Guess quitting her job before securing another wasn't such a great idea.

She's a good person but a bad campaigner. She never had a clear message. Yes, she did great work on ST3, but then undermined it by voting to gut it in the legislature this spring - and amazingly doubled down on that vote at a televised debate. The effect was that transit advocates felt she wasn't reliable or trustworthy.

The larger problem was that she ran as a the candidate of experience and resume. But her resume is shorter than that of some of her opponents, like Durkan. And her experience isn't well known or as deep on city issues as other opponents. Because she ran on her resume and not on a clear message or agenda, she wasn't able to differentiate herself from the others. She fell behind in getting endorsements. And so she never caught fire the way Oliver or Moon or Durkan did.

She has a great political future ahead, and hopefully she'll reflect on this campaign's mistakes and run stronger next time for whatever lies in her future.

The next mayor would be smart to appoint Jessyn as her director of the Transportation Department.

@3
Absolutely agree.

She was the only candidate that could beat Durkan. Not that Durkan is that bad -- most cities would be happy to have someone like that. But if you believe that this city needs to change its policies towards housing (i. e. change the zoning laws in the vast majority of the privately held land) then she was the one to do it. We'll get Durkan, and Durkan will make the same sort of "please everyone while pleasing no one" policies of Murray. Rents will go up, and folks will bitch about the landlords (and even the developers) ignoring the fact that we can't add housing in most of the city, because some home owners are OK with monster houses, but deathly afraid of renters next door.

junipero @2, now that Jessyn Farrell's campaign is over, can we stop repeating the canard that somehow Jessyn Farrell had betrayed Sound Transit with the MVET bill that ended up going nowhere? As her colleague Joe Fitzgibbon explained:

The House passed HB 2201, which required that Sound Transit revise its MVET collections to reflect the vehicle values adopted by the 2006 Legislature (RCW 82.44.035), instead of the earlier valuation table from the 2015 transportation package. HB 2201 passed the House twice in a bipartisan 64-33 vote, including a “yes” vote from every legislator who represents the Sound Transit district.

So every house member in the Sound Transit district is now a traitor to Sound Transit?! Listen, I know it's a classic Karl Rove technique to take your opponent's greatest strength and attempt to turn it into a weakness, but this whole notion of taking Jessyn Farrell and making her out to be weak on Sound Transit reminds me of the Swift-boating of war hero John Kerry in 2004. There would be no ST3 if it hadn't been for Jessyn Farrell.

And as for her resume being weak compared to Durkan's, let's keep in mind that Jenny Durkan has never held elected office. Nor has she ever held a job where she's had to deal with the central development issues facing this city. It's exactly the lack of a relevant resume and a track record that has enabled her to get away with being somewhat of an empty vessel and to point her finger to the wind with her candidacy.

@2: In my limited experience, I found her to be a great campaigner. We met her F2F at candidates forum in Beacon Hill. She was the most concrete and articulate on the issues. Overall, she seemed like the best candidate. Even if her resume was shorter than Durkan's, she at least had experience holding elected office, which Durkan lacks. To me, she had a lot of the upsides of Moon without some of the downsides (e.g., lack of public sector experience).

It seems like just about everybody I know who met her and listened to what she had to say came away impressed. I seriously doubt Erica Barnett planned to endorse her at the start of all this. But like me, she was won over by Farrell's command of the issues.

I think she would have been a great mayor. That's why I voted for her.

That said, she did not get the word out very well in south Seattle.

RDPence @3, I think that's a wonderful idea. And I put that out as a challenge to Durkan and Moon. Be the first to promise that in your administration you'll look to replace Scott Kubly with Jessyn Farrell. Or just be the first to promise that there'll be some position in the highest ranks of your administration for her. Such a gesture alone with go a long way toward reassuring a lot of us progressives about your judgment and vision.

@7 To me, she had a lot of the upsides of Moon without some of the downsides (e.g., lack of public sector experience).

Except that for many, experience is a negative, not a positive. You see that in national politics (rarely does the most experienced candidate win) and now you see it in the endorsements from The Stranger. They preferred Moon's "outsider cred" (i. e. lack of experience). If The Stranger still had writers of the caliber of Barnett, then Farrell would probably have advanced.

@2 Because she ran on her resume and not on a clear message or agenda, she wasn't able to differentiate herself from the others. She fell behind in getting endorsements. And so she never caught fire the way Oliver or Moon or Durkan did.

She had a pretty clear agenda, and it was almost exactly like Moon's. More than one editorial said as much. She differentiated herself quite clearly from Durkan (it was Durkan who basically ran on her experience).

As far as endorsements goes, she had way more than Moon. Plenty of organizations (labor, left wing political, etc.) and plenty of individuals (mayors, representatives, etc.). The only significant endorsement that Moon had was the one by this very newspaper, and that was enough. It wasn't Farrell that fucked up, it was the writers here, in dismissing the candidate with the best combination of experience and progressive ideas in the race.

The mutual finger-pointing and recrimination among the "urbanists," just on this comment thread, is all the proof anybody needs to determine that none of them are fit to govern. "If the Stranger still had writers of the caliber of Barnett" absolutely wins the "Bro u cra-cra" award for today.

Keck and Savage have been pimping for Durkan all along. Everything they have done has served to splinter the opposition to her. Too bad they didn't let the rest of you poor dumb sods in on their little game. Sucks to be you, I guess.

Judging by her stance on SoDo, she doesn't know anything about transportation outside of passing ST3.

The mutual finger-pointing and recrimination among the "urbanists," just on this comment thread, is all the proof anybody needs to determine that none of them are fit to govern.

What? Because a handful of people comment on the blog, the people who ran for office -- who have no connection with those making the comments -- are unfit for office? What an absurd thing to say. Holy shit, that is like saying that Bernie Sanders is unfit for office because a lot of his supporters make up bullshit about Hillary Clinton.

As far as caliber or writing, I stick with what I said. Barnett was named reporter of the year by Seattle's venerable Municipal League in 2007. Her reporting on each candidate -- and her endorsement -- was a a lot more informative than that of The Stranger. I'm not talking about the actual choice, I'm talking about the reasoning and facts supporting it.

The Stranger has quality writers, but just about all of them are editors (Sanders, Savage, etc.) and don't do the day to day work of actually figuring out what is happening in this town. When is the last time you read something that was really informative in terms of politics in this city? They simply comment on other stories (usually made by The Seattle Times), cheering on the good guys "Yay, transit", or chastising the bad ones "Boo jails", completely ignoring the subtleties that so often determine whether a left wing city fucks things up or not.

Farrell would have been a great mayor. That is all.

@2 disagree, @6 agree I ended up voting for her partly because of the honesty in this vote and her clearly articulated explanation.
@12 she credibly explains her position on this.
I agree, Moon should meet with her then add her pre election to her proposed cabinet. Farrell's double digit percentage of votes would then likely go her way.

I'm at a loss to understand Durkin's appeal.

"that so often determine whether a left wing city fucks things up or not."

Tl;dr: it fucks things up.

Birds don't fly on one wing. Our echo chamber feels good, and it sure is nice to be a mean girl to the minority, but it never lasts and when it does end, it ain't pretty.

I'm not a Seattle resident anymore, but may the best possible candidate overall for Mayor of Seattle win. There is a lot at stake in our region right now.

I don't live in Seattle anymore but Farrell would have been a great mayor. I'm sorry to see her out of the race.

The Stranger chose to endorse someone with many of the same ideas, but whose only claim to fame is LOSING THE FIGHT AGAINST THE WATERFRONT TUNNEL. Cary is great, but she'll be lucky to get 47% against Durkan. Farrell was the only non-Durkan who had a real shot of winning. Good job, Stranger....