Catnip!

From Chuck Wolfe's blog.

McGinn Gets On Board The Light Rail

Soon after winning a spot on the ballot, the McGinn campaign "sponsored" a community-oriented website that offered readers the chance to vote on questions like "Is McGinn the most totally awesome candidate for Mayor we've ever seen?" As it happened, building another light rail line in Seattle got more votes than McGinn. Shortly afterwards, he held a press conference, and announced he would support holding a vote about any plan for light-rail that might be developed by an agency like Sound Transit or Metro Transit. That was all he said, but that was enough.

In the background was a map of Seattle with a line connecting West Seattle and Ballard. McGinn supporters instantly inundated us with claims that McGinn would build a light rail system that would be cheaper and work better than anything seen to date. If you mentioned that McGinn had offered no plan for doing so, they would reply that, of course there was no plan- you could hardly expect to see a plan now, could you?!? Not actually having a plan was the most awesome part of having a plan! McGinn was a leader and he gets things done- that's all that you or I should need to know.

McGinn Rides His Bicycle

Having unexpectedly edged out Nickels for a place on the ballot as Mayoral candidate, the McGinn team looked around to strengthen his credentials, and trumpeted another talking point- he rides his bike to work!

You would never guess this to look at him. Not a week goes by without cyclists passing me in Poulsbo, and they all have a lean and hungry look totally lacking in Mike McGinn. My initial guess was that he works at home, or perhaps a few blocks from his home, but after about a month of reading about McGinn riding his bicycle, a reporter let it slip- it's an electric bicycle.

McGinn's Opening Gambit

When McGinn ran in the primary, his issue was not building the tunnel. "Luckily" for him, that also happened to be the grievance du jour of the Stranger and many Seattle hotheads. In explaining how this worked for the benefit of people reading this out of town, I'm going to use rounded numbers. If you want exact numbers, look 'em up.

McGinn complained that the tunnel would cost $4 billion and was the greatest tax increase in Seattle history. He would stop the tunnel, save the people $4 billion, and build surface improvements instead of replacing the Viaduct. (The tunnel is the proposed replacement for the doomed Viaduct.) He said we should be spending the $4 billion for other purposes, like schools and better bus service.

This wasn't a hard claim to rebut. The tunnel costs were $1 billion from the City, for surface transportation improvements, $1 billion from the County and Port for much the same, and $2 billion from the state gas tax funds, which can only be used for roads, for the actual building of the tunnel. Of the money that would be 'saved' by not building the tunnel, only $1 billion of that was actually from the City, and McGinn was already proposing the spend the money 'saved' by cancelling local street improvements on the exact same set of improvements if he was elected.

None of the McGinn supporters ever understood this (or if they did, they pretended not to understand it). Others did, and the long pregnant silence when McGinn looked for endorsements was a solemn tribute to the profound discomfort felt by many at the sight of such demagoguery.

Next up: Bicycle riding McGinn! Streetcar riding McGinn!

New Mayor- Not The Same As The Old Mayor

Meeting with "about 30 people representing labor unions, neighborhood organizations, and advocacy groups...Mayor-elect Mike McGinn asked the individuals, as community ambassadors, to go back to their respective constituencies and listen." Thus sayeth the Slog.

But wait- those people already had listened. That's how they got chosen to meet with McGinn- they represented groups that already had discussed among themselves their concerns and come up with things they wanted done.

This is a Stupid Lawyer Trick by McGinn. Arguably not as stupid as those who will fall for it, but really.

Welcome to what may be an ongoing thread of McGinnisms. Folks, we may have a winner.

Afghanistan

There is corruption in Afghanistan- because we're there. We are the largest corrupt entity there, so big that we suck anyone else into our corruption, but wait, there's more! Not only do our inflated salaries and imported goods corrupt Afghanistan, but our CIA and other agencies are up to their old tricks, and the contractors we employ pay protection money to use the roads.

And if, by some mischance, some religious movement, of sufficient fervor and sanctity to overcome human frailty, were to emerge as a governing body, we would "destabilize" them. Not because we want their oil, but because that is what we do. The broadest and deepest foundations of American policy are, that if money can't corrupt foreigners, we're all going to die!

This, in turn, allows Hamid Karzai to drag us around like an oversize pooch on a leash, an event that has happened regularly with tin horn dictators in every part of the world for 50 years. How bad has it been? So bad that John Foster Dulles starts to look good. That bad.

They're making out like bandits in Afghanistan, because they are bandits. Karzai is importing bandits from the UAE to help him, McChrystal is stealing from American schoolchildren and the elderly, Halliburton is there, the Afghan warlords couldn't be happier, and tv news is ready to dish us up a steady diet of "experts" who also work for the war industry.

It's a good thing the American public likes reruns, because, God knows, we've seen this one before.