Seattle Times Newspaper: Mallahan concedes Seattle mayor's race to McGinn

Best of luck to Mayor-elect Seattle Mike McGinn. Today his opponent, Joe Mallahan conceded the race to McGinn.
Read the newspaper report, here.

See Mike McGinn's campaign stump speech here:


My reasons for voting for Mallahan left with him, but not my reasons for voting against McGinn.
To quote myself:

The knock I have on Mike McGinn is that he has promised all kinds of things, with many of them requiring cooperation from the state government. Asking for help keeping some of his promises while Mike McGinn battles the state for two years trying to stop the current plan to replace the Alaskan Way Viaduct with a deep bore tunnel, sounds absurd. He has ideas, not really a plan. Much of his leadership experience appears to be pitting one group against another and fighting.

How would he be viewed at the state level, by the rest of the state? Is he the scruffy lawyer finding every hair to split in his battle with the State of Washington on one hand, while on the other claiming that the state will just fall in line to support his "surface" proposal. That is laughable.
Me, on 10/10/2009

It is up to me to stay engaged in the things that are important to me, even when opposed by Mike's way, or the highway attempts to run me over.

Word to the mayor, I have no fear.

Have a great day,
Mike Baker

Sent from my iPhone
Visit me here:
http://ManyWordsForRain.blogspot.com

KING5/SurveyUSA Election Poll #16015: Mallahan 45, McGinn 43

I predict: Mallahan 51%, McGinn 48%, 1% other.

Here is the current KING5/surveyusa.com poll. Joe Mallahan 45, Mike McGinn 43, 12 undecided.

Can Joe Mallahan get 5 of the 12% that is left? Yes, that is possible.
Can Mike McGinn get 7 of the 12% that is left? Yes, that is possible.
Margin of error was 4.1%

McGinn has closed ground on Mallahan, but the question is if McGinn can get over 49.9% while opposing the tunnel.
It is possible, though I do not think so. I think the ceiling for the anti-tunnel candidate is 48%.

Have a great day,
Mike Baker

Sent from my iPhone
Visit me here:
http://ManyWordsForRain.blogspot.com

While filling out my voters' ballot I will be watching Burt Lancaster in "The Swimmer"

Ah, politics and each contest, like The Swimmer, series of swimming pools that greet you in different ways.

In the end, we make the best of each pool, believing and hoping the next pool will be more refreshing than the last.

If you make-believe hard enough, then it's true for you

In a key scene, he encounters a solitary boy playing a flute at a lemonade stand below a tree. The boy's parents are away somewhere. Merrill has no money but cajoles the boy into giving him a drink. He asks the boy if he can use his pool... but when they arrive at the pool, they find it empty. The boy says he can't swim very well. Undaunted, Merrill gives the boy a lesson, and they simulate different strokes across the floor of the dry pool. "If you make-believe hard enough, then it's true for you," Merrill tells him, and the boy is suddenly delighted by his apparent success in swimming an entire length.

But as Merrill departs, he hears a sinister reverberation... he turns, sees the boy bouncing on the spring-board above the deep end.... Yes, in this low tech but high concept film, symbolism is everything.
Film Court | copyright 2001 | Lawrence Russell

Here are my endorsements that I made a couple weeks ago, that I am still sticking with, some more tightly than others.