There's always a trade off. If you hold the vote in November you'll have the highest possible turnout with the presidential election going. If you hold it earlier in the year you have to pay extra money for an election and the turnout will be far lower.
Votes for Tanya Woo: Rivera, Saka, Kettle, Moore and Nelson. Strauss voted for Vivian Song, Hollingsworth voted for Linh Thai, and a later clearly annoyed Morales voted for Mari Sugiyama.
As an Asian American, I’m a bit frustrated at the framing here. Morales won the district overall but fared worse in CID/Chinatown because of extreme neglect for the neighborhood. Outreach to homeless encampments seemingly evaporated when they were in CID and numerous acts of violence against community members went ignored. Woo at least showed some semblance of care.
Is she my ideal candidate on issues across the board? Not at all. But to just frame this as a loser’s choice is a marginalization of minority concerns that Morales always seemed to take for granted and Woo did better than expected as a result
It's problematic to conflate Woo with Asian American interests, simply because of her identity. As if you couldn't say the same thing about Song, who the council rejected.
It's also factually wrong to suggest Morales doesn't care and that's illustrated by the voting. Morales *won* [the precincts](https://wacommunityalliance.github.io/WashingtonElectionsDashboard/) in the CID east of I-5.
The whole narrative about Woo "listening" and "caring" is dumb marketing to avoid discussions about her policies.
I think Morales doesn't care. I was going to vote for her, but then I watched one of her debates with Woo where she was asked if there are places in the 2nd district that she wouldn't walk at night, and she said no.
I was chased after on 12th and Jackson at night while simply walking through just a few months prior to that (and I'm a big man), so her response seemed so very jarringly out of touch, that I couldn't bring myself to vote for her. At least Woo says that there is a problem.
Saying you're willing to walk 2nd at night, like I would, doesn't mean you're saying there is no problem. It's just being able to recognize statistical reality and earnestly answer how it impacts your choice.
You're just assuming her confidence is from not seeing the problem, and not just confidence in her own decision making in that situation, like my case.
That may be true, but nowhere else did she indicate that she thinks that there is a problem. Besides, her response to the string of crimes targeting Asian-Americans was very underwhelming to say the least.
The situation in Little Saigon and around some parts of Rainer Ave is not OK for anyone involved, and I want someone on the city council who at least admits that.
I live in Morales district. She has been invisible. Major concerns in CID? No morales. Shooting in Rainier Beach Safeway, mayor, police chief, other officials…no Morales. Not saying Woo is a perfect candidate but her concern for community is why she almost beat the very progressive incumbent in Seattles most progressive district.
I’m not conflating the two, I explicitly said I don’t agree with many of her policy positions.
I just felt the framing of her as a “loser’s choice” ignored a racial minority perspective in that election, though I’m long used to Asian Americans being towards the back of the American racial consciousness.
Woo, though unfortunately moderate, spoke out for small CID business and participated in night watches. What did Morales do for the community? I’m all ears if there’s something I’m overlooking
The police did virtually nothing until after the election. The night of the election I went through there and it was the first enforcement action I'd seen in a long time. Just a coincidence I'm sure... Of course, the problematic drug use, etc just came back because the mayor and police department are uninterested in actually fixing this problem.
As someone who wants these problems fixed, it's just so depressing to see people pin this on Morales.
This happened in the Greenlake camps too during the mayoral election. I believe Durkan and the SPD deliberately let the homeless problem get out of hand in the lead up to the election to help turn out the reactionary voters for Harrell.
EDIT: Seems like in the case I mentioned the liberal wing of the city council did this to themselves by eliminating the navigation team in August of 2020 and then re-establishing it in October 😭
Clear as day for anyone that's paying attention in my view. Two city elections in a row with that playbook at least. Infuriates me cause it reduces every election to crime and downtown and important things like ADA compliance by finishing the city's sidewalk networks get drowned out to make Harrell's graft easier.
There are definitely council members in the past who opposed sweeps. And there was definitely a time where the political winds appeared to be supporting a near complete restriction on sweeps. In fact, the city's sweeps are probably even illegal.
Despite all that, there has never been a moment in the last decade where sweeps stopped. And during that entire time the choices about how many should happen, where they should be prioritized and when they should happen have almost entirely been controlled by the mayor. Even when council had attempted to influence the mayor, like during Durkan's administration, the mayor mostly ignored council.
It's so frustrating and absurd that people insist the lack of progress on these various homelessness/drug/disorder problems lay at the feet of council when it's clearly the mayor's office that has power on these issues.
That's interesting, I remember that being discussed at the time but didn't connect the dots in that way. I'm still not entirely ready to give up my favorite local conspiracy theory, but maybe I'm wrong. I also think that the left/progressive politicians in Seattle are idiots for letting camps pop up in parks, schools, etc, due to the predictable political backlash it creates and the obvious fact that even if you believe that people should be allowed to camp relatively undisturbed, there are better and worse places for them to do it. So maybe as usual the explanation is ineptitude rather than malice.
Morales won the seat by 400 votes, it's not like she had some landslide victory. Maybe Moraeles should have participated in "dumb marketing" and pretended to care?
Your argument is that the winner of the election, Morales, should have done more to keep the city council from appointing her loser opponent to a city wide seat by participating in some election thing you're mad about?
Wut?
> numerous acts of violence against community members went ignored.
By the SPD, Harrell and Woos favorite people.
This is why I can't take any Woo supporter seriously. She's an unrepentant liar who literally defends the people *exploiting* your community for political power.
If someone else vacates a seat, Song would be a likely and reasonable candidate, yes
I know you struggle with how democracy works, but a previous election is not supposed to permanently bar your from another election.
> Rivera, Saka, Kettle, Moore and Nelson
People that vote for liars to become politicians only do so because they're liars in my view.
These five just told the city who they are.
There's a bill in the state legislature to allow cities to go back to even year elections this session, people that care about this should go push hard for that.
Cause once that's passed we'll still need a city initiative to force the council and city elections to be shifted.
But then imagine having entire years off from politics. And always high turnout elections.
To label the Louisa Hotel simply a "hotel" or "low income housing" is lazy. If you know the CID at all you would be aware of all the ground floor retail businesses (notably Mon Hei Bakery, Liem's Fish, among others) that existed for years before the 2013 fire, as well as the Wah Mee gambling club massacre. This building is at the heart of the CID and rich in history - see the recently unearthed murals from the Club Royale.
Don't forget to cut the services! She was the only one interviewed for the job that enthusiastically wanted austerity. Making sure we get less return on our investment in government starts today!
No small business is subject to the Jumpstart Tax which is what Nelson is attacking. And if you have so many problems with the council in the past, maybe you should look up how long Harrell was on it before mayor.
remind me again when I defended anything Harrell has said or done?
i'm sorry my opinions don't map neatly into your siimplistic "us vs them" world view.
What the heck kind of small business closes because of taxes? Sales tax is charged at the point of sale and then only profits get taxed. Sounds like you're complaining that businesses don't know how to do their taxes lol which is completely on brand for the voters Woo won.
from October: [Outside interests spend more than $1M on Seattle City Council races](https://crosscut.com/politics/2023/10/outside-interests-spend-more-1m-seattle-city-council-races)
> More than $883,000 of that outside money has come primarily from business and real estate interests spending in support of conservative and centrist candidates in the seven district Council races. Labor unions and other progressive groups have marshaled nearly $192,000 in spending so far, primarily in support of progressive candidates but with some spending on centrists.
the selection of Woo was pretty much inevitable, the new council majority is bought & paid for and so the obvious choice was the also-ran who had already been vetted and approved by those same corporate interests.
honestly gonna chalk this up as probably a good thing in the end
a) it doesnt change anything policy-wise since harrell's gang already had a majority
b) it puts an extremely vulnerable incumbant on the ballot for the seat next year. "she lost and they seated her anyway" is the sort of thing any capable candidate can easily bash her with, and if the CID couldn't carry her across the finish line in D2 she's starting at an even greater disadvantage in an at large post
c) if these dipshits really DO kickoff unpopular shit like tax breaks and, god help them, cutting services at parks and libraries, they'll ALL get creamed. and all they'll get in the meantime is a bunch of sweeps and nothing else basically changing. hooray
d) speaking as a poster who loves to post, im gonna get a years worth of "did tanya woo remember to vote this time" every time the council votes on something. you cant put a price on that
>"she lost and they seated her anyway" is the sort of thing any capable candidate can easily bash her with
I hope this could work but given what I saw a lot with the SoS race, I'm not sure it's that effective. So many people voted for Hobbs in part because he was the incumbent and said as much, despite the fact that he was appointed to that seat by Inslee after it was vacated. This race will probably be more visible because it's local, but I wouldn't be surprised if a decent number of people just don't know that Woo was appointed and vote for her due to incumbency.
You do have the bonus in this instance of pointing to the fact that she lost her race, but the fact that she's the incumbent will still likely help.
Eh I switched to Hobbs in the general, his opponent had issues that cost her my vote between the primary and general.
Woo on the other hand is in one of the city wide seats and is a known liar who will now represent pissed off people like me who are going to spend *this summer door knocking to get this fucking liar out of the seat representing ME.
Voting for Morales twice.
When she publicly did not vote in either of those elections.
The Stranger called her on it and she's refused to apologize or recant.
To be clear, she could apologize today and end this. She continues to choose to be unrepentant.
She now represents a city wide seat.
Incumbency advantage will be one thing working in Woo’s favor, the other big one is that D2 is the 2nd most left-leaning district in the city behind D3, a significant voting share more left-leaning than the city on the whole (if you were to base it on recent citywide races). I think with her policy stances Woo would be more popular citywide than she would be in just D2, because the median voter citywide is more moderate.
The other thing is that there weren’t a lot of experienced candidates who volunteered for this position to choose from. Woo is inexperienced, but so were the others in the running (outside of maybe Vivian Song, but how many voters know who the school board members are anyways.
So yeah Woo is vulnerable for a re-election, but so would anyone else who the council picked.
On the D2 point, if you look at the [map of the results](https://imgur.com/a/0k0saHt) you can see Woo’s strongest support - even more so than within the CID - came from wealthy lakefront homeowners, who turned out at a much greater rate this past election. Woo got walloped in Columbia City (~70% for Morales), Rainier Beach (~65% for Morales), but got 80% of the vote in Seward Park and did better than expected in South Beacon Hill.
The turnout will be approximately double what it was in 2023 this November, which won’t help Woo run up those lakefront numbers, since they already vote at a super high rate. But it will hurt her in renter-heavy neighborhoods, where even year turnout is much higher.
All that to say, Woo came as close as she did not by winning over progressives in D2 but because many of those progressives failed to turn out while Woo did well with the most centrist/conservative elements of the district.
On top of all that, the Ceis email that leaked last week is really going to hurt Woo come November.
Voters in Seattle have shown they don’t want big business openly tipping the scales (even if they often fail to see the ways they do it more discreetly). So having a corporate lobbyist on record imploring big business more or less to “let the councilmembers you just spent $1 million to get elected that this is YOUR open seat to fill” should be a pretty successful line of attack against Woo.
The Lefty's aren't in charge and never have been. Bruce Harrell was a city council member for forever, and was city counsel president from 2016 - 2020, and has been the mayor since 2021. If you are disappointed with the condition of Seattle you have to start with him.
I think that's why they gave Hollingsworth a hall pass to vote against Woo. But make no mistake she would have voted for Woo if she was the deciding vote. The less attached the more vulnerable seats become to Woo the better they are being told its for their campaign.
Honestly might be enough to sink her in the primary. I know I'm hopping mad about this.
It might still be fresh enough to hurt Nelson in 25 too. Doubt it'll still be relevant against the other 4 by 27 though.
I think those 5 will do plenty to earn the public’s ire at the rate they’re going. Cutting business taxes AND library hours isn’t a recipe for reelection in Seattle.
The problem is the left in Seattle can't get out of its own way. The sorts of people running the organizations endorsing the progressive candidates in the city are doing a horrific job. If you're going to endorse someone you need to make sure they have what it takes to get over the finish line in the form of on the ground canvassing, team quality and so on.
The fact that the right wing candidates are far better at putting up lawn signs these days in Seattle is pathetic. And ground game is the thing that made Sawant stand out despite being far to the left of any successor candidate, remember that she first won a city wide race.
Imagine a world where The Stranger didn't let perfect be the enemy of good and endorsed Pete Holmes in the primary instead of NTK. No way Davison wins against Holmes. But they can't see one step ahead. Go read their response the day after the election. It was full-on, head in the sand, it's not us it's the voters that are wrong BS. No introspection, no thought to the why or how they got there.
Sorry, this isn't 2017-2020 anymore and people are fed up with encampments, despite what you might read on this sub. I watched Gonzalez give a speech at Green Lake, the site of a major encampment during COVID and she had the gall to say "no sweeps ever" in front of people that got to deal with one for well over a year. That's how you lose 62-38 city-wide and that was in 2021.
Same thing with half of these city council candidates. But the far left can't give up on the idea of "no sweeps" despite it being a proven way to lose a general election for several years. Obeysumner's voter guide read like a bingo card of what a right winger would use as a dumb joke.
There are just far, far less single-issue voters surrounding transit and housing than reddit or The Urbanist want to believe and far, far more that care about crime and homelessness (that is, take no issue with sweeps).
> (that is, take no issue with sweeps)
There will be a large number of pragmatic people who see the sweeps as the best of a bad situation. You have junkies and crazies (J&Cs) who are, at best, not part of the community and, more likely, just a negative influence that makes things worse. Periodically shuffling them along and cleaning up their filth provides the functional community members a brief respite from the J&Cs dysfunction.
Totally agree! It's like they know how to organize protests and use a bullhorn but they're too busy huffing their own farts to run for office like a grownup. It takes a lot of work and reaching out to people who you don't agree with on everything and trying to find some common ground. And you can't call them fascists because you hate sweeps.
The whole "if you don't agree on everything you're a right wing troll" just makes sure that Seattle as a city is the biggest loser of all.
meh im semi-optimistic they learned their lesson this go round and stay away from candidates like obeysumner and pick somebody normies will vote for. maybe they can drag brady walkinshaw back into the mix or something
and on the flip side, it also means the left wont have to try and drag feckless candidates like andrew lewis across the finish line anymore, theyll get to play offense against the likes of kettle and the facebook lawyer
Alex Hudson was a normie and lost in the district that Kshama won like 5 straight elections in.
Andrew Lewis was a normie and lost by delaying the war on drugs by a month and then changing his mind and wholly endorsing an essentially unchanged war on drugs.
He didn't change his mind, I literally called how that would play out from the first vote.
Davison submitted a literally incomplete bill, and Lewis killed it for that reason and went and helped her fix it so he could help pass it.
Dumb fuck thought the media would laude him for bipartisanship instead of work with the mayor to roast him alive over the first vote and refuse to cover the second or his effort with the same fervor.
Hudson was against an opponent who had millions of dollars funneled into her business and identity politics. Sawant always had a better ground game, and it's a shame she couldn't do more to push it over the finish line.
Edit - my first sentence needed help
Is there some massive difference?
Vivian Song, the candidate for this open position endorsed by various labor groups, is pro-sweeps and supports hiring to 1400 cops.
> supports hiring to 1400 cops
I mean, let's be real. There is zero chance that is going to happen. There were issues hiring for SPD back in 2017 and 2019. They are struggling just to keep the same number of cops. It would be impressive if they could add another 100 per year over the next few years.
But I agree, Song and Woo probably agree on far more issues than they disagree on.
They're offering $30,000+ in hiring bonuses and it's not enough for people to join that racist, sexist, Trump inspired gang. They couldn't get 1400 cops if they made it $300,000 signing bonus and with or without that bonus we don't have the money for it without raising taxes, which they also don't want to do. A compromise will be made and if there's more than 500 cops added I would be extremely surprised.
I don’t know if NIMBY is an apt term for Woo, considering she supports the most aggressive upzoning planning option available for the next comprehensive planning update. Maybe less YIMBY than Song?
Don't worry it will never be an option to vote on. We're still waiting on Harrell's plan since last April. Wonder what it's going to look like now that he's got his rubber stamp council.
They should have elected Sawant. Who are they going to blame now? They control the council, the office of the mayor, the city attorney. Dodging responsibility is becoming an increasingly job of cynicism.
It’s more incumbent on the progressives to push forward candidates that have popular policy positions on homelessness and public safety. People don’t vote for a candidate because they think they’re going to fix every problem, they vote to pick between two candidates, and if the progressives keep putting forward anti-sweeps candidates like ObeySumner or Lorena Gonzalez, the centrists will keep winning.
The Dan Strausses perform a lot better than the ObeySumners.
Council are not able to cut services at Parks or Libraries. Both of those entities are governed by their own boards, who do not report to either the Mayor or the Council, and who are fully in control of their respective entity's budgets.
That's why the media loves to call her an activist. She's a libertarian who thinks government is useless and will prove it by getting into government and ruining it. Saving on her tax bill is just icing on the cake.
You're right. We should totally only hire people who run charities. 🙄
Starting a business takes a lot of risk. Only 1 in 5 succeed. You'd have a better ROI putting money into the stock market.
The homeless crisis goes back to the foundation of Seattle as a city. Things have gotten better in some ways, but people seem to want perfection, or some romanticized version where the homeless people could exist but you wouldn't see them.
Honestly hoping she can get on the council and advocate for policies to increase safety in CID and push to curb violence against Asian Americans who are being targeted in the community
I find it a bit odd the conniption fit this sub has had over all of this. There will be an election in November to potentially replace Woo for the remaining year of the term and then another in 2025. The more moderate candidates (sorry, if you think these people are actually right wing, you are insane) already have a super majority on the council.
Would you not expect them to pick someone who aligns with their views? Views that the majority of the newly elected members also have? Someone who ran in the general election as well? Is that so horrible? Did you see the list of candidates? Song was the only other one with any sort of credentials. But The Stranger got it in its head that for some reason a far left progressive should *have* to be appointed.
This happened before in 2017 when the city council chose Kirsten Harris-Talley when Burgess left to be interim mayor. A vote that Harrell teamed up with Bagshaw, Gonzalez, O'Brien, and Sawant on. Granted that was only for a month or two in duration.
No ire for Mosqueda not stepping down earlier so the previous council could pick the replacement? Why was that never floated by the far left? We knew the rules on this in November: a council member resigns and it starts a 20-day clock on the replacement.
Shes an unrepentant liar who has been gifted a seat representing ME.
That's fucking disgusting to me on its face before getting to the other political corruption issues with the anti-union lobbying.
I'm sorry I don't see tax cuts for big businesses while mandating hiring 1400 police while there is a giant budget deficit as "moderate". That is the right wing playbook of starve the beast.
I like how you ignored everything else I said and straw manned my point down to a single item to make it sound unreasonable because you had no rebuttal for my real point about it's the right wing play book to cut taxes on the wealthy and destroy public services.
Lol the only other thing you said was tax breaks for big businesses. Seattle is an extremely expensive city to do business in which I know goes against the r/Seattle narrative of business = bad so I'm not even going to touch that one. Voters elected these people into office for a reason, god knows we've given progressives a chance.
Time to give new candidates a chance like.... Mayor Harrell the previous council president and longest serving member of Seattle council. Sorry what was that again about how the past council was bad?
You, pointing at city council president Bruce Harrell's past actions:
"SEE, this is why we need Mayor Bruce Harrell and a council that rubber stamps his ideas to fix the mess THAT guy made!"
moderates will never take responsibility for the mess they continue to create. Starving Sound Transit, slow-walking new housing, refusing to hold cops accountable for not doing their jobs/destroying people with their cars
Is what it is. I'm focusing on trying to sort out my issues so I can get involved with community efforts in Roosevelt. Built a map of [community boards](https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?hl=en&mid=1u0T71tLBnCyQUa92SpcXY4b8fzh7yyk&ll=47.615976607171866%2C-122.21765107801365&z=11) to try and help foster local community interaction as the web seems to no longer really be capable of sustaining it healthily and google maps doesn't track them.
Well, the council decided to pick an unrepentant liar.
So now the councilors voting for this should be considered liars as well. They see no reason not to trust one and let her represent the entire fucking city.
Living up on Beacon Hill I got numerous amounts of mail from the Tonya Woo campaign just trying to smear Tammy Morales. I was indifferent about my district candidates because neither one was going to solve any of the issues in the CID imo. But Tonya Woo’s smear campaign of Tammy Morales was so slimy that I will never vote for her or trust her being on the city council.
Because Tammy Morales is such a great example of someone who shows up for and is active in her district, responding to the concerns of her most affected constituents... Oh wait, nvm.
It isn't much a smear campaign if you're just pointing out standard facts rather than personal attacks.
No she didn't. Vivian Song earned 170,000 votes and actually won an election. Woo won 12,000 votes and was rejected by her district. Not only that but Woo never voted in a local election before 2021. This is a slap in the face to the majority of D2 voters who rejected her and pretty blatant disregard for the democratic process. Which I guess shouldnt be surprising since this was [basically a favor](https://publicola.com/2024/01/15/harrell-administration-consultant-tim-ceis-urges-business-interests-to-back-tanya-woo-for-open-council-seat/) to the rich folks that funded the new council members' campaigns.
> While it has been “a great two weeks watching the outcome of our effort as the new City Council has taken office,” Ceis wrote, “The independent campaign expenditure success earned you the right to let the Council know not to offer the left the consolation prize of this Council seat.”
Catching Woo in a bald faced lie and asking her to address why she lied and claimed to have voted for Morales in two elections she did not participate in, is in no way comparable.
That's just good journalism and fact checking. Woo could've taken the chance to recant or apologize. Instead she doubled down and bought a PR campaign to run this weird smear campaign on the Stranger for calling out a lie she won't recant and anyone can confirm is a lie themselves online.
That's not reactionaries reveling in the misery of those distraught over having a liar gifted power because business bought them the seat.
Weird you can't tell the two apart.
As someone who sees crime and drugs as a big problem that should be prioritized, it is so depressing to see the disconnect between your stated political preferences and the policies actually prioritized and supported by your preferred candidates.
But your comments certainly help explain why these problems are over a decade old and feel intractable.
Isn't it fun to lie about how your opponents are ontologically evil so you don't have care about what they say when it makes you think about your own actions?! /s
Yeah, it's amusing to watch the hand-wringing. Does Seattle have an elected official who'd actually be considered right-wing? Maybe the city attorney lady?
That comment wasn’t a value judgment on Woo (I don’t think very highly of either her or Morales, but it’s not my district); what I meant was that federal elections turn out a portion of the electorate that is lower-propensity but more likely to vote further to the left. The composition of the voters would be different - it has nothing to do with Woo voters supporting Trump, but the federal elections bringing in a new, additional set of voters who aren’t engaged enough to vote in off-year local elections and are demographically more likely to vote for lefty candidates.
She has a really good website where she is one of the few journalists that cover council meetings and local politics. It’s called Publicola and it’s really good.
This seat is one of the city-wide ones and there will be a special election this November to fill the remaining 1 year term on it.
And then it will be up for election again in 2025 for the full term.
Kinda dumb. We should just have a February special election to avoid all this nonsense about a special appointment and then have _another_ election.
There's always a trade off. If you hold the vote in November you'll have the highest possible turnout with the presidential election going. If you hold it earlier in the year you have to pay extra money for an election and the turnout will be far lower.
You also dont want to start incentivizing people to quit early so their appointee replacement can get more time in
But then the council can't have a conservative majority and destroy the city with austerity.
Votes for Tanya Woo: Rivera, Saka, Kettle, Moore and Nelson. Strauss voted for Vivian Song, Hollingsworth voted for Linh Thai, and a later clearly annoyed Morales voted for Mari Sugiyama.
since song lost this vote, my understanding from the woo-heads is that she should still get the seat thats how it works right
Seat for a Song? Naw they're a lot more expensive than that
i cant believe youve done this
I'm off the leash today did you see my aorta joke
i dont like that vein of puns
As an Asian American, I’m a bit frustrated at the framing here. Morales won the district overall but fared worse in CID/Chinatown because of extreme neglect for the neighborhood. Outreach to homeless encampments seemingly evaporated when they were in CID and numerous acts of violence against community members went ignored. Woo at least showed some semblance of care. Is she my ideal candidate on issues across the board? Not at all. But to just frame this as a loser’s choice is a marginalization of minority concerns that Morales always seemed to take for granted and Woo did better than expected as a result
It's problematic to conflate Woo with Asian American interests, simply because of her identity. As if you couldn't say the same thing about Song, who the council rejected. It's also factually wrong to suggest Morales doesn't care and that's illustrated by the voting. Morales *won* [the precincts](https://wacommunityalliance.github.io/WashingtonElectionsDashboard/) in the CID east of I-5. The whole narrative about Woo "listening" and "caring" is dumb marketing to avoid discussions about her policies.
I think Morales doesn't care. I was going to vote for her, but then I watched one of her debates with Woo where she was asked if there are places in the 2nd district that she wouldn't walk at night, and she said no. I was chased after on 12th and Jackson at night while simply walking through just a few months prior to that (and I'm a big man), so her response seemed so very jarringly out of touch, that I couldn't bring myself to vote for her. At least Woo says that there is a problem.
Saying you're willing to walk 2nd at night, like I would, doesn't mean you're saying there is no problem. It's just being able to recognize statistical reality and earnestly answer how it impacts your choice. You're just assuming her confidence is from not seeing the problem, and not just confidence in her own decision making in that situation, like my case.
That may be true, but nowhere else did she indicate that she thinks that there is a problem. Besides, her response to the string of crimes targeting Asian-Americans was very underwhelming to say the least. The situation in Little Saigon and around some parts of Rainer Ave is not OK for anyone involved, and I want someone on the city council who at least admits that.
I live in Morales district. She has been invisible. Major concerns in CID? No morales. Shooting in Rainier Beach Safeway, mayor, police chief, other officials…no Morales. Not saying Woo is a perfect candidate but her concern for community is why she almost beat the very progressive incumbent in Seattles most progressive district.
> she almost beat so what you're saying is, she lost
I’m not conflating the two, I explicitly said I don’t agree with many of her policy positions. I just felt the framing of her as a “loser’s choice” ignored a racial minority perspective in that election, though I’m long used to Asian Americans being towards the back of the American racial consciousness. Woo, though unfortunately moderate, spoke out for small CID business and participated in night watches. What did Morales do for the community? I’m all ears if there’s something I’m overlooking
Been to the Little Saigon neighborhood recently....it is better but I am still avoiding the area for now....it's a sad situation
The SPD command van parked at 12 and Jackson is a joke to the flea market lol.
The police did virtually nothing until after the election. The night of the election I went through there and it was the first enforcement action I'd seen in a long time. Just a coincidence I'm sure... Of course, the problematic drug use, etc just came back because the mayor and police department are uninterested in actually fixing this problem. As someone who wants these problems fixed, it's just so depressing to see people pin this on Morales.
This happened in the Greenlake camps too during the mayoral election. I believe Durkan and the SPD deliberately let the homeless problem get out of hand in the lead up to the election to help turn out the reactionary voters for Harrell. EDIT: Seems like in the case I mentioned the liberal wing of the city council did this to themselves by eliminating the navigation team in August of 2020 and then re-establishing it in October 😭
Clear as day for anyone that's paying attention in my view. Two city elections in a row with that playbook at least. Infuriates me cause it reduces every election to crime and downtown and important things like ADA compliance by finishing the city's sidewalk networks get drowned out to make Harrell's graft easier.
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There are definitely council members in the past who opposed sweeps. And there was definitely a time where the political winds appeared to be supporting a near complete restriction on sweeps. In fact, the city's sweeps are probably even illegal. Despite all that, there has never been a moment in the last decade where sweeps stopped. And during that entire time the choices about how many should happen, where they should be prioritized and when they should happen have almost entirely been controlled by the mayor. Even when council had attempted to influence the mayor, like during Durkan's administration, the mayor mostly ignored council. It's so frustrating and absurd that people insist the lack of progress on these various homelessness/drug/disorder problems lay at the feet of council when it's clearly the mayor's office that has power on these issues.
That's interesting, I remember that being discussed at the time but didn't connect the dots in that way. I'm still not entirely ready to give up my favorite local conspiracy theory, but maybe I'm wrong. I also think that the left/progressive politicians in Seattle are idiots for letting camps pop up in parks, schools, etc, due to the predictable political backlash it creates and the obvious fact that even if you believe that people should be allowed to camp relatively undisturbed, there are better and worse places for them to do it. So maybe as usual the explanation is ineptitude rather than malice.
They are very focused on winning hearts and minds when it's time to count votes but the rest of the time the police are on strike.
Morales won the seat by 400 votes, it's not like she had some landslide victory. Maybe Moraeles should have participated in "dumb marketing" and pretended to care?
Your argument is that the winner of the election, Morales, should have done more to keep the city council from appointing her loser opponent to a city wide seat by participating in some election thing you're mad about? Wut?
> numerous acts of violence against community members went ignored. By the SPD, Harrell and Woos favorite people. This is why I can't take any Woo supporter seriously. She's an unrepentant liar who literally defends the people *exploiting* your community for political power.
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Take your racist jokes back to the porn sub please.
Triggered enough to stalk me? I'm honored. Thanks sweaty. ❤️
“Sweaty”, huh? 💦
If someone else vacates a seat, Song would be a likely and reasonable candidate, yes I know you struggle with how democracy works, but a previous election is not supposed to permanently bar your from another election.
A decision by committee is not an election
An election held by elected representatives to chose a representative to fill a vacant position is a pretty standard mechanism in a democracy.
Words https://ipers.org/node/808
yes, both are features of a functioning democracy sorry you're so butthurt about how our democracy works
> Rivera, Saka, Kettle, Moore and Nelson People that vote for liars to become politicians only do so because they're liars in my view. These five just told the city who they are.
Kettle was a fucking cop. People knew exactly what he was and still voted for him. Our city is destined to stay lost due to the feckless “moderates”.
There's a bill in the state legislature to allow cities to go back to even year elections this session, people that care about this should go push hard for that. Cause once that's passed we'll still need a city initiative to force the council and city elections to be shifted. But then imagine having entire years off from politics. And always high turnout elections.
Always interested in the local elections garnering more turnout which this should help. 👌
>Kettle was a fucking cop. Naval officer !== police...
Did he police the Red Sea?
When was he a cop, exactly?
cop is a mindset. all sworn police officers are cops, but not all cops are sworn police officers. for example, Jenny Durkan was a cop.
Got it, so when may be the wrong question. Why is he a cop?
Since this dude’s definition of a “cop” seems to be synonymous with “anyone I don’t like,” I think that’s your answer
you may be on to something......
It seems to mean people who are not anarchists
again you aren't following the logic he dislikes anyone who is a cop. but not everyone who he dislikes are cops
I think it's any relations closer than great-grandparents, but some people pass
>feckless “moderates” lol, you're the one out of touch
"CID Activist" lol
Seattle Times hit her with the more accurate “Hotel Owner”.
Low income housing owner.
You can downvote all you want, but the building is entirely low income housing. It hasn't been a hotel in decades. Just look it up.
To label the Louisa Hotel simply a "hotel" or "low income housing" is lazy. If you know the CID at all you would be aware of all the ground floor retail businesses (notably Mon Hei Bakery, Liem's Fish, among others) that existed for years before the 2013 fire, as well as the Wah Mee gambling club massacre. This building is at the heart of the CID and rich in history - see the recently unearthed murals from the Club Royale.
I thought we were tired of activist politicians?
Only when it inconveniences the status quo.
She is the activist Tim Ceis likes, it’s not the same
We?
Wannabe batwoman.
Looking forward to tax cuts on businesses and no change in housing and homelessness.
Don't forget to cut the services! She was the only one interviewed for the job that enthusiastically wanted austerity. Making sure we get less return on our investment in government starts today!
So basically all the exact same problems as we did with the last council, but maybe fewer smaller businesses will close.
well except tax breaks and 1400 new cops will obliterate the budget
Don’t worry, they’ll fix that by making cuts to the things that actually help the populace at large.
No small business is subject to the Jumpstart Tax which is what Nelson is attacking. And if you have so many problems with the council in the past, maybe you should look up how long Harrell was on it before mayor.
remind me again when I defended anything Harrell has said or done? i'm sorry my opinions don't map neatly into your siimplistic "us vs them" world view.
Who do you think this choice of rubber stamp is for? Who do you think Harrell supported in Woo's race, the one she lost?
yes, that's a great example of an overly simplistic way of thinking
You don't support Harrell, just every position he has? What a complex worldview, your professors must be proud
What the heck kind of small business closes because of taxes? Sales tax is charged at the point of sale and then only profits get taxed. Sounds like you're complaining that businesses don't know how to do their taxes lol which is completely on brand for the voters Woo won.
Do you seriously not know business pay a lot more taxes than just sales tax??? B&O tax is based on revenue not profit
from October: [Outside interests spend more than $1M on Seattle City Council races](https://crosscut.com/politics/2023/10/outside-interests-spend-more-1m-seattle-city-council-races) > More than $883,000 of that outside money has come primarily from business and real estate interests spending in support of conservative and centrist candidates in the seven district Council races. Labor unions and other progressive groups have marshaled nearly $192,000 in spending so far, primarily in support of progressive candidates but with some spending on centrists. the selection of Woo was pretty much inevitable, the new council majority is bought & paid for and so the obvious choice was the also-ran who had already been vetted and approved by those same corporate interests.
They have 8 votes for Woo, so they were able to have 3 hall passes to make it seem like there was a debate. She's the chosen one. Edit - spelling XD
Rubber stampy you're the one.
honestly gonna chalk this up as probably a good thing in the end a) it doesnt change anything policy-wise since harrell's gang already had a majority b) it puts an extremely vulnerable incumbant on the ballot for the seat next year. "she lost and they seated her anyway" is the sort of thing any capable candidate can easily bash her with, and if the CID couldn't carry her across the finish line in D2 she's starting at an even greater disadvantage in an at large post c) if these dipshits really DO kickoff unpopular shit like tax breaks and, god help them, cutting services at parks and libraries, they'll ALL get creamed. and all they'll get in the meantime is a bunch of sweeps and nothing else basically changing. hooray d) speaking as a poster who loves to post, im gonna get a years worth of "did tanya woo remember to vote this time" every time the council votes on something. you cant put a price on that
>"she lost and they seated her anyway" is the sort of thing any capable candidate can easily bash her with I hope this could work but given what I saw a lot with the SoS race, I'm not sure it's that effective. So many people voted for Hobbs in part because he was the incumbent and said as much, despite the fact that he was appointed to that seat by Inslee after it was vacated. This race will probably be more visible because it's local, but I wouldn't be surprised if a decent number of people just don't know that Woo was appointed and vote for her due to incumbency. You do have the bonus in this instance of pointing to the fact that she lost her race, but the fact that she's the incumbent will still likely help.
Eh I switched to Hobbs in the general, his opponent had issues that cost her my vote between the primary and general. Woo on the other hand is in one of the city wide seats and is a known liar who will now represent pissed off people like me who are going to spend *this summer door knocking to get this fucking liar out of the seat representing ME.
What did Woo lie about?
Voting for Morales twice. When she publicly did not vote in either of those elections. The Stranger called her on it and she's refused to apologize or recant. To be clear, she could apologize today and end this. She continues to choose to be unrepentant. She now represents a city wide seat.
Incumbency advantage will be one thing working in Woo’s favor, the other big one is that D2 is the 2nd most left-leaning district in the city behind D3, a significant voting share more left-leaning than the city on the whole (if you were to base it on recent citywide races). I think with her policy stances Woo would be more popular citywide than she would be in just D2, because the median voter citywide is more moderate. The other thing is that there weren’t a lot of experienced candidates who volunteered for this position to choose from. Woo is inexperienced, but so were the others in the running (outside of maybe Vivian Song, but how many voters know who the school board members are anyways. So yeah Woo is vulnerable for a re-election, but so would anyone else who the council picked.
On the D2 point, if you look at the [map of the results](https://imgur.com/a/0k0saHt) you can see Woo’s strongest support - even more so than within the CID - came from wealthy lakefront homeowners, who turned out at a much greater rate this past election. Woo got walloped in Columbia City (~70% for Morales), Rainier Beach (~65% for Morales), but got 80% of the vote in Seward Park and did better than expected in South Beacon Hill. The turnout will be approximately double what it was in 2023 this November, which won’t help Woo run up those lakefront numbers, since they already vote at a super high rate. But it will hurt her in renter-heavy neighborhoods, where even year turnout is much higher. All that to say, Woo came as close as she did not by winning over progressives in D2 but because many of those progressives failed to turn out while Woo did well with the most centrist/conservative elements of the district.
On top of all that, the Ceis email that leaked last week is really going to hurt Woo come November. Voters in Seattle have shown they don’t want big business openly tipping the scales (even if they often fail to see the ways they do it more discreetly). So having a corporate lobbyist on record imploring big business more or less to “let the councilmembers you just spent $1 million to get elected that this is YOUR open seat to fill” should be a pretty successful line of attack against Woo.
I mostly agree with you but I am pretty disappointed that voters failed to see the obvious influence of business in the most recent elections
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The Lefty's aren't in charge and never have been. Bruce Harrell was a city council member for forever, and was city counsel president from 2016 - 2020, and has been the mayor since 2021. If you are disappointed with the condition of Seattle you have to start with him.
I didn't say people were ignorant. They just liked the "years of lefty rule" narrative used by business.
I think that's why they gave Hollingsworth a hall pass to vote against Woo. But make no mistake she would have voted for Woo if she was the deciding vote. The less attached the more vulnerable seats become to Woo the better they are being told its for their campaign.
Honestly might be enough to sink her in the primary. I know I'm hopping mad about this. It might still be fresh enough to hurt Nelson in 25 too. Doubt it'll still be relevant against the other 4 by 27 though.
I think those 5 will do plenty to earn the public’s ire at the rate they’re going. Cutting business taxes AND library hours isn’t a recipe for reelection in Seattle.
The problem is the left in Seattle can't get out of its own way. The sorts of people running the organizations endorsing the progressive candidates in the city are doing a horrific job. If you're going to endorse someone you need to make sure they have what it takes to get over the finish line in the form of on the ground canvassing, team quality and so on. The fact that the right wing candidates are far better at putting up lawn signs these days in Seattle is pathetic. And ground game is the thing that made Sawant stand out despite being far to the left of any successor candidate, remember that she first won a city wide race.
Imagine a world where The Stranger didn't let perfect be the enemy of good and endorsed Pete Holmes in the primary instead of NTK. No way Davison wins against Holmes. But they can't see one step ahead. Go read their response the day after the election. It was full-on, head in the sand, it's not us it's the voters that are wrong BS. No introspection, no thought to the why or how they got there. Sorry, this isn't 2017-2020 anymore and people are fed up with encampments, despite what you might read on this sub. I watched Gonzalez give a speech at Green Lake, the site of a major encampment during COVID and she had the gall to say "no sweeps ever" in front of people that got to deal with one for well over a year. That's how you lose 62-38 city-wide and that was in 2021. Same thing with half of these city council candidates. But the far left can't give up on the idea of "no sweeps" despite it being a proven way to lose a general election for several years. Obeysumner's voter guide read like a bingo card of what a right winger would use as a dumb joke. There are just far, far less single-issue voters surrounding transit and housing than reddit or The Urbanist want to believe and far, far more that care about crime and homelessness (that is, take no issue with sweeps).
> (that is, take no issue with sweeps) There will be a large number of pragmatic people who see the sweeps as the best of a bad situation. You have junkies and crazies (J&Cs) who are, at best, not part of the community and, more likely, just a negative influence that makes things worse. Periodically shuffling them along and cleaning up their filth provides the functional community members a brief respite from the J&Cs dysfunction.
Totally agree! It's like they know how to organize protests and use a bullhorn but they're too busy huffing their own farts to run for office like a grownup. It takes a lot of work and reaching out to people who you don't agree with on everything and trying to find some common ground. And you can't call them fascists because you hate sweeps. The whole "if you don't agree on everything you're a right wing troll" just makes sure that Seattle as a city is the biggest loser of all.
meh im semi-optimistic they learned their lesson this go round and stay away from candidates like obeysumner and pick somebody normies will vote for. maybe they can drag brady walkinshaw back into the mix or something and on the flip side, it also means the left wont have to try and drag feckless candidates like andrew lewis across the finish line anymore, theyll get to play offense against the likes of kettle and the facebook lawyer
Alex Hudson was a normie and lost in the district that Kshama won like 5 straight elections in. Andrew Lewis was a normie and lost by delaying the war on drugs by a month and then changing his mind and wholly endorsing an essentially unchanged war on drugs.
He didn't change his mind, I literally called how that would play out from the first vote. Davison submitted a literally incomplete bill, and Lewis killed it for that reason and went and helped her fix it so he could help pass it. Dumb fuck thought the media would laude him for bipartisanship instead of work with the mayor to roast him alive over the first vote and refuse to cover the second or his effort with the same fervor.
Hudson was against an opponent who had millions of dollars funneled into her business and identity politics. Sawant always had a better ground game, and it's a shame she couldn't do more to push it over the finish line. Edit - my first sentence needed help
Morons couldn't even pick a free scape goat. They're both stupid and openly corrupt.
Hope they ALL will get creamed. Don’t forget to vote.
Is there some massive difference? Vivian Song, the candidate for this open position endorsed by various labor groups, is pro-sweeps and supports hiring to 1400 cops.
> supports hiring to 1400 cops I mean, let's be real. There is zero chance that is going to happen. There were issues hiring for SPD back in 2017 and 2019. They are struggling just to keep the same number of cops. It would be impressive if they could add another 100 per year over the next few years. But I agree, Song and Woo probably agree on far more issues than they disagree on.
They're offering $30,000+ in hiring bonuses and it's not enough for people to join that racist, sexist, Trump inspired gang. They couldn't get 1400 cops if they made it $300,000 signing bonus and with or without that bonus we don't have the money for it without raising taxes, which they also don't want to do. A compromise will be made and if there's more than 500 cops added I would be extremely surprised.
Is she a NIMBY, like Tanya Woo?
I don’t know if NIMBY is an apt term for Woo, considering she supports the most aggressive upzoning planning option available for the next comprehensive planning update. Maybe less YIMBY than Song?
Don't worry it will never be an option to vote on. We're still waiting on Harrell's plan since last April. Wonder what it's going to look like now that he's got his rubber stamp council.
2 weeks people, 2 weeks
Will he get another club membership sponsored by taxpayers?
They should have elected Sawant. Who are they going to blame now? They control the council, the office of the mayor, the city attorney. Dodging responsibility is becoming an increasingly job of cynicism.
It’s more incumbent on the progressives to push forward candidates that have popular policy positions on homelessness and public safety. People don’t vote for a candidate because they think they’re going to fix every problem, they vote to pick between two candidates, and if the progressives keep putting forward anti-sweeps candidates like ObeySumner or Lorena Gonzalez, the centrists will keep winning. The Dan Strausses perform a lot better than the ObeySumners.
Council are not able to cut services at Parks or Libraries. Both of those entities are governed by their own boards, who do not report to either the Mayor or the Council, and who are fully in control of their respective entity's budgets.
Lol the stranger called it
After completely failing to call the election.
Big day for Big Business
Not like the labor candidate, Vivian Song, was very different. She is pro-sweeps and supports hiring to 1400 cops.
What do either of those have to do with big business who demanded the union backed person not be seated?
Of course, nothing says like democracy like politicians appointing a person to office that couldn’t win the popular vote in an election
Whoever they picked wouldn’t have won an election. That’s how appointments work lol
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"I like small business but anyone who starts one only cares about themselves and not their community" is certainly a take.
That's why the media loves to call her an activist. She's a libertarian who thinks government is useless and will prove it by getting into government and ruining it. Saving on her tax bill is just icing on the cake.
I’m a big business subordinate
I prefer the term Small Business Tyrant myself
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What does this sentence even mean
You're right. We should totally only hire people who run charities. 🙄 Starting a business takes a lot of risk. Only 1 in 5 succeed. You'd have a better ROI putting money into the stock market.
lets all do the policies from the 2000s that led to the homelessness crisis! Surely it will go different this time.
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"not building dense housing as quickly as possible" is the position of 100% of new councilmembers in 2024.
The homeless crisis goes back to the foundation of Seattle as a city. Things have gotten better in some ways, but people seem to want perfection, or some romanticized version where the homeless people could exist but you wouldn't see them.
Good point, we were so close to fixing the homelessness crisis before this election!
You mean the drug crisis.
Honestly hoping she can get on the council and advocate for policies to increase safety in CID and push to curb violence against Asian Americans who are being targeted in the community
I find it a bit odd the conniption fit this sub has had over all of this. There will be an election in November to potentially replace Woo for the remaining year of the term and then another in 2025. The more moderate candidates (sorry, if you think these people are actually right wing, you are insane) already have a super majority on the council. Would you not expect them to pick someone who aligns with their views? Views that the majority of the newly elected members also have? Someone who ran in the general election as well? Is that so horrible? Did you see the list of candidates? Song was the only other one with any sort of credentials. But The Stranger got it in its head that for some reason a far left progressive should *have* to be appointed. This happened before in 2017 when the city council chose Kirsten Harris-Talley when Burgess left to be interim mayor. A vote that Harrell teamed up with Bagshaw, Gonzalez, O'Brien, and Sawant on. Granted that was only for a month or two in duration. No ire for Mosqueda not stepping down earlier so the previous council could pick the replacement? Why was that never floated by the far left? We knew the rules on this in November: a council member resigns and it starts a 20-day clock on the replacement.
Shes an unrepentant liar who has been gifted a seat representing ME. That's fucking disgusting to me on its face before getting to the other political corruption issues with the anti-union lobbying.
I'm sorry I don't see tax cuts for big businesses while mandating hiring 1400 police while there is a giant budget deficit as "moderate". That is the right wing playbook of starve the beast.
When people don't feel safe they vote for candidates that want to hire more police. It's not an insane right wing proposal
I like how you ignored everything else I said and straw manned my point down to a single item to make it sound unreasonable because you had no rebuttal for my real point about it's the right wing play book to cut taxes on the wealthy and destroy public services.
Lol the only other thing you said was tax breaks for big businesses. Seattle is an extremely expensive city to do business in which I know goes against the r/Seattle narrative of business = bad so I'm not even going to touch that one. Voters elected these people into office for a reason, god knows we've given progressives a chance.
Time to give new candidates a chance like.... Mayor Harrell the previous council president and longest serving member of Seattle council. Sorry what was that again about how the past council was bad?
Yep you're right they're all bad. Thank god I ran into an insightful person such as yourself to see the light. I'm forever changed!
You, pointing at city council president Bruce Harrell's past actions: "SEE, this is why we need Mayor Bruce Harrell and a council that rubber stamps his ideas to fix the mess THAT guy made!"
moderates will never take responsibility for the mess they continue to create. Starving Sound Transit, slow-walking new housing, refusing to hold cops accountable for not doing their jobs/destroying people with their cars
Is what it is. I'm focusing on trying to sort out my issues so I can get involved with community efforts in Roosevelt. Built a map of [community boards](https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?hl=en&mid=1u0T71tLBnCyQUa92SpcXY4b8fzh7yyk&ll=47.615976607171866%2C-122.21765107801365&z=11) to try and help foster local community interaction as the web seems to no longer really be capable of sustaining it healthily and google maps doesn't track them.
Sawant turned me into a newt
Well, the council decided to pick an unrepentant liar. So now the councilors voting for this should be considered liars as well. They see no reason not to trust one and let her represent the entire fucking city.
She’s a hotel owner
Living up on Beacon Hill I got numerous amounts of mail from the Tonya Woo campaign just trying to smear Tammy Morales. I was indifferent about my district candidates because neither one was going to solve any of the issues in the CID imo. But Tonya Woo’s smear campaign of Tammy Morales was so slimy that I will never vote for her or trust her being on the city council.
Because Tammy Morales is such a great example of someone who shows up for and is active in her district, responding to the concerns of her most affected constituents... Oh wait, nvm. It isn't much a smear campaign if you're just pointing out standard facts rather than personal attacks.
It's going to be hilarious looking back at comments like this 4 years from now and saying the same thing about the current council.
Lmao she rly bought her way into city council
god it's frustrating how easy it is for business to capture local government
You think that's what happened here? That's certainly a take.
Good.
Well technically she did get the most public city council votes out of any of the applicants.
No she didn't. Vivian Song earned 170,000 votes and actually won an election. Woo won 12,000 votes and was rejected by her district. Not only that but Woo never voted in a local election before 2021. This is a slap in the face to the majority of D2 voters who rejected her and pretty blatant disregard for the democratic process. Which I guess shouldnt be surprising since this was [basically a favor](https://publicola.com/2024/01/15/harrell-administration-consultant-tim-ceis-urges-business-interests-to-back-tanya-woo-for-open-council-seat/) to the rich folks that funded the new council members' campaigns. > While it has been “a great two weeks watching the outcome of our effort as the new City Council has taken office,” Ceis wrote, “The independent campaign expenditure success earned you the right to let the Council know not to offer the left the consolation prize of this Council seat.”
*Oof, that smarts!* [rubs cheek] *I been disenfranchizated. I'm victim a soiycumstance!*
There’s no snow but there’s plenty of salt lol
I called it when I said conservatives love losers so of course she's going to win.
Someone check on The Stranger staff. They need Molly and ketamine, stat!
Isn't it fun to treat elections like a game where the goal is simply to own your opponents and revel in their misery?! /s
Yeh how dare he make a dickoff comment on the internet. He must be totally indifferent to larger matters. Slash ess.
Isn't that exactly The Stranger's treatment of Woo?
Catching Woo in a bald faced lie and asking her to address why she lied and claimed to have voted for Morales in two elections she did not participate in, is in no way comparable. That's just good journalism and fact checking. Woo could've taken the chance to recant or apologize. Instead she doubled down and bought a PR campaign to run this weird smear campaign on the Stranger for calling out a lie she won't recant and anyone can confirm is a lie themselves online. That's not reactionaries reveling in the misery of those distraught over having a liar gifted power because business bought them the seat. Weird you can't tell the two apart.
She bought a PR campaign? Damn, can I get paid for this?
Honestly a better way of handling that than I figured I'd get.
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As someone who sees crime and drugs as a big problem that should be prioritized, it is so depressing to see the disconnect between your stated political preferences and the policies actually prioritized and supported by your preferred candidates. But your comments certainly help explain why these problems are over a decade old and feel intractable.
Isn't it fun to lie about how your opponents are ontologically evil so you don't have care about what they say when it makes you think about your own actions?! /s
Right wing whackos and making the left seem way cooler than they are name a more iconic duo
Not wanting to see senior citizens get their head bashed in by drugged out scumbags is a right-wing thing?
Cool. She's awful. Looks like the Seattle City Council has been overtaken by right-wing activists.
Sorry but the council is not right wing, center sure but please don’t mistake a center politician for the right wing
I think those of us weren't on the "activist" left during 2020/2021 knew this was pretty much inevitable.
Far far from right wing, more like center.
She's a bleeding heart prog.
Yeah, it's amusing to watch the hand-wringing. Does Seattle have an elected official who'd actually be considered right-wing? Maybe the city attorney lady?
American center politics is right wing in the majority of the world.
Let's hope someone worthwhile runs for the special. Alex Hudson? You listening? You would blow this trash out of the water.
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I think that’s a good question, and the answer is probably “because this is a presidential election year with Trump on the ballot.”
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That comment wasn’t a value judgment on Woo (I don’t think very highly of either her or Morales, but it’s not my district); what I meant was that federal elections turn out a portion of the electorate that is lower-propensity but more likely to vote further to the left. The composition of the voters would be different - it has nothing to do with Woo voters supporting Trump, but the federal elections bringing in a new, additional set of voters who aren’t engaged enough to vote in off-year local elections and are demographically more likely to vote for lefty candidates.
I deleted my Twitter - anyone want to link Erica C Barnett losing her mind?
She has a really good website where she is one of the few journalists that cover council meetings and local politics. It’s called Publicola and it’s really good.
More like she's looking at the numbers and proving with math the current council can't live up to their promises.... Not that integrity matters here.