Local Politics: The Jeff Recommends

No Dyvil this time. I know, you want to hear about how I'm pushing this insane idea to raise money for the Red Cross AND give you a short, fun RPG, but I'm sorry, we're into Politics at the moment.

Of course, the Politics is not that exciting at the moment. We're at a primary where most of the choices have already been made in the political posts, and the non-political positions are all top-two, which means we will likely seem the same guys in a few months from now. So there's not a lot going on.

For the Fifth District King County Commissioners, its going to be Julia Patterson versus Orin Wells. For King County Executive, its going to be Ron Sims versus David Irons. For Mayor of Seattle its going to be Greg Nickels against an empty chair. Yep, the state GOP couldn't even find a sacrificial candidate for the mayor's race. Given that Nickels has suddenly withdrawn his support for the Monorail and asked for a FIFTH public vote on the matter (managing in the process to irritate BOTH Monorail supporters and detractors at the same time), they could be bashing their GOP-foreheads against their GOP-monitors.

For Port Authority, I'm going with Shelly in Seattle's recommendations: Molloy for position 1, Coates for position 3, and Jolley for position 4, but reserve the right to revisit the matter when the dust settles.

For Sherrif, I go with Fuda by a half-point over Rahr, with the same claim to revisit later. Susan Rahr has the support of every big group involved in the Sherrif's office except one - the officers themselves, who are going for Fuda. Mind you, Fuda has the "diploma-problem" that seems to be plaguing a lot of elected and appointed officials all of a sudden, so I'm very lukewarm about this.

That about wraps it up for the votes that I have any real say in. I'm not in the 1st District for King County Commissioner (Ferguson vs. Edmonds, a nasty fight), but I lean towards Ferguson. I'd rather see a more independent voice in this area. I shan't cry in my beer if Edmonds takes it - Whoever wins the Democratic vote in the 1st will likely take the general.

The opposite is true in my old digs in the 9th, which is the Hammond-Dunn matchoff - the GOP winner is likely to take the field. And, progressive that I am, I should therefore recommend the weaker of the two candidates. So I will call it for Dunn. I think with Hammond as candidate, there is a 90% chance that the GOP will take the district. With Dunn, it drops to 75%. This is for two reasons. First, I think that supporters of Hammond, particularly in the rural areas, would rather sit out the election than go to Dunn, while Dunn supporters would settle for Hammond (this is particularly bad news for Irons, who needs those rural votes to make a credible run against Simms - a Dunn victory may make that unlikely (oddly enough, this is the conclusion of Right of Seattle a local conservative blog, and apparently the only other one covering this fight). Second, I think the odds of Dunn saying or doing something teeth-grindingly foolish in the next two months is much higher than Hammond, giving the Dems a shot at the region.

And despite the paper's claim that there is no difference between these two pro-business, conservative candidates, I have to disagree. They both favor development, but Bellevue-based Dunn is with the developers, while rural-supported Hammond is with those who lands are being developed. Dunn comes off as being in the offices, while Hammond has been on the frontline of the development curve.

So those are my calls for the Primary - It is a pretty thin field, all in all, but as it's been said: If God wanted us to vote, he would have given us candidates.

More later,