Incumbent Joe McDermott (not to be confused with Jim McDermott, the heroic enemy combatant newly escaped from Guantánamo Bay) has two competitors duking it out for his legislative seat. Republican cum Libertarian Cary Thomas, a former campaigner for Charlie Chong, would like to use his position to call for an independent audit of all state agencies. And Republican Larry Gilbert, a retired electrical engineer and Burien city council member, wants to build a freeway bypass around Seattle. (That's about all the Stranger Glee Club remembers from Gilbert's interview. We nearly fell asleep when he explained the bypass off-ramps/suburban-sprawl corollary.)

At the very least, Joe McDermott kept us awake. In addition to parroting what every D who walked in our door said ("I'll fight for a progressive income tax to patch up the state's budget!"), this Seattle schools budget analyst (ouch!) said he'd examine 400 unreviewed tax loopholes that favor corporations.

Sure, the Glee Club is happy that McDermott brings Olympia's openly gay roster to three, but he's not really a leader when it comes to gay-rights legislation nor, apparently, as a school budget analyst. In fact, he's not really a leader on anything. But so we'd like to give him another shot. Try to make something of it this time, would ya Joe?