- Robert Ullman
Mayor Mike McGinn’s first act is over—that much is for sure. Now that the tunnel is a settled issue, The Stranger McGinn doesn’t have an all-consuming purpose signature issue. What lies in our his future?
Is Dominic right in saying that McGinn is “the indisputable loser of the August election. Face-plant. In the mud. Limbs hog-tied and floundering?” (If it’s so indisputable, Dominic, how does Goldy dispute it in the very NEXT COLUMN, huh?)
Or is that charming, contrary rapscallion Goldy right to say that “the biggest winner in last week’s pro-tunnel victory was our anti-tunnel mayor, Mike McGinn… [because] the mayor and his advisers now have an opportunity to use last week’s electoral defeat as a pivot toward reelection?”
The only way to settle this epic grudge match is through a Slog poll, which is obviously just like science. McGinn really ought to thank us for giving him this free advice. (JK, he totally told us to do it, like everything else).
The only thing McGinn can do, that almost EVERYONE can agree on, is attempt to wire up the city for fiber. That could be his lasting legacy. Just raise the sales tax to pay for it, include a sunset clause, then presto, everyone in the city gets 1gbs up/down internet! What CenturyLink/Qwest and Comcast calls fiber, is true, but its running fiber to a pole a few blocks from your neighborhood, its still copper to the house and as such, the copper becomes a bottleneck.
It opens the door for small tech companies to operate out of their home. Opens the door for better tele commuting (less cars on the road). Provides a great incentive to want to move here. Fiber can travel longer distances without a node to boost the signal levels, so fewer electricity being used (not much).
Only drawback is fending off lawsuits from Comcast and Century Link.
The sad thing is that people act as if McGinn were out there only representing himself.
McGinn was ELECTED by more than 50 PERCENT of the people.
McGinn gets criticism at rates much higher than the clearly incompetent Gregoire does/did because he’s not really part of the Democrat Party apparatus…hence they do not come out swinging for him the way they do for their Insider Favorites like Dow Constantine (another boob in my opinion).
McGinn actually has a position and a brain. Both of those things don’t bode well in the Seattle System where you basically join one of several Armies, turn off your mind, and start fighting.
However, what really worries The System about McGinn — is that he did get elected at all!
Let’s look at facts. McGinn changed his opinion two weeks before the election.
He said two things (a) he wanted to insure that the voters of Seattle were not on the hook for cost overruns (b) he wanted to make sure that The Public really wanted a tunnel. The previous plebiscite raising more questions than answers.
McGinn got assurances from both Gubernatorial candidates that it is the State that will absorb the cost overruns.
Also, by forcing a vote, and getting lopsided results, he basically did everything the tunnel supporters could have hoped for…it’s really a sign of Seattle’s Spitefulness that rather than thanking McGinn profusely, they are still coming down on him!
McGinn is the Frank Sinatra of Seattle.
He cut around the party apparatus.
He established himself as working for the People, not the Party or the System.
For that, the Insiders will castigate him. If the voters can read around the attacks, he should return in a landslide…
When the Exploding Tunnel Debt comes Due, it will be McGinn for the win!
… except we’ll all be screwed …
damn.
All he needs is a new purpose. I have one for him. We need a gondola line connecting every neighborhood. That is affordable, fun, fast enough to fit into one term, useful, and something he can be for rather than against. Add bike racks, and put back on the boxing gloves.
McGinn was trapped in the tunnel. He couldn’t stop the fight or he would lose the faithful. By forcing the issue we get a decision and he can let go of the fight in its current form without losing what is left of his base.
The question become: what does he do now, while the reminder of the loss lives on through the rest of his term?
Mike ÓBrien was right on point on election night, the pivot was to press the tunnel plan to be “successful” with the components that you have common ground with the rest of the city and county government: transit.
Even if you think the tunnel will fail by any variety of possible ways, fighting the good and popular fight for more transit in partnership (this is the hard part for McGinn) others.
Just as he claimed the legislature and the rest of the politicos would change direction and actually support the surface option once the People had spoken he must make a turn with the same level of effort he was pretending would be there had he won. Otherwise, he’s just another jackass.
Lead the city’s position to fight for transit. He can point to the EIS, and to the county $20 car tabs, and fight for the half of the AWV replacement plan that actually has majority support. That’s not the half assed $60 car tab vote, but the state solution.
Stop going it alone where others already agree.
That’s his only way out.
@4, right idea, wrong gondola.
Water ways, with fish ladder type structures to get up hills.
That sounds funny until I remember that Ron Sims proposed to remake Seattle Center with a giant ditch running through it.
@2 – So here are my choices: I can either elect one of those ‘corrupt’ generals who’ll hopefully knock things in vaguely the right direction. Or I can elect a Sinatra-like thinker/philosopher who’ll just grease the treads of a few tanks while leaving his putative kingdom languishing.
McGinn is a smart man, no doubt. But he just doesn’t have the organizational skills to get anything done. Much like his supporters.
Goldy makes the better argument- best for McGinn that it’s behind him. Regardless, he’s out in 2013.
I disagreed with him on the tunnel, but I’m willing to see what he will do for the next couple of years. He might not be all that bad, or he might warrant being a one termer.