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On Monday, 9/21, I forwarded two emails to a group of friends in Seattle. Those two emails are below in italics. They generated about two dozen responses. I forwarded a handful of those responses which then stimulated another set of responses. So, I thought that I would move this discussion to the blog so that others could read any comments that people are willing to make public. I will post my second email with initial responses as a first comment to this post.

Joel

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From: jabe blumenthal Date: Sat, 19 Sep 2009 Subject: thoughts on the Seattle mayor race

Recently I talked to Joe Mallahan (with Rod Brown) and Michael McGinn (just myself). Here are my own observations and conclusions. I’m happy to provide more specifics from the conversations over the phone to anyone that asks. I ask only that you not forward this without asking me first.

Where I came down: Joe Mallahan seems to be a smart, decent and mature person. I hope and expect to have a constructive working relationship with him on environmental issues should he be elected. However I ended up firmly for Michael McGinn. On almost all the issues about which I know enough to assess him, Michael has very progressive, informed, and nuanced opinions in line with my own. To be a good progressive mayor, Michael will have to prove himself to be a better manager, listener, and collaborator than many, understandably, fear he will be. However Joe will have to show an incredible interest in and aptitude for all kinds of complex public policy, which, over the last decade, Michael has been focused on and Joe has shown almost zero interest in. Then, once up to speed, we have to hope that Joe is anywhere near as progressive as Michael is or even as Greg turned out to be. From a probabilistic point of view, both are a gamble, but Joe is the much bigger gamble with a lower expected value.

Why I came down there: Michael is firmly at the very progressive end of the political spectrum and has a deep understanding of at least the public policy issues about which I know enough to assess. He has some personality and style issues of real concern that will affect how well he manages and how well he works with others he doesn’t manage. And even aside from the style issues, he just doesn’t have much management experience. However, in our conversation, he demonstrated significant self-awareness of his weaknesses and inexperience in certain areas. I think some – though by no means all – of the negative impressions of his style come from campaigns where such a style was successful and, arguably, even required and thus not evidence that he is incapable of other styles when required. And while he can come across as quite arrogant to some, others I respect who have worked with him say that they are able to work with him well and that he listens and learns. But others that I also respect have had different experiences, so I can’t dismiss these concerns. I think Michael probably can be taught and influenced, and is probably smart and self-aware enough to successfully work on these things. (Of course Greg was smart too, yet, as much as anything else, his arrogance and style brought him down. Most people would have forgiven him the snow day debacle, for example, if King Greg was an even slightly sympathetic figure.) Meanwhile, as someone said to me, Joe seems to know less about public policy than the average person who has read Newsweek for a couple of years (with the one exception of social justice issues, which he seems to have given some genuine thought). His web site, at least on the issues I know well, had quite shallow “policy 101” positions. Repeatedly in my conversation with Joe, it became clear that there were issues he just hadn’t thought about much at all. There are several problems with that: First, it turns out that public policy is really complicated. It’s taken me several years to get the point where I have what I would call informed and nuanced views about climate and energy policy. And, as someone pointed out to me the other day, more often than not our initial conclusions on complex public policy issues are exactly 180 degrees wrong. Nickels, Rice, Royer, even Schell, all had spent a lot of time working, in some way, on issues of public policy (which perhaps shows that to be a “necessary but not sufficient condition” as the mathematicians say). Second, it means that we don’t have much of an idea where Joe will end up on the

political spectrum, because, frankly, he doesn’t know yet. Yes, he supported Obama and is almost certainly at least mildly progressive. But that’s the “ante” to get into the Seattle Mayor game at all. The majority of the members of the Chamber of Commerce are also mildly progressive. They would be considered liberal radicals if we all lived in Houston. But we don’t live in Houston, and there are very few of them I would consider remotely ideologically acceptable for Mayor of Seattle. Third, at some level if you haven’t voted much and haven’t read much and haven’t gotten involved much in public policy, it doesn’t mean you’re a bad person, but it does mean that it’s just not that much of a priority for you and not that interesting to you. That’s likely to hinder, not hasten, the policy crash course we need him to take. Joe does, for sure, have more management background than Michael. It shouldn’t be overblown: running and having complete responsibility for all aspects of even a 100 person company is much deeper and broader management experiencing than managing a 200-400 person division in a 20,000+ person company as Joe did, and as I did at Microsoft (and about a third of the managers at Microsoft that I knew were pretty bad). But, still, points to Joe.

If Michael succeeds and addressing his management and style issues, real or perceived, I think he can be perhaps our first truly progressive and effective mayor. If he fails, he will still be very progressive, but will be ineffective. If Joe is incredibly bright and picks up public policy amazingly quickly and if he turns out to be as good at management as we hopeand he turns out to be much more progressive than the average progressive businessperson, then he will be a great mayor. If either of the first two “ands” aren’t met, then he too will be ineffective. If the third isn’t met, he will be worse than ineffective. In the end, I just see more potential upside and less potential downside to Michael.

For what it’s worth.

Jabe

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On Sep 19, 2009, at 8:04 PM, ALAN DURNING wrote:

Dear Friends,

The short story: I whole-heartedly endorse Mike McGinn for Mayor of Seattle. You should, too. I made a donation to his campaign. Would you do the same, please?

The whole story: I know Mike McGinn well. He shares my values and beliefs about what’s right for our city: better schools, more-affordable housing, better transit,

better pedestrian and bicycle infrastructure, stronger communities—and no $4 billion dollar freeway excavated under downtown. I almost get physically ill when I consider that the price tag of this tunnel would be enough to fund, for example, the current Seattle Schools budget shortfall for 200

consecutive years. My son Peter’s favorite highschool teacher lost her job this Spring, because of that shortfall. And we’re going to dig a #%$@ underground freeway?!

(See this Sightline post, for more perspective on the deep-bore tunnel: http://tinyurl.com/bpg394) **

Unlike his rival (who has a spotty record of even voting in city elections), Michael has been active in civic affairs and city policy for a very long time. He’s served on countless boards and panels and advisory groups, including several where I’ve also served. And he knows a very wide array of grassroots community leaders across Seattle, because he founded and directed the Seattle Great City Initiative–a local organization that brings together a diverse coalition for good urban development. I’ve sat in many meetings with him and watched him work effectively with groups large and small. He’s both tough and charming. Does Mike have the management experience to be mayor? Wrong question. Does he have better management experience than his rival? Yes. Running a democratically minded city like Seattle is completely unlike running a mid-sized division of a national mobile phone company, which his opponent did. City governance is all about coalition building, cajoling, and organizing. It’s a nonstop campaign. And that’s what Mike does best.

Some of my friends wonder if Mike can win against a fresh-faced centrist. Ahem: Mike McGinn just ran the most surprising campaign in recent Seattle history. He was outspent about seven to one, yet he finished first! (FIRST!) Having watched his campaign—and his previous, successful campaigns for parks and transit—I have no doubts Mike can win. But only if we help. For all McGinn’s grassroots strength across the city, he’s up against a wall of money. His opponent has put hundreds of thousands of his own dollars into the race, and establishment types are unlocking their vaults.

You can help by:

1. Making a large donation here: http://mcginnformayor.com/ (How much to give? If it doesn’t hurt, you haven’t given enough.)

2. Telling your friends that you’re with McGinn, and asking them to support him as well. You could forward this letter or write one of your own.

Thanks for you attention!

Alan Durning

**Yes, I know. We can’t just spend the same money on schools instead—at least not without amending the state constitution. But the principle remains: a billion-dollar freeway tunnel is a preposterous allocation of resources in a climate-constrained age. In a time when our president is leading us in a long-needed transformation of our energy economy to stave off more oil wars and catastrophic climate change, when our cities are remaking themselves to be walkable, bikable, and transit-oriented, why would we sacrifice other public needs to rebuild a second freeway through the heart of our city? Vancouver, BC, for example, doesn’t even have one freeway through its downtown, much less two.

And yes, I know, it may be too late to stop the tunnel. Even if it is, the tunnel is a perfect litmus test of leadership instincts on future questions. Mike passes. His opponent fails. More on the tunnel controversy here: http://tinyurl.com/mgvfsf.