Bag Tax: Fail, Mayoral: Tie, KC Exec: 37 to 22

By Andrew at August 19th, 2009.

The Seattle Bag Tax, as earlier polling suggested, was dead on arrival. No word yet on whether the enviro-left campaigners who championed the measure believe this result will cause the world to end tomorrow.

The big city news, however, is that incumbent Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels is currently sitting in third place. Nickels hasn’t thrown in the towel quite yet, but has a tough fight on his hands, even if he manages to eke out a second place, or first place finish–he’s essentially in a 3-way tie with the other two lead contenders, Joe Mallahan and Mike McGinn.

The latter two both celebrated ecstatically at Irish Pubs in downtown. Nickels’ party was at a union hall, and reportedly and understandably more solemn in tone.

Rounding out the evening news, front-runner for the KC Executive position Susan Hutchison triumphantly declared “It’s a New Day in King County” from her primary election party at the Edgewater Hotel in Seattle.

Hutchison’s emergence as the top vote getter was announced by the former head of Fisher Communications, who introduced her, and noted she originally stayed at the Edgewater more than two decades ago while interviewing for another job she successfully landed: Anchor at KIRO-TV.

Hutchison telegraphed her strategy tonight against her clear opponent in the fall elections, according to SeattlePI.com:

“Hutchison said she wants voters to look beyond partisan politics. And she criticized Constantine for now proposing reforms for King County government when he’s had years to do so.

“He can do anything he wants and he could do it before today. For him to talk about the future when he has the power of the purse today is totally disingenuous,” she said.

Tags: Dow Constantine, Green Bag Campaign, Greg Nickels, Joe Mallahan, King County, Mike McGinn, Seattle, Seattle Bag Tax, Susan Hutchison