Christian Sinderman
Mayoral candidate Joe Mallahan, a T-Mobile executive whose campaign has been criticized as rudderless in comparison to his opponent Mike “Town Hall” McGinn’s hyper-focused operation, has sought the advice of Christian Sinderman, a hotshot local campaign consultant who is also working for city council candidate Sally Bagshaw and King County Executive candidate Dow Constantine.
Sinderman says his role with the campaign is “informal” (he won’t be getting paid, at least for now), and campaign spokeswoman Charla Neuman confirms that she will continue to serve as the public face of the campaign. She says Sinderman is “one of many people who have volunteered to help with the campaign,” including PR consultant and former Paul Schell spokesman Roger Nyhus and consultant and former Ron Sims aide John Arthur Wilson.
However, Sinderman’s advisory role could reflect a general sense that the campaign is less organized than McGinn’s. For example, in the past week, McGinn has released white papers on issues ranging from immigrants and refugees to light rail expansion to the city’s budget shortfall to public safety and opened a new campaign office in Southeast Seattle. Over the course of the six days ending this coming Thursday, he will have held four town hall meetings around the city.
Mallahan, in contrast, has used his rare public appearances primarily to put his foot in his mouth. For example, he issued a statement last week asserting that McGinn’s proposed light rail expansion vote would hurt kids by competing with the Families and Education Levy (in spite of Seattle voters’ well-documented willingness to pass more than one tax measure at once); also last week, he lost the support of the 43rd District Democrats by telling them he drives his car six blocks to the office instead of riding the bus.
Mallahan is also notorious among the local press corps for speaking through his spokeswoman, D.C. transplant Charla Neuman, who got a bad start with the press when she ushered Mallahan off the stage during an infamous nine-minute press conference the day after the August primary election. (Hang around with consultants and the press corps long enough, and the phrase “the Charla Problem” is bound to come up.) McGinn, in contrast, answers his own phone, does not have a spokesperson, and is known for allowing press conferences to stretch past an hour.
Moreover, business and labor leaders have seem more comfortable with Sinderman—a well-known, established political consultant with a long track record of winning campaigns—than with Neuman and Mallahan’s official paid consultant, Jason Bennett of Argo Strategies.
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Funny how a candidate who continually touts his managerial experience and ability to bring effective management to City Hall can’t even manage an effective or efficient campaign. Does bringing a hotshot consultant on board qualify as finding efficiencies? For someone who wants the City to stop using so many consultants, Joe sure has a lot of them on his campaign team.
I remember the City Club primary forum, where Mallahan said he’s a threat to the establishment. Sinderman, who also counts Nickels as a former client, is about as establishment as you get in Seattle politics.
Sinderman actually wasn’t working for Nickels this time out, Gidge @2.
Stacey @ 1 – You are dead on. Sinderman, Nyhus and Wilson are three of the most expensive consultants in the Seattle political world. There is great, and slightly sad, irony to Joe “businesses hide behind consultants, consultants are inefficient” Mallahan needing to bring them in.
I believe the article says they (Sinderman, Nyhus, and Wilson)are some of the many volunteers. Yes, it’s true, consultants can volunteer.
@3 True enough, Josh, but I didn’t say he was working for Nickels on this most recent campaign. Just said that Nickels was a former client.
@ 5 – I think by “volunteer” they mean, “save the business/viaduct special interest ship”
Of course you’re correct, Stacy@1. But if you asked him directly, Mallahan would probably respond that he’s simply “leveraging the synergy so as to drive the solution across the enterprise” or some pop-managerial linguo-bullshit like that.
WOW! The fact that a smart, savvy, well respected lefty consultant like Christian Sindeman is willing to VOLUNTEER his time for Mallahan speaks volumes.
This is precisely what a good manager does. When he sees a hole in his/her organization, he goes out and fills it.
This notion of consultants volunteering their time is fairly hysterical. As with drug dealers, the first hit is free – but you can bet that Sinderman won’t “volunteer” his time for much longer, especially with a campaign that’s shown its willingness to shell out on staff. Building relationships and gaining access is one thing, but you don’t give away your business, either.
David @ 10 – You should know. Look how well you did on the campaign trail.
@9…I bet your comment was outlined in the plan to bring Christian in (did he write it?).
@13 – And @9′s comment was probably part of Mallahan’s new social media strategy as well.
For all the transplants in local politics (Cantwell & Sinderman to name a few) you end up tarring (I suppose it is tarring) Ms. Neuman, whose mother was a well known South King Co. activist back in the day, as a “DC transplant.” Kind of funny, and ironic. I suppose the staff at Publicola are all native Washingtonians?
I fact-checked the claim that Joe Mallahan drives 6 blocks to work, and the implication that it’s irresponsible.
Fact #1
Joe lives 19 blocks from his campaign office.
Fact #2
That takes ~40 minutes to walk.
Fact #3
Public transit would take ~30 minutes–with a transfer.
Fact #4
By driving his Prius, Joe commutes in 6 minutes.
(Times based on Google Maps)
How about this little nugget about Sinderman & Constantine as your next comment of the day?
Yes, good managers fill holes in their organizations. But Mallahan isn’t a good manager right now; he’s a candidate, and he isn’t doing too well at that because we don’t know who he is. Bringing more people into his campaign to presumably think/speak for him does not give us much confidence that he knows what–if anything–he wants to do as mayor. The only thing that’s clear so far is that he wants to BE mayor.
It’s hard to believe Sinderman’s working free. There will be payment of some sort, by someone.
I think it’s Publicola that has a “Charla problem.”
Kind of a sleazy move to hide behind unnamed consultants to bash a campaign workers.
You guys do good work on this website but that was below the belt.
@ 13 & 14 – You are some cynical puppies. Honestly I do not know who I will vote for yet. I have concerns about BOTH Mike and Joe and their lack of experience managing a large public agency.
I do know Christian Sinderman pretty well and I really really respect the guy.
I’d like to know more about who they would bring on their team in city hall and who they might want to appoint to department director positions. i’d like to know who they might seek advise from on a variety of matters. I also know that several city councilmembers (Clark, Burgess, Rasmussen, etc.) still call Christian for his advice and quite frankly I would trust most of the advice Christian provides them.
insider baseball @ 20 -
Can you explain what you want to see in the department director positions? Do you think those who are there now are doing an effective job? If not, who should be replaced?
@ 21 – This seems a reasonable question to ask since many new mayor’s come in and shake things up (not always though)
First and foremost, I think Grace Crunican should, by all means, be retained. She is top 3 in the nation if you want a progressive DOT Director. She might have made some unfortunate remarks in December. She also had some long term baggage to contend in the street maintenance division.
I know McGinn and Adrienne Quinn have had disagreements about implementing incentive zoning but Quinn is a sharp, persuasive and visionary leader for that department. She is incredibly effective. Would a “mayor mcginn” retain her?
What about Divley at DOF? He has got to be one of the very best public finance people in the state. He is smart, easy to work with, and very well respected around the region. He is a treasure and Seattle should thank our lucky stars we have him.
What about others? Who will permanently fill SPU, OED and OSE positions? Right now there are interim folks there running things?
McGinn talks a lot about Neighborhoods. Will he keep Stella Chao? She has only been there a few years but has steadied a ship that has been rocky for many years. If he changes the nature of the division as he often suggests then does the nature of the director’s job change? Same can be said about IT. He is talking some big changes. Does he keep Bill Schrier?
He also cares a lot about Planning and Development. Sugimura is a 30 year veteran who is beloved by her staff and well respected both inside the city and outside. She also has gained an international reputation as an innovator of green and sustainable practices.
McGinn was pretty involved with the last parks Levy. Gallagher is new leading the Parks Department. Does he stay?
I want to know! I also want to know who he’d bring on to his staff team. Nickels was able to attract some pretty high profile talent in the likes of Regina LaBelle, Emelie East, and a host of others over the years, And whether you like him or not Tim Ceis is one of the smartest people I have ever met. His ability to easily understand and master the details of complex issues is truly amazing. Ceis is also a person who thinks about getting things done and resulted in a ‘political’ filter. Some people did not like that and some people did. His style lead to an administration that focused on making decisions abd then figuring out how to get it done. A bit of a paradigm shift for the Seattle Nice crowd but also had lots of supporters.
The point here being, who you bring onto your team says something about the kind of administration you plan to run. Who is McGinn OR Mallahan’s Tim Ceis, Regina LaBelle, Emelie East, Robert Mak, Marco Lowe, etc.
“22. insider baseball” sounds like an insider job. Retain every one of Nickels’ people right down to Tim Ceis? Think again.
The department heads mentioned are Nickels loyalists, who stood by and condoned or looked the other way at abuses within their own departments or others in the City. Did they speak up? Challenge the Nickels administration to protect citizens or workers?
The question should not be was he or she a good department head. Good for what? whom? when? Certainly in Nickels eyes they were good or they wouldn’t still be there. But we voted Nickels and Ceis out!
Department head decisions should start with McGinn’s agenda, approach and values. Anyone out there with the technical knowledge to head up that department should be given a chance to apply. Their qualifications should then be evaluated against McGinn’s agenda, approach and values to rank prospective candidates.
Let’s not evaluate prospective candidates based on who managed to enter city government 20 or 30 years ago or whose staff like them. Many other highly qualified people were left out of City government because they simply didn’t have the insider connections necessary for entrée in this city.
We need to begin with Seattle’s 21st century needs and Mayor McGinn’s priorities. No, I’m not a prospective candidate and have no desire to be one.
Stacey @ 1 – You are dead on. Sinderman, Nyhus and Wilson are three of the most expensive consultants in the Seattle political world. There is great, and slightly sad, irony to Joe “businesses hide behind consultants, consultants are inefficient” Mallahan needing to bring them in.