Joe Mallahan
The biggest surprise: Joe Mallahan, a T-Mobile executive who’s running against Mayor Greg Nickels, was the only candidate in the mayor’s race to receive a rating of “outstanding,” the Muni League’s highest rating. Nickels, who received an outstanding rating during his last campaign in 2005, only received “very good” this time around—a significant blow.
In the race for county executive, all four Democratic candidates received a rating of “very good”; Susan Hutchison, the lone Republican in the officially nonpartisan race, received a “good.”
Only three candidates in the city council races received a rating of “outstanding”: Position 2 incumbent Richard Conlin, Position 4 contender Sally Bagshaw, and Position 8 candidate Robert Rosencrantz. Bagshaw blew away her opponents David Bloom and Dorsol Plants, both of whom received only a “good” evaluation.
City attorney Tom Carr, who will be on the general election ballot, received an “outstanding,” while his opponent, police-accountability watchdog Peter Holmes, received a “very good.”
Candidate evaluation committee chair Gabe Meyer explained that the ratings were based on interviews with the candidates as well as numerous phone interviews with supporters and campaign observers, according to their community involvement, effectiveness in working with other people, personal character, and knowledge about the job. (Full criteria available here).
The group will be officially releasing its evaluations, along with complete questionnaires, later today. A full list of the League’s candidate evaluations in city races is below the jump.
City Attorney
Tom Carr (Incumbent): Outstanding
Peter Holmes: Very Good
Seattle Mayor
Joe Mallahan: Outstanding
Greg Nickels (Incumbent): Very Good
Mike McGinn: Good
Jan Drago: Good
Norman Sigler: Adequate
James Donaldson: Adequate
Kwame Wyking Garrett: Insufficient Information
Elizabeth Campbell: Not Qualified
City Council
Position 2
Richard Conlin (Incumbent): Outstanding
David Ginsberg: Adequate
Position 4
Sally Bagshaw: Outstanding
David Bloom: Good
Dorsol Plants: Good
Brian Carver: Not Qualified
Thomas Tobin: Not Qualified
Position 6
Nick Licata (Incumbent): Very Good
Martin Kaplan: Very Good
Jessie Israel: Very Good
Position 8
Robert Rosencrantz: Outstanding
David Miller: Very Good
Jordan Royer: Very Good
Bobby Forch: Good
Mike O’Brien: Good
Rusty Williams: Not Qualified
Wait a minute here, the Muni League rates candidates on 4 main areas: community involvement, effectiveness in working with other people, personal character, and knowledge about the job. Mallahan has had basically zero community involvement and has yet to demonstrate any in-depth knowledge about the job; so how in the world does he rate outstanding? Especially when McGinn rated good when he has oodles of community involvement (like serving as the President of the Greenwood Community Council and founding + running Great City), proven effectiveness working with other people (see his work as co-chair of the Parks for All campaign), great personal character and has tons of detailed knowledge about the job (from his work at Great City and has service on too many advisory boards/committees to count)? Maybe the full evaluations will provide the answer, but at first glance, this makes no sense at all.
Rusty Williams is not even qualified to be the vaudeville comedian he seems to think he is.
@1
I’ve heard from many sources that these ratings are very politicized, even though they’re not advertised as such.
I would agree about Mallahan not having knowledge of the job or community involvement. However, I think McGinn seems to have even less knowledge about the city and how things actually work. I also heard McGinn leaves a trail of carnage behind if you don’t get along with his ideas – that was actually reported in an article today…
Jan Drago should also have been higher in the ratings, but again it’s politicized so what to do?
I think any evaluation that rates Nickels as “very good” should be considered highly suspect.
Hey Muni League folks: Why does your website publish only your ratings without any explanation of how you applied your criteria to decide on your ratings for each candidate?
@3
What article on McGinn says he “leave carnage” if you disagree with him? Link, please.
Whaaaaaaaat?
How can someone with no experience who has repeated bungled basic facts about city government – claiming Seattle uses toxic paint for bike lanes, wanting to pay for the Mercer Street project with a TIF – gets an “Outstanding” rating? He hasn’t even articulated an agenda or pointed out how he’s going to pay for all of the things he promises, other than promising to rid “inefficiencies,” which is pretty much what ever politician with any executive experience promises. What an f-ing joke the Muni league has become.
and most importantly, did bradley meacham chair of the muni league and a t-mobile employee disqualify himself from the final ratings?
just seems weird that an unknown with absolutely no political background – who doesn’t even vote regularly – would receive an “outstanding” rating.
Disclaimer: I’m in the tank for Nickels and therefore suffer from all the attendant biases…
That said, please go read Mallahan’s questionnaire responses on the Muni League website.
All I can say is Blarf. His responses are business-speaky crapitude backed up by an impressive record of community service as the “Spin Stadium guy” at the Wurst festival. Outstanding indeed!
I quote: “My typical technique is to convene a small group of experts to innovate a solution, then congregate subject matter experts in every company function to further vet and refine the solution, and finally, to make a bold decision and drive execution of the solution across the enterprise.”
Kill me now.
“Ideate” this!
I knocked on doors for the Obama campaign in the South Carolina primary. I wonder what the Municipal League would rate me if I ran for Mayor.
They might have to create a whole new category.
Wow Muni-league, wtdeal!! How do they rate people – this man has not done one thing, not lead on one issue, not worked with one community in Seattle…what a joke! He has money, that does not make up for real experience.
He has no agenda other than negative attacks on the Mayor, all we have is knowledge of the company where he works which does not bode well for him. (anti-union, poor support for LGBT workers)
put the pipe down!
@7–Nickels proposes paying for the City’s share of the Viaduct project with TIF, and tried to pay for South Lake Union development with TIF.
@8,
Good question. Answer: Meacham recused himself from the mayor’s race ratings.
If anybody’s looking for McGinn’s supporters, don’t look in his campaign office — they’re at home trolling blog posts all day.
In previous years it seems like Muni goes for intellectuals that will govern well. Obviously Nickels isn’t doing hot on the governing, so that might be why he got dinged.
Maybe, just maybe, in talking to Mallahan he conveyed that he’d be the best mayor. How the comment trolls on here seem to know better without being there, is beyond me.
That Susan Hutchison didn’t receive a “not qualified” is proof enough to me that it was not an objective process.
Ok, here’s the one from today: http://crosscut.com/2009/07/23/2009-election/19129/
Just find the end of the McGinn piece.
Here’s another:
http://horsesass.org/?p=17342
But the reason I point it out is because I was told by a person who used to work with him that he was not very nice if you weren’t on the same page with him. With that in the back of my mine, the article from today stuck out a little more than it might have. Besides, Crosscut knows its stuff, generally.
@14 wrong – you can read his questionair. He answers his questions about why he is qualified by negative attacks and platitudes. His community involvement is scant (apart from $$ donations and coaching private school soccer), and no real substance at all. This rating is highly suspect to me.
TIF is not legal under WA state law. Do Nickels & Mallahan know that?
Does the muni league make their candidate evaluation committee members known? Would be interesting to see who’s doing the evaluating…
In response to the above comments, the Muni-League goes to great lengths, I’d even say bends-over-backwards not to “politicize” or bring bias into the ratings process. Read all about the process at http://www.munileague.org/candidate-evaluations/what-is-the-candidate-evaluation-process.
In short, voluntary Candidate Investigators research the candidates, call references (both those provided and those found on their own), interview the candidates using pre-approved questions related to the criteria (knowledge, effectiveness, character, involvement), and scores each candidate numerically. Committees then hold a meeting to review the numerical ratings (high/low votes were removed) and then assesses the consistency of their ratings. Each committee then reports to the Municipal League Board who reviews the ratings, asks the committee justify certain ratings, and approves the ratings for the public.
The process is like a job interview with the added benefit of public information about the candidates. It’s understandable that questions may arise about the final ratings, though we believe the process is rock-solid analysis of information about the candidates related to the criteria.
Further questions can be answered at: http://www.munileague.org/candidate-evaluations/questions-and-answers. Come to Spitfire tonight and see for yourself.
You’ve come a long way, Joe.
PubliCola did the first media intvw. w Mallahan on May 1.
http://publicola.net/?p=5438
He was not well versed in city issues at that time.
@17 – your flat “wrong” response without naming what I said that was wrong kind of sums this thread up. I said perhaps Muni League got to know him better than you do (by perhaps interviewing him, and apparently all the other things listed in @20).
@18 – they don’t know that because it’s not true. The state authorizes TIF projects all the time. Check into it…
Mallahan seems to have an incredibly successful track record as a pragmatic executive type as well as plenty of community organizing experience. I don’t really see what the problem is. There is an article in the Seattle Times talking about some of it here.
And his website seems legitimate.
Josh – how do u know that meacham disqualified himself?
Nobody has taken the Muni League’s ratings seriously for years. Therefore Erica’s stament that Nickels’ “very good” rating somehow was a “significant blow” is just plain stupid.
@14 I suspect that McGinn supporters are all mobile and internet savvy and not tied to a computer. There’s all kinds of mobility on phones these days, so your assertion that they are “at home” doesn’t jive. Good attemt to negatively characterize with no facts, though.
26: Snork! Like all these campaigns have internet at campaign headquarters except McGuinn!
I don’t know. I think the Muni League went way out there on this one. I am sick at the results. I liked them in the past but this makes me wonder if there is any value to their “unbaised” good governance efforts. I know this process is done by committee but I would like to see who sits on that committee, what campaigns they individually support, I just think that this unknown got Outstanding and most everyone got good to adequate. At least try to cover up your secret Mallahan support with a “very good”. But to put him over the current government public servants as more involved is unfounded. This smells like fish to me.
Policy positions matter. The Muni League’s rating system assumes they don’t.
Hogwash.
Used to be that Muni League ratings were dismissed because the raters are rank amateurs. People who actually know something about city and county government are considered biased or otherwise suspect, and are not allowed on the interview committee.
Sounds like nothing has changed.
It’s hilarious to me that people complain when the MuniLeague ratings don’t go their way, but if the candidate you like got an endorsement, holy shit – watch you brag about it then. Get a grip. It’s one endorsement of about 3 dozen this campaign season. Mallahan and McGinn have done a good job hustling endorsements, so give them credit for impressing people and making a case for change.
Also, I hope all these bitchers and complainers actually sign up next year to be one of the 65 volunteers on the MuniLeague Endorsements Committee so they can right the wrongs they think exist.
There’s no other reason for Mallahan to get this “Outstanding” rating except for his and Meacham’s mutual connection to T-Mobile, which thereby renders the rest of their ratings irrelevant.
Ivan @25,
The Muni League is a different animal that it was 15, 10, 5, even 4 years ago.
They are engaged and active and people are paying attention again.
They held a packed, sold out awards dinner this Spring at SAM (where Nickels, in fact, got an award for his work on light rail.)
People were waiting on these endorsements and Nickels rating is a blow, in part, because of Mallahan’s higher rating.
Pathetic showing for Mallahan, I talked to him at an event once and he was so … not versed about any of issues I asked him about, so much so that I actually walked away. He didn’t know where Columbia City was! (granted this was a few months ago and has probably learned since). The guy is an empty hat. empty.
Josh @33,
The first two sentences are pure opinion on your part – the Muni League is exactly the same as it has always been (basically a repository of establishment upper middle class white Seattle conventional wisdom) and I see no change in the level of influence the Muni League has among typical voters (which, for what it’s worth, I think it has always been higher than it should be, and remains so).
The main takeaway for me from this is that the “urban green/pro-density/remove auto lanes for bikes/New Urbanist/whatever you want to call it folks who are supporting McGinn are a lot less influential among average voters than their presence on blogs like this would seem to indicate.
Mr. X,
I don’t get your second point. In your first point, you say the League are “establishment upper middle class.” But in your second point, you say: Because McGinn didn’t do well with the League, it proves McGinn isn’t popular with “average” voters.
Seems like a contradiction somewhere in there.
Also, sure it’s my opinion, but it’s based this: 1) They’ve got more young (20-somethings) working with them now who are bringing new perspectives to the group & 2) I went to the SAM event this year, which was mobbed, where they gave an award to Cary Moon for spending two years fighting the Governor and the Mayor and the Speaker. You know, the establishment.
Josh,
That’s not an either/or – it’s a both (mostly, though, it was meant as kind of a ding on the big support I see both among staff and posters here and at Slog for McGinn that doesn’t reflect the opinions of the larger voting public. I was also trying to say that urban greens are the very embodiment of upper middle class white privilege – so getting a toehold at the Muni League is far less startling and/or revolutionary than you were trying to say it is)
But McGinn didn’t do well with the League.
So, you’re equation about Muni League=Establishment= Yuppie urban Green liberals doesn’t pan out.
Meanwhile, you’re doing a lot of generalizing about the opinions on this site. Plenty of commenters here trash McGinn.
And, while I’ll grant you that Erica seems to lean McGinn (hardly a surprise; her politics are well known), this site hasn’t done much editorializing on his behalf. In fact, Erica busted McGinn just yesterday for his pushy poll on the tunnel.
Click on the “Election ’09″ logo, go thru our coverage, and I think you’ll find it’s been mostly newsy and without much “big support” (as you describe it) for McGinn.
Certainly, you’re likely to find some examples where the coverage praises McGinn, but I think you could find that for many of the candidates here (as well as slights.)
Certainly, check out the coverage of David Bloom on PubliCola. He’s gotten good write ups here. And he represents the working class constituents that if I may, represent the “Real Virginia” you seem to be talking about. (Honestly, Mr. X, your indictment of urban Greens as serving Yuppie interests, conveniently ignores the social and economic justice that comes with the #1 component of urbanism, mass transit.
And, of course, the accusation that PubliCola is pro-McGinn is funny to me given all the heat we take for supposedly being in cahoots with Nickels.
Josh @ 33:
Rubbish. Self-serving rubbish. Reality is far different than your fond desires. I totally agree with Mr. X @ 34.
Er, @ 35.
@39,
How is it “self-serving” for me to say the Muni League has become more engaged and relevant?
Mr. X, for example, says PubliCola is all for McGinn. (Others say we’re lackeys for Nickels.)
The Muni League’s ratings are a coup for Mallahan.
I don’t follow you.
Um, Josh, I never said that Publicola was all for McGinn (though it’s clear that at least ECB is). Re-read my post and ask yourself if maybe you’re projecting just a little bit.
BTW – I’m sure all of the communities and people of color who have been or will be displaced by the use of a surface rail line to redevelop (that is, gentrify) their former neighborhoods are touched by Futurewise’s concern for social justice.
@20 Gabe Meyer
Thanks for explaining the process in further detail. It’s good to see an organization like the Muni League be very transparent about its process and post so much information on its website.
so when are you going to let folks know that your staff member or “Bad Cop” is also on the muni league board? full disclosure please.
Josh, Publicola’s coverage of this election cycle has certainly revealed biases in various races.
If you want to be a blog holding particular editorial points of view, that’s fine. If you’re striving for idealistic equitable coverage, I think you and Erica need to work harder on some of the comments you make…
I think any evaluation that rates Nickels as “very good” should be considered highly suspect.