, and that is going to become very clear when he pushes a city takeover of the Seattle schools in order to impose charter schools, more standardized tests, and other awful education reforms. And that's just the tip of the iceberg for a guy who, let's not forget, wrote a Seattle Times op-ed ten years ago praising Bush's re-election and saying that Seattle needed to embrace the religious right. Good to see someone step up to challenge him, though I hoped it would be Nick Licata.

I'd vote for Persak over Burgess, no question.

Having said that, Persak has a tough uphill battle. I think Burgess is one of our worse council members, but despite what I think, he remains fairly popular, is well funded, and will be hard to beat. Pesak is largely unknown. I agree he'd be more likely to win one of the district races than a city-wide race against a popular (blech) incumbent.

@1 - I was curious about this op-ed so I searched around for it. In case anyone else is similarly curious, here is the link.

http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.c…

Got my vote

@ 1 No duh he not a progressive he a Democrat though, and a damn good one at that.

I'll be glad to vote for him again and hopefully the Sawant challenge can take her out.

Sure if was only Stranger readers he would lose badly but Seattle is more than Stranger readers.

Tim Burgess is probably the only Seattle City Councilmember to donate money to a group called "Christians for Life".

As @5 and @6 demonstrates, Burgess's support among the functionally illiterate is very strong.

I tend to be suspicious of people who label themselves as "Progressive". They are usually advocating a laundry list of issues that that most Seattleites already support but have few if any ideas to make "progess" on any of them. Having said that, Persak is doing a public service by knocking Tsimermann out of the race.

@9 your "laundry list" doesn't require better ideas to be achieved, just majorities of like minded people (not just those who give lip service!) in elected office to enact those policies - it's not rocket science!!! that is why we have to get burgess out of city council and kudos to persak for stepping up to the plate on this! i'll take his credentials over burgess' 8 days out of the week

"We value the sacredness of marriage between a woman and man. We recognize that not everyone agrees with us and we know the law isn't a good mechanism to resolve these issues, but moral persuasion is."

That was what Burgess said just 10 years ago. (Go read that whole thing.)

So much for that "law" stuff.

What bothers me the most is his lack of awareness that not everyone is even "faith" driven. That doesn't mean we don't have morals or ethics or even a belief in something greater than ourselves. We just aren't organized believers but I'm not sure we would be welcome under the Tim tent.

I have seen Burgess in action but if I had known this is what drives his thinking, it would have explained a lot.

Burgess is not popular; he's powerful. There's a big difference.

So what do we think? Should he just shave those last few wisps that constitute his widow's peak or keep fighting the good fight?

Glad to see another challenger enter the race but I would really like to see a (privately-financed) new arena so I don't see him getting my vote.

hey @13, the arena was not privately financed. are you stupid or something? persak was naturally opposed to the arena becasue he works at the seaport and is active in the union representing port workers. in case you haven't noticed, sodo and georgetown aren't some blighted neighborhoods begging for the gentrifiers to move in and upgrade the place. they are a busy rail yard and port that represent huge investments in infrastructure made over generations that actully do real work and serves the economy of the entire NW region of the US. he is right that it would be short sighted to give public tax preference and financing to a sports arena that would fuck that all up. this industry isn't like MS or amazon where all you need is some fiber and a few cubes to get rolling. it's brick and mortar and it is significant.