In Seattle, we’re getting ready to vote for mayor.  Some of us have voted already, but I decided to let the drama play out before filling in all the bubbles on my scan-tron ballot and putting it in the security envelope(s) in the right order and mailing it in.  Where are my stamps?

The race this year has been an interesting one.  Our incumbent mayor, Greg Nickels was expected to win his way through the primaries – leaving him a match from one of two men:  Joe Mallahan, a T-Mobile exec who’s long on “efficiency” and “management experience” who didn’t vote in several elections for the office he’s now running for.  And Mike McGinn, a veteran gadfly, community organizer sort who’s been running on a lot of progressive ideals and who came out forcefully against the SR-99 Waterfront Tunnel – a plan that’s already widely acknowledged as being a “done deal”.

Nickels did not win his way through the primaries.  He will apparently have been an unpopular mayor, which frankly is news to me.  I like Greg Nickels and am kicking myself for not having voted in the primaries.  I’m not the only person I know feeling that way.

Today, Mike McGinn announced that he will not stand in the way of a waterfront tunnel project – but he will be watching it to make sure the city is not left on the hook for cost overruns and to make sure that we can afford it.

I’ve been waiting for this to happen for a while.  I wanted to see what would happen for McGinn if this hypothetical came true.  I support the waterfront tunnel just fine – and I’ve widely viewed McGinn as the best heir to Nickels’ pro transit, pro density, pro pedestrian, pro bicycle policy legacy.  Mallahan has been widely reported as the kind of guy who drives 6 blocks to work and is mostly in favor of just making sure we keep plenty of buses running.  Buses, which we will not likely see him riding.  Also he’s opposed to a streetcar project for downtown’s First Avenue and is not bullish on adding more transit service to farther-flung Seattle neighborhoods.

In short, Joe Mallahan seems like the kind of guy who’d make a great mayor of Bellevue – a line I throw out not intended as an insult.  In fact, I kind of like Bellevue.  But Seattle is to me better represented by Mike McGinn – and now that he’s shown that he’s willing to accept reality and not raise the ire of people who would otherwise have been more solid in their support for him, I hope it translates into more solid support for him.

At this point I’m waiting to see if Greg Nickels endorses in this race.  By all accounts, he was hit pretty hard by the primary loss.