Comments

1

But they only let old white people vote, right?

2

Hey The Stranger, the reason no one gives a shit about The Stranger anymore, ignores you, and doesn't invite you to the parties is because you're a radical left-wing propaganda blog that is actively and openly working for the Sawant campaign. You have no journalistic credibility. TS is a hate-read.

(I'm on record here as NOT supporting the Sawant recall, even though I think she's awful politically speaking, and she should be voted out of office after her term is up. But after weeks of the TS propaganda machine, you have changed my mind, and I hope she gets recalled. I know I'm not alone on this. Nice work!)

4

"No one gives a shit about The Stranger" says the person who took the time to read the article, log in and type a 109-word comment.

I do though! I also care about Kshama and understand she is one of the most important politicians in our country right now and has made life more comfortable for those who don't typically get a chance to fight. I have marched alongside her for the five years I've lived here and I hope to continue doing so for many years to come.

5

Hmmmm.....this recall election is stupid but what's with the snarking on Henry Bridger and the links to a photo of him in leather and another to a naturist hike? Are we supposed to snigger at that because its embarrassing and "bad" to be a gay man into leather or naturism hikes? Really? This from the paper with Dan Savage as its mascot?

6

It's also annoying you can't go back and edit your comments for typing errors...

7

@4

she is one of the most important politicians in our country right now

Bahahahaha. No one outside of our little King County bubble has heard of or gives a shit about Sawant and once this election is over, the bubble in King County shrinks to the size of a fart bubble in a hot tub.

8

So now The Stranger is slut shaming? Wow. Just wow.

9

First round of results are in, next round Wednesday at 4pm:

Recall Yes: 17,048 53.10 %

Recall No: 15,055 46.90 %

12

@10 So, Lucretia...you're queer and you're ok with shaming someone over their sexuality? Really? You can be "tired of the Capitol Hill yuppie gays" without being snarky about the fact they're part of the leather community or enjoy a "naturist" hike. There's nothing wrong with being part of the leather community or enjoying being bareass in the woods. Snark all you like on someone's public political stance but sniggering over their choices in sexual lifestyle...no.

13

@11 That's how it broke last time. The Bellevue Chamber of Commerce will be pleased.

14

@4 cklask, You of course missed the point, which wasn't about YOU or readership, but about TS's whining in multiple blog posts over the last few months about not being invited to election discussion panels, not being invited to election parties, etc. They really seem to be perplexed since they keep bringing it up, so I was just helping them figure out what the problem might be.

Curious though, why is Sawant "important" as a politician? How has she made your life more comfortable? How does she, a fascist in the making, enable giving you a "chance to fight" versus an actual liberal minded candidate? Do you consider yourself a liberal-minded person? Are you now or have you ever been a member of the Socialist Party? (j/k on that last one)

I hope you get to continue to march with Sawant. But maybe a marching band would suit everyone better?

p.s. if signing-in to post a comment is slowing you down so much, you should look into saving your login credentials in the browser. It's really convenient.

15

@9
Only down by 2,000 votes? Doesn't seem like much of a barrier to me.

16

@10 Luc, it is petty, and I don't condone such behavior, but it's all bark and no bite - I was just making a point.

17

It will be close. They were estimating 50% turnout so even with that she’ll need 63% of the late vote which is about what she got in 2019. I think she’ll pull through but will totally depend on turnout.

The pettiness over this recall has really been fun though. WA states recall system is virtually impossible to abuse due to the court verification component but let’s continue to pretend Sawant didn’t bring this upon herself.

19

Ha! The recall fucking failed. A victory for democracy.

20

"we wonder if the right will continue abusing the recall system to pick off progressive opponents"

More lies. The recall campaign is run by and supported by progressives. Yes, it will draw votes from the right, but for The Stranger to continue to lie that this is driven by the right is beyond the pale.

21

@17 D13R, you keep posting the same thing over and over about the judges, but all the judges basically said were the charges against her were true. Jaywalking is technically breaking the law. Should we recall politicians for jaywalking? Of course not. But, technically, what's stopping that from happening?

And while Washington state may have some superficial protections due to the more intelligent liberal majority base of voters, it's just a matter of time. One of the ways Republicans are evil is that they just make everything a living hell to fight them - it takes so much energy, money, and time that people with not as much to lose/gain in the fight give up.

22

To the person who thinks no one outside of King County has heard of Kshama: You don't follow any Left-leaning, national indie media at all, do you?

23

If I could vote in this election, I'd vote against the recall because she hasn't done anything to merit removal.

I'm not sure how I feel about her. She has championed some good things like raising the minimum wage and taxing well off tech industry assholes, like me, and I support that. But she has done some dumb stuff too. I'd probably vote against her in the general election but I want to stop stupid and unnecessary recalls designed to remove liberal voices from office. I expect she'll squeak by and stay in office barely. I thought the removal reasons were extremely weak sauce. She didn't try to organize a crowd to kill the legislators after an election to reverse it, didn't even come close, she should be maintained.

24

"Pretty in Pink" is a fuckin idiot and that's all I have to say

26

There's hardly any enjoyment in being a slut unless a little dose of shame is along for the ride. Everything in moderation of course. And naked hiking? Trailists by definition, the most insufferable of all. Unless you're a naked bushwhacker, just shut the fuck up.

27

Dang, I was hoping we'd be done tonight with the Brahmin princess. But the Karl Rove candidate may yet pull it out.

28

@24 eeeeee, deep thoughts by eeeeee.

29

Either your invitation was lost in the mail or you failed to RSVP. Oh... Wait!!!... I remember now.... YOU WEREN'T INVITED!

30

The election results will get closer, but the numbers favor the recall. First ballot drop: 17048, yes; 15055, no. Total number of ballots cast: 34753. Ballots remaining to be counted: 2660. To survive the recall, Sawant would need about 2325--or about 87.4%--of the remaining ballots. That's possible but not likely. We should know a lot more by tomorrow afternoon.

31

@30 Where are you getting your numbers? Ballots cast should be closer to 40,000.

32

Fuck TS. I actually appreciate your slut shaming of the gay Recall campaign, because it highlights (conveniently after the fact) that the right wing, racist, billionaire narrative was total bullshit. She is being recalled by people who love Capitol Hill and are tied of her BS

33

@31. Good, fair question. I found these figures in an article in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer: "Kshama Sawant, Seattle's socialist city council member, is behind in early election results." The article is by Alec Regimbal and was updated at 9:05 p.m. tonight. The article states there are 77529 registered voters in District 3. About 45% voted in the recall, so that would mean the figure of 34753 of actual votes is right. The key point is registered voters does not mean those who actually voted. Had more young voters participated, the results would likely have been significantly different. If you find different numbers, feel welcome to pass them along, and I'll stand corrected. I hunted for awhile, though, and these were the most accurate figures I could find.

34

Win or lose, I'd hope she'd at least think twice in the future before doing the idiotic things that led to the vote in the first place. But she probably won't. Socialism as a concept isn't the problem, it's always the implementation.

36

This is a really interesting first batch and is more likely than usual to spell doom for Sawant. How?

So far 32,129 votes have been counted. That's out of 77,579 registered voters in D3, and equates to 41.41% turnout after the first ballot drop. That's a significantly larger turnout in the first drop than the 2019 election numbers.

In 2019, the first drop count measured 27.99% turnout. Orion was ahead 53.99% to 45.61%. Total turnout in D3 wound up being 58.79%, and Sawant won 51.83/47.70.

What does this all mean? A far higher percentage of this vote was tallied on day 1 than usual. That is likely because KC Elections only had one type of ballot this time and it's a way easier election to administer than usual. The practical effect of that is that while the first batch numbers are the same as they were in 2019, it actually starts Sawant off in a much worse position than it did in 2019. She has to get a significantly higher percentage of the outstanding votes in 2021 than she did in 2019, because there's far fewer votes left to count now than there were in 2019.

She could still win, but the path is narrower than it was in 2019. I'd rather be the recall right now than Sawant.

37

I just hope if she loses there's these huge theatrics around it. Like, she locks her and her staff in the city hall offices and refuses to leave. lol

40

@21 I didn't say the recall system was perfect but it is harder to game here than in other states. The judicial review has to find the charges are sufficient to warrant a recall if true. In your example jaywalking wouldn't meet that standard. In the case of Sawant she violated election laws and endangered city employees and other elected officials via her actions. Those constitute a violation of her oath of office. In CA you simply need to get the requisite signatures to get a recall on the ballot which is why you see it happen down there so often and yet even then its fairly rare and even rarer for it to succeed. The handwringing over the "abuse" of the recall process is nothing but another distraction from Sawant's pattern of behavior.

42

@37 - agreed. I'm in a bit of a Netflix showhole and that would be some damn fine entertainment.

43

@33 King County Elections called 50% turnout a "conservative estimate," and 50% is nearly 39,000 ballots. I bet it gets close to 40,000.

44

@43 Maybe you're right, but the article in question explicitly quotes election officials as having stated 34753 ballots were tallied. No more, no less. Now, surprises happen, and I stand corrected if the article and the officials are wrong. But the 34753 figure was not quoted as an estimate; it was cited as fact. We'll just have to see what happens today. Yes, Sawant could win, but odds favor the recall. That's really all we can know at this point. Again, we'll see.

46

Just want to chime in that I think it's really gross that they pick on Henry Bridger II in this article for being a leather guy and organizing nude hikes.

Before Sawant and her media allies rebranded him as a Trump/Bezos hybrid, Henry was a very well-known face in the D3 LGBTQ community and a long-time activist, going all the way back to the days of Cal Anderson himself, who was one of Henry's buddies.

And he still is. Like you go to a gay leather event or whatever and you'll find Henry, surrounded by friends and people he's worked with for years on civil rights issues. Go send one of your pimply transplant journalists there to tell them how ackshually Henry is a right-wing Trumpist and you'll get laughed out of the room.

The Stranger tries to act like they're very progressive and cool with the gay community. But it's basically just rainbow capitalism -- they adopt the symbology and language of the LGBT movement, but when the chips are down, gays are still "icky" and "weird" and something you point at and mock.

It's not the first time The Stranger has done this either. In 2019 Sawant was also opposed by a gay candidate -- Egan Orion. The Stranger went and dug up an egg donor ad Orion had put up asking for a woman who looked like his husband. To The Stranger, this was icky, and weird and something to point at and mock.

Really just says a lot about what this publication is. You guys don't actually care about anything other than looking cool and edgy. During normal times, being on the side of LGBTQ people is cool and edgy so you pretend to do it. But during election season, the cool and edgy thing to do is to be on the side of Sawant, so you switch over to mocking LGBTQ people for their lifestyles and decisions, teasing Henry Bridger II for being a leather guy, degrading Egan Orion for wanting a latina egg donor, etc.

Can't wait until 2023 when yet another leader from the D3 gay community challenges Sawant and the young, transplant Stranger writers find a new way to mock them for being icky and weird.

48

Some gay activists supported the invasion of Iraq!

49

How stupid do we have to be to assume that you are against socialism if you are for Kshwama's recall? I'm looking for someone who can speak to those opposed to socialism in a way that opens their minds to it, not trying to shove it down their throats. That never works and usually achieves the opposite. No person is bigger than the ideal they represent. If you can't be the hose to spread the water to more of the flowers, you're just a cult of personality to those who support you.


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