Primary Election 2013

by Alex Fryer
Tonight, at parties all across town, anxious candidates and their supporters will be hitting the re-fresh button on their smart phones to get the earliest results from today’s primary election. It’s been a long campaign with plenty of twists and turns. Trust me; I worked as communications director for the Tim Burgess campaign. Burgess’ decision not to file was by far the biggest shocker of the season. That left Bruce Harrell as the only sitting council member still in the race, and while he has run a stable and capable campaign, he’s considered a long shot. It’s been since 1989 when Norm Rice was elected mayor that a Seattle City Council member moved to the big office.  Early on, this seemed to be a great year for leveraging council experience. On the trail, Mayor McGinn often talked about the lamentable lack of a “mayor’s school” that would have helped him prepare for his term. The general mood of the city was to return the mayor’s office to an experienced hand. But only one of the nine council members is on the ballot, and unless Harrell pulls out a miracle, Norm Rice’s feat will not likely be repeated in 2013.