The couple in the plastic chairs at the Northgate public library was typical of about a fifth of Seattle voters, a recent poll said.
So was James Hoffman who sat in the front row of a small group at the West Seattle public library.
A few days before voting ends Tuesday in Seattle’s public library, they said they were still uncertain who they think should be the city’s next mayor.
The woman in Northgate said she and her husband had filled out their absentee ballots the night before – that is, all but for one race, the mayor’s race.
Mike McGinn, who is vying with T-Mobile executive Joe Mallahan, went hunting for those votes on Saturday, holding four town hall meetings around the city. And at the meetings with voters in small groups – as small as a dozen in West Seattle and at Miller Community Center on Capitol Hill, and as many as about 30 in Northgate – he heard the reservations voters still have about him. After months of campaigning, of evenings spent in forums, McGinn this was perhaps McGinn’s last shot at reaching voters.
It was particularly important, he acknowledged to the West Seattle crown, because unlike the well-funded Mallahan, McGinn has less opportunity to run television ads. “As the person who doesn’t have the most money, going out to talk to the voters is critical,” McGinn said in West Seattle.
The most recent poll – the Washington poll, by the University of Washington – showed Mallahan ahead 44 percent to 36 percent among likely voters. But 19 percent – nearly one in five and people like the couple in Northgate – were still undecided.
He reached only a little more than 50 voters on Saturday. None of the major media attended. The West Seattle blog reported on the meeting in that neighborhood. So it was unclear how much good the town hall meetings would do. But they were indicative of the questions in the mind of undecided voters and also of the candidates’ style.
What he heard most at all the forums were variations of the following.
“I like what I’m hearing,” said x in West Seattle Saturday morning. “But it’s another thing to implement them.”
Reassure us that you can run the city, when you’ve never held public office.
How are you going to deal with the power structure – Gov. Christine Gregoire, City Council members, business and labor interests – who are siding with Mallahan over McGinn’s opposition to the idea of replacing the Alaskan Way Viaduct with a tunnel?
In short, after months of railing against the tunnel plan, does he have the experience and the temperament to not only oppose but get things done? And could he get anything accomplished when the powers that be seem intent on defeating him?
Surprisingly, McGinn wasn’t asked about what Mallahan in particular has been describing as his flip flop over the viaduct.
Speaking before the groups, McGinn explained yet again his stance on the viaduct. He still opposes the viaduct, but he’s a realist. He can count votes. The legislature supports it, the City Council voted 9-0 to support him. He gets it, and if the support continues, he’ll respect the process.
But, he said, he’ll continue to ask tough questions about the project, particularly who will pay should there be cost overruns. Though contingencies are built into the budget to minimize the risk, and city officials say a provision in a state spending bill says Seattle would be on the hook, the provision extends nevertheless. And it’s up in the air exactly who will pay.
“I’m going to be a skeptic,” McGinn told the West Seattle audience. “Ask tough questions but remain in the democratic process.”
McGinn argues the question should be resolved before work begins. Generally, the voters at the town halls seemed satisfied with the explanation.
Still, there were the concerns.
Many of his responses were covered during the series of debates.
McGinn reiterated that he’d been involved in a number of political issues over the years, from being a community council head, to leading the opposition to the state’s roads and transit levy for being more roads than transit, in pushing for the passage of the city’s parks levy and founding a non-profit called Great City.
“I know a little bit about these things, “ McGinn said.
But in the small groups – in a setting different from the battle of one liners on televised debates -- he spoke more in depth about what he sees as the difference between him and Mallahan. At the West Seattle meeting McGinn said essentially that others would work with him if he becomes mayor because he’d have the authority of being the candidate selected by the people.
“If I get elected, they’ll be a lot nicer to me,” he said of his opponents. “Because the reality is no elected official can afford to stand before the public and say I refuse to work with another public official to solve problems.”
Despite his image as a naysayer, McGinn said he’s been a corporate attorney, where he’d learned the art of negotiation. Ninety percent of the law suits his firm handled were settled out of court, he said because the parties can usually reach a better resolution than one imposed by a judge.
He said also that many of the groups he’d fought in the roads and transit initiative debate – in which he argued a transportation ballot measure contained too much funding for building new roads instead of transit – later supported his efforts to start his organization.
In politics, he said, trying to reassure voters that his fight over the viaduct wouldn’t necessarily affect his initiatives on other issues, it’s possible to disagree on one issue but work together on others. “What being a lawyer taught me was that it’s OK to disagree. Usually the disagreements are in good faith. The key is understanding what the other is trying to achieve and not make it personal, but about outcomes.”
He pointed to Mallahan’s negative ads against incumbent Mayor Greg Nickels in the primary and against him in the general election and argued Mallahan did not understand the art of negotiating. “You don’t get to fire the citizens,” he said. (In politics), it’s the other way around,” McGinn said
McGinn said in West Seattle, “I don’t think my opponent knows what he’s gotten himself involved with in the public sphere.”.
As he did during the debates, McGinn traveled the city this weekend saying he and Mallahan offered a contrast in styles. He noted at the last forum on Saturday – at Miller Community Center – that it was the 25
th town hall forum he’d held during the campaign, that he’d met with people working on issues and developed a series of position papers on issues from transportation to helping immigrants, and was accessible to the press.
Mallahan, on the campaign trail, says he’s been trained as a community organizer. In forums with advocacy organizations he’s invited them to fight for their issues and hold him accountable.
McGinn’s is a more populist style.
Mallahan, on the other hand, hadn’t held town meetings, speaks almost exclusively to reporters through his spokeswoman, and hasn’t laid out detailed plans over as broad an array of issues.
Mallahan’s spokeswoman Charla Neuman didn’t respond to an email asking how Mallahan was spending the last weekend of the campaign.
For the few who attended, McGinn’s town hall meetings make an impression. The couple in Northgate said they intended to vote for McGinn. The McGinn had eased some of their concerns. “I wish we’d had the opportunity to talk to Mallahan,” the woman said.
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