Comments

1
Wasn't he the guy just knee-capping Sound Transit, trying to change the schedule for MVET? Great...
2
Isn't this how we got into this mess in the first place? Someone with no experience in city government trying to be the head of it. Murray was supposed to parlay his experience in state government to solve all sorts of state-city problems. Four years in, I don't see it. There are dozens of little problems that require cooperation between the state and the city, and he has done nothing about them. For example, consider the UW Link Station. There is a big parking lot next to it, just ripe for a nice transit center and bike corral. Buses from Redmond and Kirkland (where many of our residents work) and bikes from the Burke Gilman could all meet there, and transfer to our billion dollar light rail line. But they don't, because the UW (a state wide entity) sits in its own fiefdom, and Murray just throws up his hands.

The last really good mayor we had was Rice. He served on the city council for years before being mayor. He knew city government, and knew what it took to run it. I think we need someone like him to run things.
3
Yeah, I struggle to see Seattle supporting someone who gave the middle finger to the ~2/3 of Seattle voters who support sound transit and actually want it to have the revenue it needs.
5
Sounds like a decent guy but I am sticking with Murray.
6
@2, well, we don't have a former city council member running. O'Brien would likely have the best shot at mayor, but he has explicitly said he will not run; the rest are silent.

Right now we have Murray, McGinn, and now Hasegawa as the only 3 candidates with any experience. The others have no government experience whatsoever. All three have flaws, but I'd take one of them over any of the rest with zero government experience.
8
@7
That's a low bar to shitbag.
9
Yo FYI, smears go better when they don't wander off into random bum-hating.
10
Hasegawa is a nice solid left leaner - but he's a bit hung-up on the notion of the city establishing a bank. This has been tried a couple of times by cities and it never works out well. The business of banking, even just sustaining a bank, is as essentially as disparate as a real estate developer thinking they understand politics.
11
@10, Hasegawa has historically supported having a state bank, not a city bank.
12
He either is anti transit or doesn't understand how to support transit. He thinks having directly elected Sound Transit board members (some of which would be elected by suburban, anti-transit districts and have a goal of undermining ST3) instead of members that are knowledgeable about transit is a good thing. We voted for ST3. We can't have a ST board that fights about whether or not to implement ST3. That fight already happened. We now need on the board the best, most knowledgeable people when it comes to how to make ST3 happen.
13
For the love of God no. This guy is terrible. He's ineffective and spends time standing up "on principal". Wait a minute....maybe he's perfect for Seattle
14
No for all the Sound Transit reasons.
15
@12, good point about Hasegawa. Hasegawa is also opposed to the privately financed SODO arena project for the NHL/NBA on the bogus grounds that it hurts port jobs.

How can a good lefty oppose the aims of a public agency attempting to fund and increase right of way public transportation?????

2 to 1 he gets the Seattle Times endorsement.
16
"2 to 1 he gets the Seattle Times endorsement."

Unless someone else jumps in, or some sort of wildly improbable revelation exonerates Murray, I'd say the odds are significantly better than that. Who else can they endorse? Moon and McGinn are both too lefty and too pro-growth for the Times, and Oliver is a non-starter for them for reasons I assume are obvious.
17
Bob was for Bernie BEFORE Pramilia even was. This is what Seattle needs!
18
Hasegawa is the real deal. He was president of Teamsters Local 174 for years after getting elected on a reform slate. Unfortunately they are back under a corruption-riddled regime now. Hasegawa was pres at the time of the anti-WTO demonstrations. He was also head of the Seattle local during the big UPS strike. He has smarts, he has leadership, and if you have any idea what a Teamster membership meeting is like, you know he has the cajones to stand up to pressure, He is a mensch. And, unlike some people who say they know how to cut a good deal but in fact have no clue, Bob really does know how to negotiate. Plus he has lived and worked in Seattle all his life, to say he is unfamiliar with city government is laughable.
19
Bob Hasegawa supports an income tax, so no way.
20
If he is fighting Sound Transit then absolutely not.
21
I can muster up a modest amount of sympathy for the congresspeople from parts of Pierce county where STIII lost; when they tried to knee-cap there's at least a case to be made they're doing the bidding of their constituents. What's Hasegawa's excuse? He represents a district with significant transit use, that probably voted close to 2/3 for ST III?

I've got issues with McGinn, Moon, and Oliver, but I don't think for a minute any of them would have betrayed the will of their voters and the public transit infrastructure in order to fund a regressive tax cut, because of a cynical tax revolt ginned up by the Seattle Times editorial board still bitter about their failure to defeat ST III at the ballot.

Whatever his merits--and I think they are considerable; he's been a very good legislator--his enthusiastic participation in the war on transit should be absolutely disqualifying.

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