Originally posted yesterday.
Given his assertive statement in this morning’s Morning Fizz that he would “be on par” with Mayor Greg Nickels at the next campaign finance reporting deadline (Nickels has raised about $300,000 and has about $200,000 on hand as of the last report), I just sat down with mystery candidate Joe Mallahan, 47, to ask how much money he actually had.
Mallahan, an earnest sitcom dad type, demurred and said only that he had enough to match the mayor at this stage, but he’s not independently wealthy and added, “I cannot run this on my own dime. My personal resources won’t support a campaign that citizens don’t respond too.”
He added that he drives a used Prius, lives with his wife and two kids in a 100-year-old house in Wallingford and has to stay on part time at his (admittedly fancy) job at T-Mobile as a VP.
Mallahan, who went to the University of Chicago’s prestigious finance graduate program before working at corporate consultant Price Watherhouse Coopers—and then Voicestream and then T-Mobile, hypes his business credentials. “I can smell inefficiency,” he says.
He says has always planned to run for office and as a liberal he “intentionally” chose to go through U. Chicago’s famously conservative finance program. “It made me a smarter liberal,” he says. “I learned how the Republicans are full of it. They aren’t really business people. They are demagogues.”
He described himself as a “bleeding heart liberal” (a pro-choice Catholic) who got super involved in the Obama campaign (he doorbelled in Indiana and went to the state convention as a delegate).
Although he was armed with a marked up copy of the City budget, he didn’t seem schooled on city issues yet, and he demurred when it came to discussing specifics, answering several questions—How should Seattle accommodate growth? How can we fund public safety?—with ”I’m not a traffic planner or an expert.”
Or, for example, asked what he thought of the latest city ballot issue, the fee on plastic bags, he said: ”I don’t have a position on the bag tax. It has good intentions—but it feels smallish and gimmicky rather than visionary.”
Indeed, when it comes to the Mayor, Mallahan doesn’t think Nickels is providing “visionary” leadership.
The problem with Mallahan’s critique is that he didn’t provide any “visionary” ideas of his own. (“I’d like to sit down with Peter Steinbrueck and hear his ideas on urban planning…mass transit down Aurora, that’d be cool”).
And he seemed to agree with the Nickels on all of Nickels signature issues—increasing density and building heights, the Westlake trolley, the housing levy, and pushing light rail (“Nickels has been a leader on that, no question”).
And even though he said—as opposed to the “smallish” bag tax—that “reducing car ridership” should be our number one environmental goal, he also supports the mayor’s tunnel plan, which he acknowledged, duplicates the ridership numbers of a highway along the waterfront.
Mallahan’s case against Nickels—which seems to mirror polling data on voters’ feelings—comes down to a general sense that he just doesn’t think Nickels is doing a good job. “I just don’t trust the mayor,” Mallahan says.
“Look at the city website,” he explains. “It says 92% of potholes are filled in 48 hours. Are we supposed to believe that?”
And he said: “My biggest gripe is that he’s running for an unprecedented third term after falling down on basic services.” Mainly, Mallahan was alluding to the comical City response to the snow storm.
Here is PubliCola’s coverage of Nickels’ opponent, Mike McGinn, of whom Mallahan said: “Mike doesn’t seem to have have a cohesive campaign. His points seemed to be a little scattered.” He added that there didn’t seem to be a lot going on with the McGinn campaign and said he “couldn’t get a vibe on Mike.”
I’ve linked Mallahan’s press release announcement below the jump.
TweetMallahan Press Release:
Mayoral candidate vows to pick up a shovel and clear a path to a better SeattleSEATTLE – Joe Mallahan, Wallingford resident and T-Mobile executive, declared his candidacy for Seattle Mayor today. Citing his business track record of solving complex problems, Mallahan vowed to restore trust, confidence, and accountability to Seattle City Government.
“We need a climate change in city government,” Mallahan stated. “Our current city government is broken, it isn’t delivering basic services and the Mayor is out of touch.”
Mallahan wants to regain the trust of citizens by efficiently delivering the basic services that are relevant to taxpayers and Seattle businesses struggling in this tough economy. “I have a track record of being a guy who rolls up his sleeves and works hand in hand with people to solve big problems,” said Mallahan.
“I am known to T-Mobile employees as someone who always takes care of the customer,” said Mallahan. When Hurricane Gustav was threatening to hit southeast Texas last fall, Mallahan worked over Labor Day weekend with a dedicated team of technologists to activate free calling for hundreds of thousands of customers who were evacuating and otherwise might not have been able to use their phones. “When Greg Nickels was faced with a snowstorm disaster a few months later it seems he just stayed home and threw another log on the fire,” said Mallahan.
Mallahan acknowledged his outsider status, “Listen, I haven’t been a politician since I was a teenager nor have I been fundraising for the past eight years. But I assure you by the May 10th financial reporting deadline, I will be on par with the incumbent’s war chest through grassroots fundraising, new social media and my own personal contribution to the campaign. The Mayor will no longer be able to hide behind his war chest or his political machine. Mayor Nickels will now have to defend his disappointing eight-year record. He’s been able to scare off viable, legitimate candidates to date, but no longer.”
Mallahan comes from a large Irish Catholic family. One of nine children, he was born and raised in South Everett. He crabbed and fished with his father, a paper mill worker, in the Puget Sound as a child and takes his own children crabbing and shrimping right in Elliot Bay. As a teenager, Mallahan was a student editorialist for KIRO-TV, where he supported the bargaining rights of striking teachers in the fall of 1980.
Mallahan has a Masters degree in International Studies from the Jackson School at the University of Washington and an MBA in Finance from the University of Chicago. He and his wife, Carolyn, moved to the Wallingford neighborhood nine years ago, where they live in a 100 year old house with their two teenagers.
For more information, please visit Joe’s website at www.joemallahan.com.
# # #
Groan.
Mike McGinn already has an organized campaign with a growing base; detailed knowledge and positions on all of the issues that Mr. Mallahan claims he’s not an expert on; years of proven experience getting things done to improve quality of life in Seattle; and a positive vision for Seattle. The Mayor has a powerful base, 8 years of accomplishments (and debacles) and an enormous war chest. Mr. Mallahan has a fancy degree and an old house, good luck.
Please do more than challenge the mayor on his pothole statistics. Mr. Mallahan, you appear to agree with the mayor across the board on the issues. Your support for the tunnel stands out. Look, we want better vision and leadership too. But where, exactly, are you seeking to take the city? What are your priorities? You can’t say “we need vision” in one breath, then in the next say Seattle needs to focus on basic services–especially when you don’t appear to have a vision of your own.
Mr. Mallahan seems to be a really nice guy who is echoing the sentiments of the city: Greg Nickels’ priorities are not our priorities. Unfortunately, it looks like he doesn’t have much of a vision or a plan for how we get there. McGinn, on the other hand, seems to have a solid idea of what we could and should be as a city, and the beginnings of a plan to make it happen.
Hard to see how you can challenge Nickels’ vision if you support the tunnel.
@5,
Re: Mallahan on the tunnel.
In the interview he made it clear that he thought the elevated Viaduct highway—he called it the Soviet Viaduct—was unacceptable.
I asked him about the PWC’s surface/transit option, and he said, while he didn’t think it was realistic, he thought Team Nickels didn’t really give it a fair hearing.
However, he was definitely glad the state gave Seattle the money for the tunnel, and he seemed firmly behind getting started on that project.
I searched Mr. Mallahan’s name at both the Seattle Times and the P-I, and the only hits are his campaign announcement. His civic record is so thin it never rated a mention in either of the daily papers? Does not bode well for establishing his veracity, his credibility as a candidate for high office. Maybe better to start out a bit farther from the top, such as the board of the Wallingford Community Council.
Mallahan’s claim that he will reach campaign funding parity with Nickels by May 10 is bizarre, unless he plans to donate $200K to his own campaign. Which he might, I guess.
@8,
I guess my reporting wasn’t clear. The implication is definitely that Mallahan will write himself a big check in the neighborhood of $200,000.
He also made it clear that he has wealthy business friends and family that are willing to contribute at a high level to help him match the Mayor on May 10.
Let us all remember what the Mayor’s office is actually responsible for: running the city.
McGinn isn’t a bad guy, but what experience does he have running any entity of comparable size and structure? The Sierra Club is a non-profit with a relatively small budget and little necessity to split into multiple departments that still act as a cohesive unit. But this is what the Mayor is tasked with on a day-to-day basis.
Sweeping vision and ardent support of environmental issues are meaningless without the ability to apply that agenda and get the city government to move forward to achieve those goals. Joe has consistently demonstrated an innate ability to take action and get positive results. That’s the kind of leadership Seattle needs to ensure a better tomorrow.
To continue that point, simply saying that Joe agrees with all of Greg Nickels’ major policy positions misses the point. Ideas may have the best of intentions but they are only ideas.
As Yoda said, “Try not. Do or do not.” Greg Nickels has 8-years of “do not.”
Josh @6 states: “he was definitely glad the state gave Seattle the money for the tunnel”
…let’s be clear about this, because I think this is an increasingly important point for the future of Seattle vis-a-vis State relations…
The State did not give Seattle money to build the Tunnel. The Tunnel is a State project for a State highway. The State is building a Tunnel that bypasses downtown Seattle to allow motorists to slingshot through the City.
Many State legislators would like to blur this line, as evidenced by the poison-pill proviso in the legislation to fund the tunnel which shifts the burden of cost overruns to the City. This proviso will kill this legislation, and I think it was unethical for State legislators to attach it to the bill, and unthinkable for Seattle legislators to either vote for the amendment or to support the legislation once the amendment was in place.
The “Soviet Viaduct”? What a clown.
@12 Oh, we all have faith in the efficiency of government to avoid cost overruns on ginormous transportation projects, right? Just look at the Brightwater tunnel–no problems, at all. *sigh*
The reality is that the whole viaduct battle has been fought and “won”. I am personally thankful our State Legislature bucked their trend and actually made a decision themselves!! No referendum? OMG. Be thankful for what we got and let’s make the best of it. Although, if I were Mayor I’d tell the Legislature that they get the first $30 million in cost overruns all to their own unless they take the necessary steps allowing the city to recoup the second $30 million from Clay Bennett. If they can’t hold a vote I wouldn’t hold a pen to checkbook paper. This is why I will not be elected Mayor…
yup. time to run government more like a business, maybe like wa mu or bank of america or price waterhouse…oh well maybe not.
really, given today’s financial condition and the culpability of the business community for our sorry state are we really going to trust city government to a businessman?
Is joe related to Gina Mallahan?
Gina Mallahan was a leader in the Catholic Cursillo movement, the CYO Search program and many youth groups at Saint Mary Magdalen Parish in Everett. She also found great comfort with her brothers and sisters in Christ at South Everett New Life Church. Gina was a fierce advocate for the poor and marginalized. She inspired her children to commit themselves in service of the poor.
Hard to see how you can challenge Nickels' vision if you support the tunnel.