On Drugs: Seattle council races, final stretch edition

[00:00:00] Hello and welcome to the latest edition of Seattle Nice. I'm David Hyde, here as always with Erica C Barnett of Publicola. It's Sunday morning. Last week, Erica, you were a little bit sleepy. What about this week? I'm always sleepy on Sunday mornings.

[00:00:25] All right. Sleepy Sunday mornings. That's how it's going to be. And Sandeep Kaushik, political consultant. What's your sort of caffeine level this morning? Middling. Middling. Okay. All right. Well, we're going to enliven our listeners. Last week, we spoke

[00:00:39] about city council races in West Seattle and South Seattle. Normally, I'd say let's go from one to two to three, which should be Shama Sawantz district that includes Capitol Hill in the central area. She's, of course, leaving at the end of this year.

[00:00:53] So you're both backing the more progressive candidate in that race, Alex Hudson, who's running against Joy Hollingsworth. I'm going to suggest we move on just because I don't know that you're going to disagree all that much about that race, but anything

[00:01:05] just to say generally about kind of the state of district three or anything that you're seeing, Erica? Yeah, I think it's going to be a really tight race. I mean, I think Joy Hollingsworth

[00:01:15] has a lot of support. She's got the backing of Mayor Bruce Harrell. And with some of these races, I mean, it's very palpable that the candidates cannot fucking stand each other like in district one. So district three is not like that. I've watched a bunch

[00:01:29] of debates with Alex and Joy. Joy, of course, said that she would sit down with me and then canceled without any explanation. So haven't talked to her directly in the general election, but they both seem like they would be good fits for the district in different ways. But

[00:01:45] it's been interesting to see the different races. And this is one of the more collegial of the seven. Yeah, of the events at KUW. It was very cordial. And I will just say, you know, they're both

[00:01:58] they're both strong candidates. They're both pretty skilled debaters would be my one observation Sunday district three. You're working in that race. So any inside gossip or behind the scenes dirt? Well, I'll just say, yeah, I am working on the race. Alex Hudson's a longtime

[00:02:14] friend. And so and I'm consulting for her on it. I would just point out I agree with everything you all said, I think it is going to be a close race. I think notably a lot of people have been commenting about the civility that's

[00:02:27] existed so far in that race and in contrast to some of the other ones. I just point out like some money has started to flow. So the realtors came in and a pretty significant buy more than $50,000 of money supporting

[00:02:40] Joy in that race. I've heard rumors that there will be some labor money that flows on our side on the Alex side of that race. But I am, you know, waiting to see if that's true or not. I do think it's going to be a

[00:02:56] close race. That is a it's one of the two most progressive districts in the city. Right? I mean, this was so wants district after all. And so I think that would give the more progressive lane candidate a little bit of an

[00:03:09] edge. That's Alex Hudson my candidate. But there's other factors in play and and Erica's right. Joy is running a strong campaign and has has a lot of backing from significant forces, including the Seattle Times endorsement, including Bruce Harrell. So we'll see how it plays out.

[00:03:22] So Seattle Times endorsement, not necessarily the kiss of death this year in district three, I guess we'll find out moving on north to district four and northeast Seattle civil servant Maritza Rivera running against tech startup guy Ron Davis. I love that we know what the

[00:03:40] fuck Ron Davis does. I'm trying to remember it's tech and he's it's not a lot of he's got a lot of civic volunteering work that he does. This one you mentioned Sunday campaign finance issues. There's there's already a lot of kind of cooked up accusations on

[00:03:57] both sides when it comes to that. But anything you want to say starting with Erica about that race, Maritza Rivera, Ron Davis, what are you seeing in the debates? Yeah, I mean, there's a there is a you know, in contrast to

[00:04:08] district three, we're just talking about I mean, I think these these two candidates have some, you know, shall we stay hostility between them? Maritza Rivera, who is backed by the same people that Sunday was talking about back in Joy Hollingsworth.

[00:04:25] And Maritza, I believe Sunday biz is candidate you support, you know, she has been accused has accused Ron Davis of wanting to defund the police of wanting to subsidize drug users. You know, all these kind of very, you know, I would say misleading

[00:04:42] claims. But on the other hand, Ron Davis has been a little bit ambiguous in what his positions are on police funding on drug criminalization and sort of where people should go when they're arrested or if they're arrested for using drugs in

[00:04:56] public. So there's been a lot of accusations flying about that Ron Davis has put up a fact check on his website that I'm not sure anybody has read but it sort of explains his positions and sort of not. I'm doing an interview with him or I

[00:05:09] did an interview with him that I'm posting this week. And I think, you know, on those two specific questions, it is interesting, his position is nuanced, but it's also I think kind of ambiguous. You know, I mean, I think there is a huge

[00:05:22] contrast politically between these two candidates. Yeah, on that last point, this is shaping up to be a classic Seattle Municipal Center or moderate progressive versus left progressive kind of race center versus left, you know, Ron's very much running in the left lane, the stranger lane,

[00:05:40] you know, and Ritz is very much running a campaign that's that centrist focused on public safety, critical of the city council, particularly the pledge to defund the police, but a lot of other stuff as well. Ron's kind of, you

[00:05:56] know, defending the progressive side of that equation. And yeah, it's gotten kind of heated. D4 is sort of the it's North Seattle kind of the University District Ravenna area. And I do think that district which is currently represented by Alex

[00:06:11] Peterson, who's not running again, is tilts a little bit more moderate. I think that gives Meritza an advantage in that district given how Ron is positioned himself. And I do think Ron really hurt himself with the I mean what happened

[00:06:25] with the drug dealer thing is that Ron put out, you know, his sort of campaign plan around what he's going to do about fentanyl. And I actually give Ron credit it was a, you know, it's a campaign plan. It's sort of pie in the sky and making

[00:06:40] big promises and all that stuff. None of this stuff is actually going to happen. But nonetheless, it was well considered. It was a kind of well considered progressive approach to how we deal with the fentanyl crisis on our

[00:06:51] street. But he made the mistake in that plan of saying, Hey, let's get addicts into treatment and then use our police resources where they do the most effectiveness, which is you know, to kind of arrest the deal fentanyl dealers, right? Arresting prosecuted fentanyl dealers. And he immediately got

[00:07:09] some blowback from the left from the stranger and stuff. Well, of course, Lisa's guard from people who are advocates for harm reduction for advocates. Well, the stranger went after for strategy. I'm not as obsessed with the stranger

[00:07:19] as you are. So I'm just going to point out that a lot that he spoke with Lisa Dugard, he spoke with a lot of people. And the point is he right, right? Yeah. And if Lisa made him

[00:07:30] put out that treat or write that tweet that Lisa's gonna own the blame when Ron goes down and flames over that because he am almost immediately capitulated puts out a kind of disastrous I thought political. Alright, I would like to respond to some of this. Yeah,

[00:07:45] wait, I haven't heard what Sandeep's even said yet. Sorry. Usually it's the other way around. Yeah, let me finish the way put out a tweet that said, Hey, I was wrong in my plan. And I've talked to people now. And so even in cases where people

[00:08:00] are dealing drugs or threatening harm to others, we should not prosecute but instead offer services. Right? That was the tweet. So okay, so we're upset over a tweet here. Eventually he did take down the whole thread. But you know,

[00:08:15] I think having spoken to Ron, and having read that thread, I mean, his position to be clear was originally we should prosecute drug dealers. I think that was a unnuanced and dumb position to take. And that's not me as a member of the you know, the

[00:08:31] the far left. But but looking at the evidence, which is that, you know, a lot of drug dealers are subsistence drug dealers who are addicted to drugs themselves. So that's why Ron changed his position. And he said that. And, you know,

[00:08:46] clearly not just on Twitter, but in every subsequent debate. And I think that's that's a good change. That's a change that makes sense. I don't think we should always penalize people for changing their minds in response to new information and

[00:08:59] mock them and say, ha, they're going to get clobbered over this. Because I actually think that was a good change. It was it was based on new evidence. Maritza has also accused him of, you know, or maybe it was the Seattle Times based on that

[00:09:11] same tweet thread that he wants to subsidize drug dealers. And again, not defending his sort of flip flop and removing tweets and all that. But what he actually said was what helps people who are addicted to drugs is housing is, you know,

[00:09:27] is services is a life worth living. And I will just point out that that's something that Alex Hudson, Sandeep, your candidate says all the time. So I don't think that those are bad positions or, you know, gotcha flip flops, I think that's

[00:09:43] getting more information and improving your knowledge and saying, Hey, I was wrong. Yeah, no. I don't agree with that. Well, let me put it this way, like, like, I'm a political hack, right? And so I have and as you all know, I've been tracking sort of

[00:09:58] what I call the unforced errors and fuck ups that various campaigns have made, you know, political fuck ups, right? I mean, going back to Olga Sagan in the primary not being able to explain whether she voted for Trump or not. I mean,

[00:10:10] that was kind of a very telling kind of kind of massively bad moment for her. I've obviously brought up in the past, Marin Costa, you know, saying that that the city council was right to pledge to defund the police by 50% was a

[00:10:23] political fuck up. And this is a political fuck up on Ron's part. I mean, you know, he's he really stepped in it. And I think we're gonna be seeing this a lot over the next few weeks. Because you know, you know what the

[00:10:34] mailers are gonna say, Sandy, that's why you're saying that. I mean, let's be real here. Let's be honest about where we're coming from. You are a supporter of Maritza Rivera, and you're expressing your political opinion that benefits her.

[00:10:46] Let me ask this. Ron Davis' position now is that we shouldn't prosecute low level subsistence drug dealers. Right? You know, and so there's the question of is that good policy? And then there's the question about whether or not

[00:10:59] that plays in a place like Laurel Hurst. And it seems like correcting the record and saying my position is that we shouldn't prosecute low level subsistence drug dealers is where I am and you're misrepresenting what my view is, what I sort of don't understand Erica is

[00:11:17] he's clarifying what his position is there, right? But like, isn't that just kind of a clarification rather than a correction? That's if in journalism, if that's what I might call that as a clarification rather than a correction. So explain that part to me.

[00:11:31] Well, I think he's changed his mind. And again, I'm going to be posting an interview with him this week. That's what he told me. I think he changed his mind in response to new information on that. Yeah. And so sure, it's a clarification. I think that it's there's

[00:11:46] some, you know, nuance that people probably don't really I mean, even in Laurel Hurst cared that much about, which is, you know, the difference between drug, you know, people who are actually trafficking drugs and, you know, and pouring fentanyl into our communities and people who are

[00:12:01] selling a couple of pills on the street. I think that that is a big difference. But, you know, I mean, these are these are nuances within an overall policy that that is more progressive towards drug users and people with addiction than Amaritza Rivera's position.

[00:12:16] And your view is that if people had more information, if they had access to the evidence, they would be more sympathetic to that point of view, but they don't in the context of a political campaign where they're we're just going to see these mailers or you get

[00:12:28] these kind of simplistic arguments. Like if there's a chance to have a real public policy discussion, maybe people would understand where Ron's coming from on that now in his current position. Yeah, I also don't think that people would make that specific thing their most important

[00:12:43] political issue. If there weren't people like Sandeep out there, you know, sort of screaming about, oh my God, I got you, you said this tweet or oh my God, in this one political forum that you said this one thing and you've said, you know, a different

[00:12:57] thing, 6,000 times since and clarified and clarified, but it doesn't matter because we gotcha. And I mean, yeah, I mean, ultimately, that's what I hate about political campaigns is this pot of bullshit. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So so for stuff actually matters, sorry, really quick. The stuff actually matters

[00:13:15] and who is on the city council actually matters. Yeah. And the fact that, you know, political consultants treated all like a ha ha game just really comes to the fore, you know, in local elections, I feel like and it's very frustrating to me every year.

[00:13:30] Sandeep, if we had a rational conversation about public policy, what would that rational conversation look like? And how would it be different from a political campaign? And what would the outcome be? I guess is my question. Like, I'm just imagining what a world would be like

[00:13:44] without without you where you had a rational debate and what would that look like? Yeah. Oh, God, if put Eric of our net and charge the city and see how it turns out. All right. But anyway, seriously. But anyway, look, what would it look

[00:13:59] like? First of all, let me say that that I started off by praising Ron's fentanyl plan, right? Like I said, it's a campaign plan. But but you know, it's not it's not bounded by the sort of constraints of actual the realities of actual governance. But

[00:14:13] nonetheless, he was sort of saying things that what that seemed, you know, pretty smart and sensible and kind of focused on the on the scale and seriousness of the problem that fentanyl is creating on our streets. And then he so so credit to him for

[00:14:26] doing that. And then he blew it all up by basically kind of utterly capitulating to, you know, the left activist wing, which is the thing that people kind of most hate about the city council is that basically a few activists yell at them and

[00:14:41] then they sort of completely like fall over the activists were former judges. They were a moderate state representative. They were least. Well, I will just tell you like and then in terms of the politics in terms of the politics of this look, I saw some polling out of

[00:14:56] San Francisco. Should we prosecute fentanyl dealers? 91 percent support in progress. You're talking about the politics. You're like, oh my god, I saw a poll like which polls are polls are always an accurate and what I'm saying view of what people think, right? What what what I'm

[00:15:12] saying is that, you know, the old you know, Michael Kinsley definition of a gas gas is when sometimes someone inadvertently blurts out the truth, right? And I think sometimes in the carefully calibrated world of campaign messaging, some people sometimes actually blurred out things

[00:15:28] that seem to indicate where their real sort of allegiances and their real political stuff lies. And that's the stuff that gets magnified. Sometimes it bothers you, Erica, it bothers you mostly because you know, it's so fricking bad for him. No, it bothers me. No, that's not true.

[00:15:45] That's so that's totally not true. Sunny, that's absolutely false. The reason I'm not again, I don't work for I call Davis. I've talked to me and I don't work for a marriage. And I let me finish. Let me finish. Yeah. And I've talked to him twice.

[00:15:59] Uh huh. And he's not a friend. He's not somebody I know. I'm like Maritza. I know you guys and go back. She is a friend. Right. Yeah. So so the reason I find it frustrating is not in the case of Ron Davis. It's in the case of

[00:16:13] all of these fucking campaigns and including two years ago and including four years ago where these IE's come in and independent expenditure campaigns and sees on like a single quote taken out of context. And you know, you say it blows up. It doesn't passively blow up,

[00:16:30] Cindy. People like you blow it up. Political consultants blow it up. And I noticed that you didn't answer David's question, which was actually about policy. No, you didn't. You went into the politics of it. Well, he asked you what a what a new what a actual policy

[00:16:46] would look like that would you know, that would advance what we all want on this issue, which is dealing with the fentanyl crisis. And you went into sort of another like laughing tirade about how David. You want a policy discussion? I am for the prosecution

[00:17:03] of people who are repeatedly arrested for selling fentanyl on our streets, whether they're addicts or not. If it's your fifth time you get busted, you're out there slinging fentanyl, killing people with it. You should fucking take a time out and go to jail, right?

[00:17:17] I think that is my position. That's your position of most of the city. That's not your position. It may not be. It's certainly not because it's not. Position. It's not based on any kind of at least a do guard. So this is a tribute of justice

[00:17:29] position. It's a real argument. And I suspect it's one your side and Ron is going to lose. There you go. There's a difference of a policy opinion on this, right? Yeah. I mean, I think minus evidence based in yours is gut based and you can think

[00:17:45] whatever you want. I think you're wrong. Like I love to see the evidence for jailing people makes them better because because the reality of what you're suggesting is is basically again, you're getting back to radical permissives. People can be out there and there are no consequences for

[00:17:59] dealing drugs. That's not what I said, but when you're talking about people who are selling a couple of fentanyl pills so they can buy drugs, I mean, again, I'm talking about refee defenders. How many chances do you get? How many times do you have to do

[00:18:11] fentanyl a day if you're addicted to fentanyl? I mean, a repeat offender is going to be somebody you just follow around for a day. Because your opinion is not based on any kind of reality, evidence or or knowledge. It seems like of like the actual

[00:18:26] crisis on our streets looks like. OK, you can say bullshit. Yeah, I am going to say bullshit. I'm calling bullshit on that because let's let's imagine the following scenario. Somebody's out there on third and pike dealing fentanyl. Cops come up. OK, you know, we have a drug law

[00:18:42] now, right? We passed the drug law, right at the point of the drug law to divert people to get them help. We say, hey, man, we know you got a problem. You can't be selling fentanyl out here. You know, it's killing people. We're going to divert you

[00:18:54] over the lead, right? Or we're going to put you. We're going to do pre-filing diversion, right? We're going to try to get you up and they do that a month later. Bus the same dude again, doing the same thing. And a month after that, you bust,

[00:19:09] you know, over and over and over again. How many times before there are some consequences? At some point, there have to be some fucking consequence. I'm really curious. So you're advocating for retributive justice, but you're not advocating for you're not explaining how that's going to get

[00:19:24] fentanyl off the streets or how it's going to actually address the crisis to keep sort of the only thing I'm advocating I'm advocating for all the stuff. All the other stuff I'm saying, but there has to be some friction somewhere you can't just say. Hey, it's OK.

[00:19:40] There's no it's only carrots, no sticks when you're well, you are deadly drugs on the streets of Seattle. If you're imagining if you're imagining that we're going to fill up the jails with low level drug offenders of people who are selling at a subsistence

[00:19:55] level, you're in a fantasy world because we do not have the jail capacity to do what you're advocating and not advocating that and you're putting you are you saying you're saying I have to be consequences. And I'm saying I am saying as a last resort, absolutely.

[00:20:10] But it's what you're talking about. What when other interventions have failed? Yes. OK, yes. But what you're talking about in practice would be a fuck ton of people because there are a lot of people who deal tiny levels of drugs as a subsistence practice

[00:20:24] because they are addicted to drugs. So in practice, what you're talking about, you know, like let's say it's five strikes, you're out, you know, which is which is what you you said. I mean, I think it would be more like one. But in any case,

[00:20:35] like I didn't say one. I said five. I said five. That's fine. So yeah, so if it's five strikes or out, you will fill up the jails like within a month. Well, actually, the jail is already already full. What are we talking about? Jails are already full.

[00:20:48] So like so. So your your proposal is a fantasy. No, no, it's not because I think I think there's a way that that you can do this where I don't think you necessarily need to take these cases all the way to prosecution. But if you're like, hey, man,

[00:21:01] jail, man, I'm not talking about prosecution. Yeah, we're going to take your ass down in the jail. You're going to spend 48 hours in the fucking pokey because this is kind of like a mere show fantasy that you've got. It's not going to happen. It's not going to happen.

[00:21:16] Nobody thinks it's going to happen. I mean, I have not heard one person on either side of this debate who said your fantasy is going to happen. And that may be part of the problem with why so many fucking people are going to die on

[00:21:27] our streets and federal because there is a some of this shit on the left has just gone too far. Oh, OK, OK. So we're the ones who are like making people want to be jail. You are. All right, all right. This is good.

[00:21:40] This is the heart of this. We're hearing it right here. This is what I wish these debates now, fortunately, and tells me unfortunately, this is the real debate right here Seattle. This is really it. You know, you don't hear it. It is right. You don't hear it.

[00:21:55] And when you listen, you know, to these debates, I mean, it's not just the the nonsense when it comes to to fentanyl. Ron Davis is a horrible and corrupt individual because his campaign sent out a couple of illegal mailers and that speaks to the fact he's a horrible

[00:22:09] and lawless person. Maritza Vera. Maritza Rivera is a MAGA candidate because one of her donors were actually one of the donors who were a pack as a Trump. I mean, I mean, that's the substance of I'm guessing what some of the mailers is going

[00:22:22] to look like because they both bring it up in their debates. And I just am like, oh, God, OK, enough about drugs on this show. We're moving to District 7. That includes downtown Seattle, parts of Magnolia, parts of Queen Anne. This is incumbent Andrew Lewis versus Challenger Navy vet

[00:22:41] Bob Kettle and and Lewis thought to be of the incumbents if any of them are at all vulnerable, perhaps Lewis is the most vulnerable. Erica, what are you seeing? What are you hearing? What's the what's the word on the street when you're hanging around District 7?

[00:22:55] Yeah, I mean, it's this is this is another interesting race. I mean, I think that Andrew Lewis was pretty dismissive of Bob Kettle, his challenger in the beginning. Kettle is a Queen Anne Community Council guy, I would say of all of the the candidates in these races, he

[00:23:11] is the closest to what would count as a conservative Democrat. Maybe some people allow that. And, you know, he's a very affable guy. He's he's fun to talk to. He just absolutely disagrees with like your nice uncle or something. Yeah, I shouldn't say that now that I'm uncle.

[00:23:29] I was going to say, I think he might be your age or a little younger, David. But yeah, but you know, but he is just absolutely disagrees with Andrew Lewis on basically every issue. So despite that, what's been interesting in watching these debates and David, you and I

[00:23:45] have talked about this before is that they're just so boring and I don't know why this one in particular. It's not very spicy. Yeah, that's what I'm saying their debates in this race have been very boring and maybe it's because they're both just kind of affable, cheerful guys.

[00:24:02] They don't do a lot of my opponent sucks kind of no. As much as I think that might be partly tactical on Andrew's part on Lewis's part, like sort of not wanting to acknowledge that the opponent is a real threat. But you know, I could be making

[00:24:15] that up. But yeah, I mean, Andrew Lewis is I would say ranges between progressive and kind of moderate on the council. He's flip flopped on some stuff, including the drug law, but Bob Kettle is way more conservative than him than him on almost every single issue.

[00:24:29] So it's just, I think is going to depend on how much people are fed up with Andrew Lewis and you know, how mean those mailers are that this pack is going to be funding because there is also an independent expenditure campaign for Bob Kettle that's formed.

[00:24:43] Sandy, Bob's your uncle. Yeah, yeah, Bob's my uncle. Look, I don't think Bob's a conservative Democrat. I will say, though, I think he is a because you think nobody's well, he died in the world moderate, right? And he's definitely not a progressive, right? And he definitely does not

[00:24:57] share the kind of progressive left worldview. I think that's all true. I don't think he's, you know, a Republican, right? I mean, he's a Biden Democrat, right? He calls himself a pragmatic progressive. Yeah, yeah. I mean, you know, that's a pragmatic progressive. One of your favorite phrases

[00:25:14] is a fairly elastic phrase, he says. But yeah, you know, I mean, I think it's fair to say he's very much running in the moderate lane. I think the interesting thing about this race is that Andrews in some sense, a little bit of a man without

[00:25:27] a country, right? As as as Erica says, like he's he's kind of his instincts and I think his heart is left. But he sort of tried to moderate over the last couple of years since 2020, given particularly given the contours of his district,

[00:25:44] but then kind of blew that up with his flip flop on the dais on the drug vote. And so I do think there's significant kind of business money coming into back kettle. And I'm not really seeing a lot of money or really any

[00:25:57] money at this point flow to outside money flow for Andrew. And that's what I mean. He's kind of like the left doesn't really is in 100 percent kind of kind of all in for him. But you know, he sort of burned some bridges with the center.

[00:26:12] And so I look, I think it's going to be a close race. I don't know what the outcome of that race is. You know, Andrew does have the advantages of incumbency and he did OK in the primary. So I think it go either way. Going to be interesting.

[00:26:24] The left isn't all in for Dan Strauss anymore. If you looked at the stranger endorsement, it was pretty luke warm. And yet there's not a lot of conversation happening about District 6 to the north. Dan Strauss, the incumbent versus Pete Hanning, Fremont Chamber guy, a longtime bar

[00:26:39] owner as the challenger. What about that race, Erica? Yeah. And I'll note that there hasn't been a single standalone District 6 debate, which I think is part of, I mean, I don't know how many people watch debates, but it feels like that's part of the problem. People just aren't

[00:26:52] talking about that race. And, you know, I mean, it's it's ballard. It's, you know, this this community that's changing a ton that's about to get well, not about to get light rail, but that will eventually get light rail. And, you know, there's just

[00:27:03] there's a lot of hot issues up there. But yeah, man, it's not a lot to talk about this race. Pete Hanning, I think, is, you know, among the challengers is probably the one that's getting the least outside support, if any, from, you know, from not

[00:27:18] for money that's not coming in directly to his campaign and just hasn't kind of kind of set that district on fire. And, you know, I think Strauss, I mean, his his votes are interesting. He doesn't talk a lot at council anymore if he ever did.

[00:27:33] But he tends to vote more progressive than Andrew Lewis, who I think he's just likely to get compared to their in adjacent districts. They're both kind of young, white, progressive middle of the road guys. But but I do think Dan Strauss has voted more progressively than Andrew

[00:27:48] kind of on a consistent basis. So but, you know, I mean, he's incredibly popular and ballard in particular. David, I think you mentioned running into him like at at a bar and he's just kind of holding court. You know, he's he sees himself

[00:28:03] as kind of the president of Ballard. I don't know how popular out there in the district late at night. Yeah. But like but in the district in Ballard, so I don't know how popular he's going to be like, oh, say on the top of Magnolia where,

[00:28:16] you know, well, his district has expanded to include and but he voted for the Ann Davison version of that drug bill. Everybody. Oh, you're saying in the beginning. That's true. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I would say Andrew Lewis was going to vote for the Ann Davison

[00:28:31] version of that drug bill and decided at the last minute, at least according to him, to flip his vote based on public testimony. So I don't think they were ultimately that far apart on that law. I mean, I guess I'm also thinking of like the tree ordinance

[00:28:45] where he and Alex Peterson fought a ton over, you know, whether we're going to protect every single tree on the planet or whether we're going to allow some development. I mean, he's he's kind of on the moderate, the moderate side of the council, but just Pete

[00:29:01] Hanna was who was who was on which side of that one, by the way. Peterson was claiming that the bill that they had all agreed on was too permissive to developers and Strauss was on the side and the prevailing side of, you know, of let's pass this

[00:29:17] bill and we can revisit stuff later if we must. But, you know, of course, Alex Peterson will be off the council by the time any revisiting happens. And Pete Hanna, as I said, is just like not catching the world on fire. He's a nice guy.

[00:29:29] I've known him for a long time as I think Sunday pass to definitely more conservative than Dan Strauss on basically every or most of the issues. He's got some pretty kind of nuance points of view on a lot of issues and I'll be running

[00:29:42] an interview with him in the next couple weeks as well. But but yeah, that's a race that surprisingly has just not caught fire that much. I agree that it that it hasn't caught fire. I think the reason why is kind of interesting and what happened

[00:29:56] was despite I think Erica, you're right about Dan's voting record. But what really happened in the late stages of the primary is Dan made a kind of massive full scale total pivot to the center, right? In his message and how he's portrayed himself.

[00:30:13] And so I don't I think voting for the drug law back in June before the primary and the original version was a strategic decision that he made that really helped him sort of make the case that no, no, no, no, no, I'm I'm pro

[00:30:29] cops and I'm pro like holding you know. But you made fun of that. So I did because I said nobody would believe something so ridiculous. And I was saying they did believe consistent with how he's conducted himself over the course of you know, the last four years, right?

[00:30:44] And sort of him kind of arms crossed in the mail or sort of saying, you know, it was wrong to defund the police, right? But he was on that bandwagon at least for a while. So so anyway, I do think that pivot had really

[00:30:58] helped him, right? It worked. And and I think that the feeling is since the primary that he's in in a pretty strong position to get reelected. And so I think it's taken some of the wind out of out of the sales of of that race and Pete's campaign.

[00:31:10] I have a theory. I know both of you hate it when I overemphasize the power of the stranger. But I wondered if along the same lines, perhaps that lukewarm endorsement from the stranger oddly kind of helped Dan Strauss potentially with people who are kind of like,

[00:31:23] well, I'm a little bit this, I'm a little bit that. And then it's like, well, we back him, but he's not really one of us and people are cool. That's perfect for me. You know, I'm I'm mid 30s. I've got tattoos. That's the right vote for me.

[00:31:34] I think that really, really depends on whether you think people actually read endorsements or if you think they just look at, you know, the Seattle Times and the stranger at the top line of the cheat sheet, whatever, and vote that way. I tend to think people don't read

[00:31:47] endorsements super thoroughly. Well, I'm at those ballot boxes, people chapter and verse, like it's like, you know, what are your political values? And I'll hear it's almost like I'm reading the lines from either endorsement a lot of the times, but you're right. No, well, that's encouraging

[00:32:01] in somebody who writes endorsements. But, you know, I just I just think people tend to tend to sort of associate one with with a more conservative view and the other with a more progressive view and they vote for the one that they think represents their values best.

[00:32:14] But could be wrong. Yeah, I agree. So District Five moving north and a little bit to the east. Cristiana Obey Sumner versus Kathy Moore. Erica, let's start with you. Have you been tracking District Five? Yeah, I have been. I have talked to Cristiana Obey Sumner a few times.

[00:32:36] Cristiana Obey Sumner is a social equity consultant running against former judge Kathy Moore. And I think it's, you know, it's another one of these kind of classic, if, you know, much more low key races where you have a progressive running against a, you know, more moderate candidate.

[00:32:55] I did sit down with Kathy Moore before the primary election very briefly. She had about 30 minutes and, you know, and I think she argued pretty convincingly that she's not like, you know, a conventional conservative. She was endorsed by The Stranger actually in one of her judicial campaigns

[00:33:13] a few years ago. And of course, now they're sort of demonizing her as this right wing person. But, you know, I mean, in this race, I will say Kathy Moore has kind of been hiding out. She wouldn't meet with me. She canceled on Crystal Fincher, who's

[00:33:31] who does a podcast that talks about campaigns. And, you know, and she's been very, very low key. And there's been no standalone debates in that district either. So it's North Seattle, elected Deborah Oarez a bunch of times. And, you know, I think that Kathy Moore definitely has

[00:33:52] the advantage. I think I agree with Erica on most of that. I think this race has been lower key or lower profile than some of the other ones. I don't think Kathy is a sort of full on conventional moderate. I mean, I think she is

[00:34:07] moderate on things like public safety, some of the some of the top line issues, but it's sort of more more mixed on some of the, you know, in her politics on on the when you look at the full range of issues. That said, this is another race

[00:34:20] where there's a big asymmetry of money. I think in terms of outside money coming in, there is money coming into back Kathy Moore. I think because people are worried about Cristiana being you know, too far left kind of holding not not at all stylistically like

[00:34:37] so want but holding sort of of so wantish sort of left kind of kind of views. And so and I'm not seeing labor or other big funders on the progressive side coming in for Cristiana, right? So I think that does first of all, the district is

[00:34:53] kind of moderate to begin with and then and then I think when you look at the asymmetry of money, I think it does give give Kathy Moore probably an advantage. I think this was one of the most surprising races in the primary because I think a lot

[00:35:04] of people expected Neloo Janks to be the progressive standard bearer in the race. And she had some backing. I think I said I was I was positive just to just to call myself out of thing. I said she was I was positive

[00:35:15] she was going to go through and also prevail right like be the top vote getter. Well, she might have gone through. She might have prevailed but but and this I know Erica doesn't like to admit this. But this is the power of the stranger endorsing stranger kind

[00:35:30] of made a surprise endorsement of Cristiano Bay Sumner and it was enough to pull her through the primary over Neloo. I mean, without having run a particularly strong campaign otherwise, but that surprise endorsement kind of upended the dynamics of the race. And I think it's made

[00:35:45] the general election much more favorable for Kathy. And I will say also since we're kind of breezing through these races, I would also encourage people to read my interview with Cristiana which is coming out next week. All right, that's it for another edition of Seattle Nice.

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