Civil, even collegial, local campaigns stand in sharp contrast to national politics
We congratulate Olympia Mayor Cheryl Selby, who won re-election, as well as incumbent Jessica Bateman and new council member Dani Madrone, who won by large margins.
The new council is now composed of five women and two men. We imagine the suffragists who campaigned for women’s right to vote 100 years ago are smiling down on them.
We also congratulate Lacey City Council winners Lenny Greenstein, Malcolm Miller and Ed Kunkel (provided his 170-vote lead holds), as well as Leatta Dahlhoff, Joan Cathey, Charlie Schneider and Tom Oliva in Tumwater, and Joe Downing on the Port Commission.
On the whole, we’re grateful for the civility of our local campaigns. Candidates have been respectful and even collegial with one another — we got to see that when we asked opposing candidates to meet together with the editorial board. While we have seen an occasional snark attack from their supporters, our local elections certainly offer a welcome contrast to the other Washington. And if you stayed off social media, you could avoid the snarky stuff altogether.
Our city council races also were a display of just how different the civic cultures of Lacey, Olympia and Tumwater are from one another, and why – in spite of what seems like common sense – they will probably never merge.
Lacey elected two council members who believe tougher law enforcement is the answer to homelessness. However, they also elected Miller, who believes the city should provide shelter and services for the homeless. That certainly challenges Lacey’s past practice. But, he adds, he would “work to relocate to another area” those unwilling to participate in services.
In electing Miller, Lacey added an African-American voice to its council. Miller follows in the footsteps of former Mayor and longtime councilman Virgil Clarkson. On issues of diversity, Lacey long has been far ahead of its neighbors.
Tumwater retains a more small-town flavor than its larger neighbors, and probably lies somewhere between Lacey and Olympia on the political spectrum. Or maybe it lies totally outside any political spectrum. History and tradition are its bedrock values, which helps explain why its mayor, Pete Kmet, has served on its city council since 1992.
And in this election, it elected a former minister (incumbent Joan Cathey), a chemist (incumbent Leatta Dahlhoff), and a retired postal worker (newcomer Charlie Schneider). No ideologues in this group.
Although conventional wisdom holds that Olympia is a bastion of liberal snowflakes, the re-election of Mayor Selby is evidence that a core of meat-eating political moderation here remains durable.
However, her election does reveal a troubling leftist orthodoxy in the local Democratic party. Even though Selby is a longtime Democrat and former party volunteer, the Thurston County Democratic Party didn’t endorse her. Usually when two Democrats are vying for the same office, the party endorses both. But her opponent, Nathaniel Jones, outflanked her on the left, and the party chose to endorse him exclusively.
It seems our local party activists got stuck in their 2016 embrace of Bernie Sanders, and just can’t break out of it. The party has moved so far left they now gather in a much smaller tent. Even those who agree with the local party’s progressive platform should worry about this contraction. The narrower the party’s base, the narrower its influence. As we head towards the critical 2020 election, this is pure folly.
And speaking of pure folly, how about that car tab initiative? (As of Friday, 51.3 percent of Thurston County voters had rejected the Tim Eyman measure, unlike the state as a whole.) We don’t yet know whether Initiative 976 will be successfully challenged in court, or how the legislature will respond to the gaping holes in transportation funding it creates. But it is profoundly discouraging that voters embarce anything the thoroughly discredited Eyman cooks up.
Equally disheartening is the much narrower defeat of Referendum 88, which would have taken Washington out of the club of shame of eight states that have banned affirmative action. The referendum would have made it legal for schools, universities and state government to recruit women and minorities to be part of the applicant pool – not, as its opponents claimed, to establish quotas, and certainly not to cancel out existing veteran preferences.
Democracy is frustrating. It takes more energy, education and compassion than we sometimes have at hand. It also requires living with both victory and loss, joy and sorrow. This election is no exception.
It’s time now to take down all the yard signs, and take a breather before next year’s much bigger electoral drama.