Grumpy and Insecure Voters

Prior to his concession speech last Friday, Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels stated the reason he thought he was losing was because Seattle voters were grumpy and insecure. Since his concession, there have been numerous articles analyzing what went wrong during Nickels eight years. Most commentators have been looking for Big Themes, such as Nickels intimidated and bullied too many people, he didn't know how to manage an increasingly complex city, or this blue collar boy didn't know how to manage a Microsoft suburb. I tend to think the reasons are far more complicated that a Grand Theory, but rather are a conglomeration of all those little annoying things that build up in you.

An accurate assessment of Mayor Nickels governing style goes something like this: he cobbled together an odd assortment of allies: environmentalists, developers, unions. Each feeding off each other. Developers deftly learned the language of environmentalists, talking about increasing densities in the neighborhoods and downtown as a way of mitigating suburban sprawl, an anathema to urbanista enviros. And the unions saw jobs in any sort of development. So, Mayor Nickels rode this coalition through the bling years, giving developers anything they asked for: tearing down ugly freeways, cute, European looking trolly cars slowly going from downtown to new development only two miles away, and permission to build cookie-cutter townhouses without adequate parking making Seattle's once unique neighborhoods homogenous collections of ugly and cheap condos.

Through all of this the Mayor rammed through revenue generators: photos at intersections intended to catch red light running cars, parking meters in neighborhood shopping areas (replacing free parking), fees on plastic and paper bags at grocery stores. And he arbitrarily closed neighborhood streets for "walking days," blithely towing cars that remained parked and telling people anxious on how to get to work to "chill." He reduced traffic lanes with street diets, forgot to plow the streets during snowstorms but then gave himself a "B," for his management. Figuring out garbage became stressful and he empowered garbagemen to riffle through your cans to decide whether you got a ticket for forgetting to compost the banana peel. But big business and landlords became exempt from all the rules. Travel to and from downtown became laborious. Seattle employees became arrogant. And the daily lives of everyone got slightly more difficult every day.

While governing can be sexy if you get to ponder all the big questions, it's really the little things that build up in people's minds. They remember the day they got a parking ticket in an area that was once free, or a city employee hung up on them, or when the Mayor tells everyone to ride bikes but says he can't because he has a security detail or when his park department decided to ban beach fires because of bogus environmental reasons. It's the slights that add up. And finally tumbled out in a grumpy vote.

Of course, now the pundits are wondering, like the morning after a drinking binge, what did we do? We now have two political newbees running for office. Hopefully they spend a little bit of time thinking just how they will manage the little things. Will they rein in the city's Department of Transportation that seems to think a "listening" session is merely a show and tell then cram a decision down citizen's throats? Will they figure out how to stop powerful stakeholders from controlling decisions at City Hall? Will they stop trying to figure out how to ding people for revenue at every moment? Will they find balance between government intervention and government intrusion?

It's a tough job. Probably the toughest in electoral politics. It's a balance between policy making and managing, unique in management structure. In the end, Mayor Nickels showed some of his true colors, gracious and magnanimous to his opponents, apologetic for the snowplows (again). But did he really understand that part of the tsunami that swept him out of office had to do with so many little things?

Do We Need Elected Experience?

We had a primary for mayor in Seattle yesterday (well, it really lasted for weeks since it was done by mail in ballot). The race is still too close to call, but it appears the incumbent mayor is either out of the race, or will have an uphill battle for re-election. The two possible candidates for mayor may be election newbees. They have never held an elected office before (although both of them have been active in a variety of community issues). We also have one candidate for county executive who is an election newbee. And that is the rub against them. Or at least, that is what the political "elite" are saying.

I also have been having a little discussion with friends throughout the country about term limits in the context of how much money is thrown around in politics and for political issues.

I have a ton of thoughts about this criticism, this idea that to run for higher office, you know, something other than dog catcher, you have to have elected office experience.

It seems that in slightly more than 200 years we have gone from citizen "legislators" to professional politicians. You know, the folks who have spent their whole careers in one elected office or another. I can name dozens: Bill Clinton, Andrew Cuomo, Jerry Brown, Warren Magnuson, Maria Cantwell, Chris Gregoire...and Seattle's current mayor who didn't go to college so he could begin working in politics and has done nothing else for 40 years. 40 years.

There are many professions where having experience, lots of experience, is a good thing. Plumbers for instance. A policeman who has street instincts. A general who has seen battle. But in politics, really, there is a huge body of knowledge already in existence for the elected officials to learn from and draw upon. When you're mayor you're not out fixing the water main, but you are having to make it happen. Is someone who has held an elected office their whole life any better at making that happen than a former banker or car dealer or lawyer?

Plus, entrenched elected officials begin to care about one thing, it seems, and that is getting elected. Over and over again. So decisions about fixing the pothole become political calculus because so much more rides on making a decision. Pleasing a donor, for instance. Which isn't to say newbees don't make decisions upon the same math once they are elected. But when you have been there forever, doesn't it become habit?

Then there is the invincibility factor. I think it is just human nature to believe once you're elected over and over that you're infallible in the eyes of the voters. You may become a little cocky. Seattle's mayor ungraciously called the voters grumpy and insecure (hmm, could he be "projecting?). One of the reasons President Bush's incredibly high favorable ratings went into the cellar so quickly is because he could not admit he made mistakes about Iraq or Hurricane Katrina. The same can be said about Seattle's mayor. When you come to believe your invincible you don't have to admit mistakes. Heck, you don't make them!

What is ironic here in Seattle is the same folks who think the two remaining candidates (or who may be the remaining candidates) are not "seasoned" enough are the same folks who voted, enthusiastically, for an unseasoned, Freshman US Senator as President of the United States. Seems like he is doing ok so far, eh?

I tend to think novices to elected office, while a risk, have a lot to offer. Fresh ideas, little corruption, humility, fire in the gut to prove yourself. And these days, there is nothing wrong with those qualities.