How in the world is an 84 year old person making decisions for us? No offense to the 84 year old crowd, but doesn't retirement sound appealing by then?

She's running for the same reason Hillary Clinton is running.

I was at the Roosevelt High debate. Godden's performance was really uncomfortable. If Ed Murray thinks she can be an effective councilperson, that says a lot about him.

She knows why she is running again. She just can't remember ....

She can take a line from James Stockdale, "Who am I? Why am I here?" and segue into an explanation that Stockdale never got to.

Ditto on @3 on both points.

I asked her at the 43rd Dems candidate forum what her ideas are for balancing neighborhood concerns with density needs. She said, "Oh yes, we have to find a way."

That's great but what way? Is that what an elected person is supposed to know/have ideas about?

I can't support her for my district.

"That's less because of her age—she'll be 84 on Election Day and 88 at the end of another term".

No, it's because of her age. She does it because it makes her feel useful. But she's not useful. She never has been as a councilmember. She makes the old folks who vote feel like someone represents them.

Need to find 100 more Sawants

C'mon the woman is advertisement eye candy for lovable, doting grandma role.

She's Burgess and Murray vote. That's all that matters! Jean Godden aside, you know the establishment have their #1 and #2 candidates already lined up for that seat just in case.

@3

Ed Murray is like the sleazy nephew cashing great-aunt Godden's social security checks.

Really long article. Didn't read a bit of it. But there has to be a couple sentences in it that resemble something educational?

Ah yes ageism, never gets old.

She's stated quite clearly at several venues why she wishes another term. Somehow Ms Groover seems to have forgotten that. Why is the Stranger such a bastion of inclusivity in most aspects of society except age?

Sounds like Ms. Godden just wants something to do with her life. Retirement would be too boring for her. Her candidacy in the present as it has in the past, would come at the expense of potentially more qualified, more forward thinking council people.

Wow, how quickly Jean has fallen from being referred to as a "badass bitch" here on SLoG. Did she stop putting the good candies in her office candy jar for the city hall reporters to scarf down?

@13: When I saw Jean at a forum, she said she wanted to run for another term because it is "the most wonderful job in the world," or something like that. That's nice, but hardly compelling to me as a voter.

My 90-year-old grandmother had her driver's license taken away by the DMV last year. Is that "ageism" too?

It's not about her age folks! I'm old too. She has the advantage of experience, bigger campaign chest, name recognition, and for now, taking tea with the Mayor.

More reasons for her to be better prepared and wipe all the other candidates out at the forum.This is not the time to do the Jeb Bush and Iraq war QA two step. There is a lot going on within her district as mentioned. U District Upsizing. The new UW tech hub in the making as we speak. There's a lot of taxpayers money being dropped here. Time to ask who's benefiting and who is bring displaced. And why is making $15/hour so great because in this city, it sucks if you have a family to support or high rent to pay. It's fine if you are 17 or have mom and dad to fall back on. And seriously, the answer to homelessness is more friggin tent cities?

http://udistrictpartnership.org/wp-conte…

For those looking for change in the city council beyond new faces, better look hard at actions, money, and who is dancing cheek to cheek with whom.

I think she is needed back at the P-I, writing about humorous license plates.

@15, According to the Stranger before she was a "badass bitch" she was just "creepy."

http://slog.thestranger.com/2007/03/the_…

Apparently it's not all about her age ... it's all about the beige!

Once again, Slog invests wordage in the lede grafs to note ominously that Godden made an appearance in a beige room.

I guess that's supposed to be an important disqualification, but to me it simply disqualified the critique to follow from further claims on my time.

I can't help but notice that no one is implying she's a bad councilmember because of her gender. (Progress!) Can we please acknowledge Godden's a mediocre, too-conservative on non-gender issues councilmember without degenerating into ageism?

My 90-year-old grandmother had her driver's license taken away by the DMV last year. Is that "ageism" too?

If it was simply because of her age, yes. If it was because she was demonstrably unable to drive safely, then no. Please don't pretend you can't understand the difference here. We're being presented with evidence that Godden isn't a very useful councilmember that has nothing whatsoever to do with her age.

Seattle is barely progressive. Corporations run this town just like any big-money GOP stronghold. Despite insane traffic Amazon has a license to expand however they please.

Our police force, despite calls for reform and constant lip service is basically a 3rd world goon squad- as always.

When your leaders are generalists with no ideas and only token gestures at Liberalism this what you get. You shouldn't be electable in this town without valid, ideas to improve traffic now (coordinated stop lights). Big-vision rhetoric that doesn't improve reality is just buying our politicians time.

Ed Murray is the biggest corporate apologist we've ever had at Mayor and yet he gets a free pass because he makes token social gestures. Republican money probably loves that they found the perfect way to trick Democratic voters into supporting big-money interests. Wrap a DINO in a gay flag and Seattle will vote for it every time. Suckers.

@18, 22: it's not Ageism to point out the reality that the elderly slow down, mentally and physically. Godden is remarkably spry for her age, but 84 is 84, not to mention that 88 is 88. Especially after dinner.

Its a legitimate issue to base your vote on.

@22: Godden is an ineffective councilmember, but that hasn't stopped Seattle (at-large, mind you) from re-electing her...TWICE. And those people who keep voting for her need to realize that she's not even the same mediocre candidate she's been for the past 11+ years—age is having an effect.

but 84 is 84, not to mention that 88 is 88.

This is just horseshit. I've known people in that age range suffering from full-on dementia, and others with minds far, far sharper than my over-educated 30ish one. Obviously, age slows people down, but it does not do so uniformly or predictably in each case. There are some questions where a probabilistic analysis of the effects of age might be appropriate, but assessing the fitness of a particular old person for a particular job isn't one of them. There's no need to resort to vague probabilistic generalities when we are perfectly capable of assessing an actual person. (This is why automatically stripping 85 year olds of their drivers licenses would clearly be ageism, but subjecting license renewal applicants over a certain age to heightened scrutiny is not.)

Jean Godden has been a reliable, dependable shill for the local neoliberal, development-friendly Demopoly downtown power structure that gave us Mayors "Gridlock" Greg Nickels and Ed "Comcast/Century-Link approved" Murray and was a loyal oppositional vote to Mike McGinn. Seattle voters don't seem to mind that she doesn't do sh*t for them because she still has name recognition for her friendly newspaper columns about reinforcing authority for those in power that primarily serve the well-to-do. What an embarrassment...

@24, @28: Your comments would be very welcome on the Seattle Times where snarkiness and personal insults run free. I always thought Stranger comments were a bit more civilized and even educated, but apparently not.

Wow. A hacket job. Innuendo and anonymous sources doing the paper's bidding without having to show their face. You take a politician to task for not having an answer that satisfies you, yet don't demand that of her critics.

@ 31, good job a) staying on topic and b) managing to not be at least mildly racist. Oh wait.

Anyway while I'm not a fan of the fact that she basically drifts where the wind blows, I'd like to direct the attention of those harping on Godden's age toward Hazel McCallion, the former mayor of Mississauga, Ontario (a major city of over 700,000 fringing Toronto). She governed well into her 80s and managed to do so more competently than people half her age, leaving behind an unrecognisably, radically improved city in her wake.