As long as the other candidate doesn't send a creepy balding neckbeard with a nine yard stare to break into my apartment complex and peer through the keyhole making me reflexively hold my breath in revulsion and annoyance, then by all means.

And labor is neutral on Scott versus Pedersen? Get your ass in gear, people.

This isn't just a Seattle thing, either:

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/19/nyregion/labor-unions-democratic-socialist.html

American workers, through their unions, have long chosen to appropriate the benefits of capitalism for themselves, rather than work to overthrow capitalism. This has long frustrated radicals and agitators, both within the labor movement and outside of it — the latter far more so.

We saw this latter tension play out in dramatic fashion between CM Sawant herself and local union members. She attempted to lecture them on how she had the authority to speak for them, and they told her - in very clear terms! - that she had no such authority. (If The Stranger hadn’t de facto declared this to have been a doubleplus unevent, they might not now be so surprised at the Labor Council for not snapping into line behind The Stranger’s candidate.)

@4 Put away the hand lotion, tensor. She's still got twice as many union endorsements as any other candidate running for City Council.

@1, 4 Amen. The Sawant chargers trespassing and knocking on my door (an internal courtyard door) have been by turns obnoxiously aggressive true believers and dullard persistents who seem not to be able to recognize the words, "No, thank you." I quickly became not a fan soon after voting for her once (to retire the useless Richard Conlin), and her troops only cement the impression I've had of her. With her patronizing lecturing and aggressive disdain for anyone who doesn't idolize and obey her, she couldn't do the work of the right better if she were an intentional agent provocateur hired by the RNC. That said, I don't like Orion either, except as a constellation, so don't know whether to sit this one out, which I hate to do, or vote tactically. I'm tired of voting tactically for the lesser of evils, and don't know who the lesser is here, really.

My problem is that she doesn't represent the 3rd district concerns. I like some of her policies, but she's a better activist than a politician. She has done zilch since the 15$ thing years ago.

She also has a large number of donations from outside Seattle, so I suppose do you want your candidate beholden to local big business types or by outside of Seattle random types. I don't know the randos.

@6 Voting for the candidate you hate the least isn't "tactical," it's just what everyone who lives in a pluralistic society has to do, most of the time.

"Tactical" voting is where you prefer one candidate, but you don't vote for that candidate because you think voting for someone else will accomplish some other goal (e.g. keep a third candidate from winning, get a particular policy implemented, reduce your cat's tax burden, whatever).

@7 I dunno, it looks to me like the 3rd is doing pretty darn well for itself without a Pork & Potholes rep on the council. Sometimes, what people really want from a politician is stirring speeches, a sense of righteousness, and business as usual.

@5: Please put on your reading glasses — no, the thick ones — and note the topic of this post: the failure of the King County Labor Council (not unions!) to snap into line behind CM Sawant.

Specifically, the topic of this post is the author’s barely-coherent rage at the failure of the King County Labor Council (not anyone else!) to snap into line behind CM Sawant.

Then please do try to keep up.

@10 Why did you peck out that masturbation fantasy about "American workers" and "local union members" turning against socialists generally, when the topic at hand is restricted to one specific union's disagreement on one particular candidate (who has more Labor support than any other)?

Try to keep up with your own posts there, speedy, and maybe reflect a bit on who's wallowing in "barely-coherent rage" while you're at it.

A small number of folks in that room at the Labor Council are networked enough (politically) to have seen the polling on this race conducted very recently by CASE and People for Seattle. My inference is that they didn't want to back a doomed cause just to promote solidarity or whatever within the labor coalition, so they just gave the race a pass. (Some of the unions do have genuine gripes with Sawant, of course.).

@11: Don’t be tedious, dear. I already explained how this post is about the Labor Council not snapping into line to save CM Sawant. If she’s to survive in November, she needs everyone pulling for her, no questions asked. That truth is so obvious, even the opaque cannabis haze floating in The Stranger’s office can’t obscure it; if you’d worn your thick glasses, like I’d told you, even you might have seen it.

As for my ‘fantasy’, your url confirms it pretty well:

‘The activists have also often been painted as white and well-off — a fact even D.S.A. acknowledged in its memo, writing, “D.S.A. has described itself as committed to maintaining an active and diverse membership but is primarily composed of middle-class white people.”

‘Mr. Ward, of the hotel union, seemed to allude to that when he said that his union was “made up mostly of women, immigrants and people of color,” who would meet D.S.A. with “very aggressive and overwhelming pushback” if the activists did not share their goals.’

See? Champagne radicals on one side, union workers on the other. Just like CM Sawant got from union iron workers.

(Oh, and the phrase you were looking for, there at the end, was “raucous, joyful laughter.” You’ll just have to trust me on this.)

Thick glasses. Really, that’s what you need to wear.

"Sawant's long history of literally standing for workers"

Standing for photo-ops is more like it. It's amazing that after these long years of naked grifting, people think Sawant's in it for anyone other than herself.

And maybe these Labor Council people aren't the fools they appear to be.

This isn't "labor"

Just because they have the word "labor" in the name of their pro-business neoliberal club doesn't mean they represent workers. MLKCLC is notoriously bad about workers issues.

It is unions that are essential to Marxists getting into power, and unions who are essential to removing them when they turn bad. History rhymes. The labor council is taking a proactive approach.

@16: My argument was in no way based upon the word “socialist”. The story I quoted described some privileged, self-appointed activists clashing with the very union members they were claiming to speak for. It was a nice parallel to CM Sawant getting told, by the very union-represented iron workers she claimed to speak for, that she did NOT speak for them.

OMG socialists are a tiresome bunch. Right now the world is burning, the middle class vanishing and populist conservatives in power across the globe. What is the left doing? Eating itself alive as usual.