Anti-foreclosure activist Josh Farris, who’s taking on Council Member Bruce Harrell, has been trying super hard to ride Council Member Kshama Sawant’s coattails this campaign season.
“Getting an activist into office is transformational,” he told me back in April. “It creates a lot of potential for social change that’s not there when you don’t have them in office. It amplifies our voice.”
Farris is running for city council District 2, covering Southeast Seattle. If elected, he’s pledging to only take $40,000 of his salary. He doesn’t take “corporate donations.” His campaign flyers promise to “pass a ‘Tenants Bill of Rights’ and fight for rent control.” Sound familiar?
At one point during a recent candidate forum, Farris held up a Sawant flyer. That was despite the fact that the people who’ll vote for him won’t also get to vote for her, since she’s running in a different district. It was also despite the fact that she hasn’t endorsed Farris’s campaign (or any others).
Unfortunately for Sawant supporters in District 2, Farris isn’t Sawant.
He’s not as well versed in his issues and sometimes has trouble sticking to the question asked. While his anti-eviction platform is relevant in a city with an affordable housing crisis, lengthy diatribes about “white collar crime” aren’t enough to make up for a shallow knowledge of the issues.
Now, Farris is taking his coattail-riding to a new level. He told me yesterday that he and his campaign volunteers are targeting their fundraising appeal at Sawant’s donors. (Many campaign donors’ addresses are available on the state Public Disclosure Commission’s website.) Farris says his campaign “hand-wrote every address and I hand-signed every letter.”
So, if you donated any significant amount to Sawant, expect to see a similar request from Farris in your mailbox.
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