Do you remember the presidential campaign? Maybe you followed it, maybe you didn’t. I can assure you that I did. Nothing happened a single day that I didn’t know about. Nothing for over two years. I read every email every campaign sent, every major news story, ever claim and accusation, everything. Like many of you I quickly grew tired of petty, distracting attacks, or, attacks that distracted because they were so petty. Take you choice.
Why was Obama the most attacked candidate? Because he was the biggest threat, naturally.
The attacks, more often than not, were meant to scare- not just to alarm, but to scare people away from Obama, that’s how scared they all were of him.
Needless to say it didn’t work. In case you didn’t notice, Obama is president now.
The camp that most had me seeing red with these scare tactics was the McCain camp. Rather than stick to the issues, McCain attacked Obama, and along the way claimed or insinuated some pretty crazy stuff. Each message was tailored to the audience of the day. By the end of it all, McCain rallies were nothing more than a massive scared White mob foaming at the mouth, rope in hand after Obama.
And it wasn’t just McCain, but special interest groups that supported him. They ran their commercials, sent out their email blasts, and seemed responsible to no one, certainly not the American people. All the while McCain said “t’wasn’t me, didn’t come from our campaign.” Yeah. Right.
Anytime I see McCain-esque campaign behavior, I bristle.
Today I received an email from a group called “Friends of Seattle”. Right away I was turned off because I’ve seen groups that refer to themselves as “Friends”, and are really just special interest enemies that would throw small kittens under a bus if it got them what they wanted.
The second reason I wasn’t too happy was that I never signed up to be on the mailing list for this group. Since it was an informational email and not a press release, I consider that kind of unsolicited info to be spam. It’s on thing to have a group email me some info I didn’t ask for and introduce themselves and tell me why they are sending me info and ask me if I’d like to be on their list, it’s another for the crap to just show up. That’s passive aggressive to me.
Homie don’t play that.
Now, I’ve gotten emails from this group before and suffered nothing more than mild irritation. I skim the info, I keep on going; it seems these so-called Friends have no idea that south or south east Seattle exist, btw. Perhaps they should change their name to “Not Friends of All of Seattle”.
Based on the info I’ve gotten from them over the past few weeks, I know 2 things about this group. 1., they are anti-tunnel as a viaduct replacement. Personally I am anti catastrophic loss of life should the viaduct collapse at any point of a given day. But I digress. 2. They heart McGinn for Mayor. As it just so happens, McGinn is anti-tunnel. I’m sure it’s purely coincidence.
Today’s email from FoS was different. When I saw the subject line and read the contents, I had to truly consider that I might be suffering from PTSD from the presidential election, because all I saw all over that email was McCain-esque scare tactics.
Subject line: What Joe Mallahan Won’t Tell the Voters…
OMG, Mallahan has birth certificate issues too?! What are the odds of that?!
See? Presidential election PTSD.
At the same time that Joe Mallahan tells voters that he will fight “special interests” to build more sidewalks in neighborhoods[1]…
1. Mallahan doesn’t tell voters that he is in favor of cutting corporate taxes by over $30 million—money that would have gone to neighborhood sidewalks, street maintenance, and bike lanes.[2]
2. Mallahan doesn’t tell voters that he wants to raise their utility rates, property taxes, and fees to spend almost a $1 billion in city money on the state’s $4.2 billion waterfront tunnel project.[3]
Joe, why don’t you tell the voters what your REAL plan is?
“Joe Mallahan needs to be more honest with the voters,” said Friends of Seattle co-founder Sean Howell. “The voters deserve to know that he is in favor of cutting corporate taxes at the same time he favors the largest tax increase in city history for the rest of us. Maybe he should add that information to his TV commercials.”
Now, before we address the contents of the email, as a side note, we wanna know why FoS isn’t also attacking candidates like Donaldson, because he’s said some stupid stuff, just generally speaking. If you’re a friend to Seattle, do you want a stupid Mayor? Of course not, we have one of those now. That’s why this election is so critical.
The bottom line of this email is that they want you to think that if you vote for Mallahan he will single handedly come into your home and rip the college money you’ve been saving for you unborn child and spend it on some swank, unecessary tunnel.
That’s simply not true.
As long as Mallahan doesn’t want to replace the viaduct death trap with a roller coaster, we could care LESS.
Give me a break with the tunnel crap. I don’t care, and that’s not what the silly email was about. They want to scare people. They want to cast Mallahan as a potential sneaky or unethical politician.
You’ll never hear us go so far as to crown Mallahan the “White Obama” as some zealots have, but he sure the hell isn’t anything like McCain.
Happy voting.
P.S. I know there are plenty of folks that were argue that McGinn is not FoS and does not control what messages they send out, beit o his behalf or out of “concern” for Seattle’s future. To that we say….”yeah. okay.”
Thanks for the opportunity to have a conversation about this. So the readers of this blog know, our email was a media release, not a piece of spam email. This blog was on our list because we consider many local blogs, including this one, to be an important part of the local media community.
We want a conversation about the issues, and that’s what our email was intended to spark. We did not say anything personal about Joe Mallahan, who seems to be a sincere and personable individual. So it’s unfair to compare an email about the issues to the right-wing attacks on Barack Obama as a person. But we do think he’s avoiding a complete discussion about some issues—we’re not saying he’s “a potential sneaky or unethical politician,” as you say we were, but rather a candidate who has not fully accounted for his positions on the issues.
So let’s talk about the issues. What do you and this blog’s readers think about the issues we raise?
Let’s start with the commuter tax, aka “head tax” or “employee hours tax.” Joe Mallahan’s website frames the issue this way:
“Government should provide a foundation for businesses to maintain and grow their demand for employees and create new jobs, rather than thinking of new, more heavy-handed ways to tax businesses like imposing an employee head tax. One of my first acts as mayor of Seattle will be to help Seattle’s small businesses succeed by repealing the head tax.” See http://www.joemallahan.com/Issues/Economy.
As our email tries to get across, Mr. Mallahan is being misleading here. We’ll say it again: “Mallahan doesn’t tell voters that he is in favor of cutting corporate taxes by over $30 million—money that would have gone to neighborhood sidewalks, street maintenance, and bike lanes.”
How do we know the amount is $30 million? The 2006 Bridging the Gap tax package was a nine-year plan (intended to run through the end of 2015), and the “Employee Hours Tax” (aka “head tax” or “commuter tax”) was to bring in $51.5 million for roads, sidewalks, and bicycle infrastructure. Mallahan wants to cut that corporate tax, which will take away over $30 million from the city’s transportation budget over the next six years—through the life of the Bridging the Gap package. Our information comes from http://www.seattle.gov/transportation/bridgingthegap.htm.
So Mr. Mallahan is not open with the voters about the very real and negative consequences of his proposed corporate tax cut, and he is wrong when he claims that this corporate tax cut will create jobs. As PubliCola reported this week (see http://publicola.net/?p=10608), the tax is small—only $25 per year per employee (and only for employees who drive to work along, not who take carpools, transit, or walk or bike), and the average business’s annual bill is only $91. A tax cut of that size is too small to spur job creation, but it is guaranteed to have real effects in Seattle’s neighborhoods. As we’ve said, about $5 million per year—or $30 million over the life of the “Bridging the Gap” program—will be lost in funding for neighborhood transportation projects, not to mention the jobs of the construction workers who would have built these projects.
Not only is the money significant, but we have concluded that this commuter tax is a fair and just way to ensure that employees who drive to work alone—and many of these folks live outside Seattle and are commuting to work— pay their share of the burden they impose on our transportation network. They benefit, they should help pay for it.
Let’s turn to the tunnel issue. We stick to what our email said: “Mallahan doesn’t tell voters that he wants to raise their utility rates, property taxes, and fees to spend almost a $1 billion in city money on the state’s $4.2 billion waterfront tunnel project.” His website says little about the $4.2 billion tunnel project and nothing about its costs; he basically just vows to do a good job of building it. See http://www.joemallahan.com/Issues/Transportation. In his questionnaire for Friends of Seattle (see http://www.friendsofseattle.org/node/136#Questionnaire_Viaduct), Mr. Mallahan writes more about the topic. Notably, in our questionnaire, the only thing he says about the costs is, “Through rigorous oversight and constant communication, I do not anticipate cost overruns to be charged to the people or businesses in Seattle.”
But Mr. Mallahan is clear that he intends to put the full force of his mayor’s office behind the tunnel if he’s elected: “We need to move forward without hesitation…” See http://www.friendsofseattle.org/node/136#Questionnaire_Viaduct.
If Mr. Mallahan thinks the tunnel is a great idea, he needs to at least have an open and honest conversation with the voters explaining why he thinks the tunnel merits a huge tax burden on Seattle residents. The state is spending $2.4 billion of our gas-tax money on this project, and the City has pledged to raise $930 million in taxes and fees to help pay for the project. See http://www.seattle.gov/mayor/issues/viaduct/docs/090225Final_BoredTunnel_folio.pdf.
As the most expensive infrastructure project in the city’s history, the tunnel will suck money away from household budgets and from transit and badly needed transportation projects throughout the city.
Joe Mallahan doesn’t want to talk about the costs, but we insist he does. He owes it to the voters, especially because he is an unvetted candidate who decided to run for mayor only three months ago—without any track record of involvement in local issues. And as his initial interviews with the media made clear, he knew little about the issues when he joined the race. http://publicola.net/?p=5438.
Why pick on Joe Mallahan rather than, say, Jan Drago, James Donaldson, or Greg Nickels? We do pick on them: see http://www.friendsofseattle.org/2009-voters-guide-primary-election/mayor-seattle.
This local election is critical, and the voters deserve an open and complete discussion about the issues. If we can play any small role in sparking that conversation, we’re happy.
– Gary and Sean, co-founders of FoS
P.S. FoS started in 2006, and the best way to read about our history is from our past op-eds and news coverage. See http://www.friendsofseattle.org/category/sections/news. From our events and online activities, we have built a membership list of over 300 people and an email list of 700 members and supporters.
For the sake of clarification, there was nothing in the email that identified it as something sent to media/press/bloggers. There was no “Media Advisory”, or “For Immediate Release”, at the top.
I used to be a member of Friends of Seattle but after reading this post and their response, I’m done. These sound like Mike McGinn’s talking points. I hope that when Mr. Mallahan is Mayor, this group will work with him to address real solutions to the challenges in our community.
@2 Sidelines
I’m sorry you feel there is no room for debate about these issues, but I understand your decision.
Please email membership@friendsofseattle.org with “unsubscribe” in the subject line, and you will be removed from our membership list.
It’d also help if you explained in more detail why you object to this discussion about the issues and Joe Mallahan’s candidacy. Feel free to include that explanation in your unsubscribe email.
Oh people give me a break! It’s an opinion about a damn mass email! Does FoS really think it is necessary to write a response that is longer than the post itself? And SV LET them post it?! Wtf is going on here?
You all need to get over yourselves. SV didn’t like your nasty little email and she told people that and she told them why. That is her right. Don’t you have your own website from which to espouse your opinions about a candidate you obviously don’t like?
I could have cared less one way or another, but now, I don’t like you either.
I want to thank Publicola, FoS, and the McGinn campaign for helping me to discover my new blog hero, Sable Verity. I love SVs candor and simply must give her my pathetic white guy, “You go girl!”
There’s many a Mallahan supporter (myself included) that would name McGinn as their second choice for Mayor. FoS and McGinn also know this to be the case and know that their chances of clearing the August 18th primary are slowly slipping away. That’s why they’re trying to manufacture anything they can to attack Mallahan and are using emails, blogs, comments to inject this slimy, sludge into the political conversation.
What’s sad about all of this is that’s not only dishonest, but it’s also piss poor use of McGinn’s limited campaign resources. The ballots are out and there’s lot’s of undecided voters out there. FoS and McGinn should tell their “Why McGinn should be Mayor” story to the voters trying to decide instead of trying to tear down Mallahan by making shit up.
If you liked SVs analysis you may also enjoy today’s Mossback column at Crosscut. http://crosscut.com/2009/08/03/mossback/19139/
I think people are conflating two issues here. FoS’s email, which definitely should have been labeled as a media alert if that’s what it was, and FoS’s actual position. Having followed this mayoral race religiously, I’m a little disappointed with this analysis of the issues. No matter who you support, it’s absolutely true that Mallahan is in favor of the tunnel. It’s also absolutely true that the tunnel will require some serious funding measures to happen, most of which will be coming from tax payers. There’s nothing dishonest in pointing this out. These are the facts of the matter. The issue comes down to whether or not you think a tunnel is a priority. Mallahan does, McGinn doesn’t. No slime, no sludge. If you believe it is a priority, then vote for Mallahan (or someone else). If you don’t, vote for McGinn. That all being said, if you don’t care, then you’re an idiot. It’s a HUGE issue. $930 million is a s**t ton of money, so you better know where you stand on that. And to say that you care about the safety issue is totally missing the point (can you say “straw man argument”?) – everyone cares about that, no one is saying it should stay up. The debate is what replaces it. For what it’s worth, if your issue is safety, then you would probably fall on the “surface+transit” side as that plan advocated for an early closure (2012, I believe), vs. the current plan that plans a 2015 closure.
Seriously, FOS is a joke. Press release…who cares what FOS does/says/endorses. Next please.
The way I understand it…Great City Initiative (aka Great City) is McGinn’s baby, and in many ways, his campaign. Friends of Seattle volunteer on McGinn’s campaign.
I personally didn’t suppot the tunnel. But, now that a decision has been made, I can’t fathom spending more time, energy and money “re-deciding” the issue. Isn’t “indecision, study it, study it again” the very Seattle process that many of us bitch and moan about? Decision has been made, folks. Let’s move on and move forward – not back.
Where were McGinn and O’Brien before the tunnel decision was made?
Great point, Great City!
So, I’ve been watching this debate on here with some interest. As the new Executive Director for Great City (which is a separate organization from FoS, by the way), I’ve of course got some thoughts on all of this. First, though – Sable, thanks for hosting this conversation.
To respond to “Great City”, O’Brien actually served on the Alaska Way Viaduct Stakeholder’s Committee for over a year, so he’s got some pretty serious cred on this. McGinn was not on this committee, though I know he was involved in other ways and knows the issues and background as well as anyone else. It’s important to recognize that wherever you may fall on all this (and within Great City there are certainly some very divergent opinions, though we all recognize the importance of a great waterfront and better transit options within the city), O’Brien and McGinn have a very legitimate perspective on the issue. Taking the “let’s just get it done” is a natural response to how long we have been considering this, but it misses the point of its overall significance to our city and region.
Also, as a 501(c)3, Great City is most definitely not Michael’s campaign. While we owe Michael a lot for his founding vision, he is no longer involved in the organization. It was very important for us to continue the groundbreaking work of Great City separate from a political campaign, and Michael was the first to recognize that when he left. As a 501(c)3, we do not (and cannot) endorse candidates. Instead, we continue our core vision that there is room at the table for all perspectives (providing they’re willing to work to achieve a common vision of a more environmentally progressive, socially just, and economically sustainable Seattle). I would invite all of your readers to check out our website (www.greatcity.org) and our volunteer platform (my.greatcity.org) and get involved.
So, that’s my $.02 (probably worth as much, as well). Again, I appreciate this debate.