Teresa Mosqueda and Jon Grant. courtesy teresa mosqueda. Nate Gowdy

Comments

1
A 36-year-old Latina woman from the labor movement is absolutely the establishment, or likely will be anyway. It's a picture pefect progressive act, and anyone can play as long as they go along with the big money. Ask her friends Johnson, Bagshaw and González about that.
2
"Waste of space?" How inclusive.

I'm going to miss Burgess' smart, thoughtful, and cautious approach to policy.
3
@1, agreed.

@2, sorry but while Burgess has some good points, he is also stubborn and arrogant.

My son and I attended the City Council hearing on the Charleena Lyles killing. Grant was there and listened to the whole thing. Sheley Secrest was there as well but stayed only long enough to speak. I thought it interesting that she didn't stay especially as a woman of color. McGinn was there, Timmerman was there (and, like the jerk he is, positioned himself right behind one microphone so he'd be in many photos); I didn't see Teresa Mosqueda.

I always have to wonder when the powers that be so neatly fall in line behind one person.
4
I, for one, believe Jon Grant's implication that, if he had determined that Mosqueda wasn't somewhat significantly to his right on some key policy issues, he would have worked with Mosqueda to find a place where they weren't running against each other. All of the rising local politicians on the left should be smart enough to distribute themselves so as many of them as possible get into office as soon as possible. This sort of thing is why McGinn vs. Oliver is so damn frustrating; come next year one of them won't be in office. But Grant vs. Mosqueda seems less frustrating. I mean, being against opening up the police union negiotiations? What the hell?
5
We should all be grateful to Jon as a straight, white, cis, male for letting us know when someone hasn't met his bar as a viable progressive.
6
What happens when our entire city council is majority intersectional feminist of color and the city still is in the same shitty situation?
7
I'm amazed how almost all of the front runners for Seattle's mayoral and city council race's this year are stronger progressive candidates than the 2016 Presidential election got.
8
Sara Nelson barely rates the author's mention, simply being referred to as the "pro-business" candidate. Here's someone who actually founded and managed a successful, respected local business, and she is dismissively described as "pro-business." It's as if the author believes that's all that needs to be known, and now Sara Nelson can be safely thought of as too greedy and insufficiently compassionate to merit election. I mean: "pro-business"! Horrifying! What more need be established to know she's wrong for Seattle! Nothing against Mosqueda and Grant--but I'd like to know at least a little bit more about Sara Nelson, too.
9
@8 Aside from being endorsed by Greg Nickels and Richard Conlin, Sara's website has few serious proposals on dealing with affordable housing, runaway landlords, and regressive taxation. Her most major plan for affordable housing is encouraging people to build and to encourage Olympia to pass a bill about affordable housing (the city council isn't in Olympia). She's a safe middle-of-the-road pro-business candidate who doesn't seem like she's invested much thought into the most serious problems facing Seattle.

Despite Pramila Jayapal's endorsement of Mosqueda, I'm all for Jon Grant and his "unrealistic" proposals that will inevitably be negotiated down in council and by the mayor. If the candidate is not willing to sell the public on the golden ticket, how much will they compromise in private?
10
@4: Come next year, neither Oliver nor McGinn will be in office.

@9: Have you heard any new ideas about any of these things from other candidates? I haven't.
11
Can someone educate me on what "intersectional" feminism, at least nominally, means? I was in an internet debate with someone else that hinged on it.
12
We must fight racism by saying that people are unqualified based on their race. Got it!
13
@10: New ideas? Well, Grant's 25% isn't totally original, but he may be the first to advocate for it as part of a candidate platform. Hasegawa (in a different place on the ballot) ties his municipal bank idea, which is relatively new here, to housing subsidies. Personally, I don't care if it's new or not, the new ideas are more likely to be the crazy ones, and really I'd rather have someone on the council who will squarely represent the people, than someone who's there for a predetermined agenda. And squarely represent the businesses that are really part of Seattle, for that matter - "pro-business" could mean a lot of different things, some of which could be very much needed on the council, others are plentifully represented (even after the departure of her old boss Conlin.) Nelson could do a lot more to clarify what she's about, but given endorsements etc., looks like more of the same from here.
14
I don't know who I'm voting for in this race, but it certainly WON'T be Jon Grant; that guy is a fraud. He claims to be for housing justice, but where does he live? In a home he scooped up after a struggling family lost it in a foreclosure. He gets upset every time this story resurfaces, saying that HE didn't foreclose on them, the BANK did. I'm sorry Jon, but you're either part of a system of oppression or you're not, and you're clearly happy to take part in that system when it benefits you.

And his protest against Chase? It accomplished nothing. Chase is doing just fine and Jon has moved on to other things. It was a photo-op. Once again, Jon takes a serious issue and uses it as a tool of self promotion.

The highlight of Jon's resume is his time at the Tenant's Union, where his coworkers commented on his "lack of leadership and accountability" and his creation of a "toxic environment." Is that really what we need on the City Council?

Jon Grant is an unqualified, uninformed egomaniac pretending to be a man-of-the-people. We already have one of those in the White House and it's not working out so well.

The safest bet in this race is anyone other than Jon Grant.
15
@14 do you consider that, as an American, the system of oppression that you're part of is so much more massive than the differences in "buying a home off of the foreclosure market" and "living in a home who's value is driven by that same market" to be so infinitesimal that... oh fuck it you're not going to vote for a candidate based on your judgement of the impacts of their policies so why bother.
16
@14 If you take that argument to its logical conclusion ("where does he live?"), it'd be very easy to make the argument that you're in favor of slavery because you use a smartphone, or buy clothes from practically any store in the US. Since you must be typing your comment on some sort of device that was probably, somewhere along the production line, assembled by slaves, do you consider yourself solidly in the pro-slavery camp?

The first comment nailed it, though. Back when she announced, I remember thinking that Mosqueda might not be a terrible option if Grant wasn't able to win, but now I'm certain she'll be a divisive establishment figure that survives by exploiting progressive rhetoric. Her campaign surrogate released a comically dickish personal attack against Grant - "[Grant] can say whatever he wants but here he is on Seattle’s left, slumming, taking up space, stealing credit, posing," - because he received an expected endorsement from Kshama Sawant. Then, Mosqueda insinuated that he was taking up space after he personally met with her to determine if he should drop out. This is going to be a dirty, negative campaign because that's the only chance she has of winning.
17
It's often quite telling when candidates are attacked on a personal level. I reserve respect for people who disagree with Jon's platform and policy positions, but the ad hominem nonsense says more about anonymous commenters and campaign playbooks than anything else.

Of course, when you personally know a candidate, it's a lot easier to recognize a smear for what it is.

Keep watching the race, and how supporters speak about the opposing candidates vs. the opposing candidate's positions (you know, those verifiable and substantive items that shape the direction of the council and the city.) If you genuinely align with Teresa's or Sara's position on affordable housing requirements or police reform over Jon's, by all means, vote accordingly. But Seattle's political discourse ought to be better than campaign surrogates and internet comments tearing down individuals and hoping that gives voters enough pause to take their eye off the ball.
18
& The Stranger ignores the Socialist candidate for mayor whilst rooting for Sawant? Pah! -- http://www.themilitant.com
19
So when do you start covering the five person race for Position 9?

West Seattle had a forum last night

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