Thursday, August 06, 2015

Political Desk: Primary Wrap-Up

So the dust is settling, the brackets are mostly set, and we can forget about local politics for another few months and go back to complaining about the lack of rain and playing Frisbee golf. While other sites are going to engage in a lot of chin-wagging and beard-stroking in determining what it all means, here's what we have for our secret aerie on Grubb Street:

King County Director of Elections will be Julie Wise versus Zack Hudgins.  Ms. Wise got the majority of the votes, which is amusing since we were so happy to turn this into an elected office, then everyone recommends we vote for the unelected incumbent anyway.

Port Position 2 will have Courtney Gregroire crushing Goodspaceguy, who is running against her because someone has to. Seriously, with over 80% of the vote for Gregoire, nothing short of a major scandal or zombie apocalypse will change this result.

Port Position 5 is a surprise: Fred Fellemen, endorsed by the Stranger,is up against Marion Yoshino, who this blog endorsed (well, with another guy, but hey, our of 9 candidates that was pretty darn good). Both Mr. Fellemen and Ms. Yoshino are pro-environmental types, which may indicate in part the pushback from the Port's recent secret shenanigans regarding that Shell drilling rig.

Kent City Council Position 1 will have Hira Singh Bhullar against Tina Budrell. Third-place candidate's Bailey Stober's campaign was likely hurt in no small part by the announcement of a $2,000 fine from the PDC involving his LAST couple runs for office.

Public Hospital District 1 Commissioner Position 4 surprised me, in that it will be Savannah Clifford-Visker vs. Lawton Montgomery. Both candidates are of the "outsider" group, and the incumbent did not even place (though he could still be appointed to larger board that the elected board is part of). That's an interesting development.

Congratulations to the winners, solace to the losers, and the Political Desk is going to close up before the Republican Presidential candidates start talking.

More later,