There are plenty of important races on the Sept. 18 primary ballot in Seattle, but dominating the list is the race to become Seattle's mayor for the next four years, featuring what may possibly be the worst set of choices to confront area voters in modern history--and that's saying something. The last time we ran an endorsement article (remember Gore v. Dubya?) the headline was "This Election Sucks"; this time, the headline hardly does the dilemma justice, though it's mostly one office that is responsible. Unfortunately, it's an extremely important office.

But before that, let's review the other items on next Tuesday's ballot, including some fairly interesting City and County Council races and some very good folks running for City Attorney (!), School Board, and Port of Seattle (no, they're not all likely to win).

The usual caveats: actually changing things is an entirely separate process, requiring getting out on the streets and into the community and organizing. Voting is only helpful when we're powerful enough to train, run, and elect good people, and then be able to tell them what to do. And as this list shows, we've got a ways to go on all those scores. As for these folks, as usual, don't take our word for it. Do your own research, make up your own mind.

King County Executive: Ron Sims will coast to re-election over token Republican sacrificial lambs Santos Contreras (likely to survive til November) and Alan Lobdell (likely to be forgotten by next Wednesday), and Libertarian David Fries. Fries appears to come from the right-wing, business- friendly end of the Libs, which is a shame, since much of what the County Exec does involves issues of sprawl. Sims, however, is the worst of both worlds; he's in bed with developers, has slashed social spending in the last two years' county budgets--claiming there was no money--and at the same time found the money to vastly expand his own office. Skip it.

King County Council, Pos. No. 1: Maggi Fimia's seat, now open, with two Republicans and a Dem. running. One of the few perks my work at the Seattle Weekly affords me is that I sit on its editorial board, and participate in the candidate interviews. Here's one race where it makes a difference. The Dem is Carolyn Edmonds, a three-year "moderate" state legislator who hasn't done a thing since arriving in Oly. (In other words, she's fit right in to the Seattle delegation of spineless, safe-seat Democrats.) She'll be on the November ballot regardless. One of the two Republicans is Kelly Snyder, a scarily conservative young lobbyist (funny how anti-government zealots often want things from government...). She's running against Ed Sterner, and he'd be worth voting for in the primary just to take Snyder out. But as it happens, Sterner is great; I, as well as just about every other Weekly ed board person, liked him over Edmonds. If you didn't know the labels you'd have thought he was the liberal. There's a question of partisan control of the council come November (it's currently a 7-6 Repub. edge), but we'll deal with that later. For the primary, Ed Sterner.

King County Council, Pos. No. 5: Dwight Pelz is defending his south end seat against challenger Mark Wheeler. Pelz is troubling on a few things; he's a relentless cheerleader for light rail--at any cost, and at grade--in adistrict that hates it; and he's a white guy in a largely non-white district. But Wheeler is good on Sound Transit but entirely unrealistic on what he thinks he can do about it, and he's pretty fuzzy on a lot of other stuff. Pelz, meanwhile, has done a reasonably good job of being a liberal who's not always repugnant. Dwight Pelz.

King County Council, Pos. No. 13: This is the pivotal south county race that's expected to determine the party balance of power on the county council in November. Here, again, there's a state legislator on the Dem. side who'll be on the general ballot, Julia Patterson, and two Republicans to pick from, one of whom is genuinely frightening. Pam Roach has long been in the vanguard of Olympia's loony right--not in the sense of Ellen Craswell, but think Jesse Helms in a skirt. Vote strategically to keep her out of the general election; vote for her opponent, Les Thomas.

Port of Seattle, Pos. No. 3: The repugnant Paige Miller--"repugnant," incidentally, is an offical part of the Port's title for its commissioners-- is up for re-election against three fringe candidates--permanut Richard Pope, privatization advocate Tony Devino, and anti-third-runway guy Andy Kleitsch. Put the candidates in an interview room, and just before your accomplice turns on the carbon monoxide, call Andy Kleitsch into the hall.

Port of Seattle, Pos. No. 4: The double-triple Pat "Miss WTO" Davis, queen of the quadruple-dip, is up against Al Yuen ("Vote for me! I'm Asian! The Port serves Asia! I'm Asian, too!"); union guy Jake Jacobovitch (don't salute just yet--that's what corrupt 25-year Port commissioner Jack Block runs on, too); and Chris Cain, an anti-WTO activist and son of former Derdowsky aide and fair trade campaigner Chris Cain. No-brainer: Chris Cain.

Seattle School Board, Pos. No. 4: Corporate hack Don Nielson is gone; he'll be replaced by Pat Griffith, a PTSA mom of no clear intent (and therefore a danger to be an SSD patsy); Dick Lilly, former spokesperson for Paul Schell (gurgle); and cousins Larry and Sally Soriano. Larry is a pathetic joke. It pains me to say this, but Sally ran, at best, an uneven campaign. In her Weekly interview, she did terribly, perhaps the worst performance of anyone we had in. Every answer became a harangue against a global corporate conspiracy--she's right, of course, but the mechanics and decisions involved in running a school district are very, very far removed from international treaty negotiations. It was painful to witness, doubly so listening to the incredulous reactions afterwards, because Sally is, more than any other single person, responsible for shutting down the WTO when it came to Seattle. Her tireless advocacy and organizing for the past decade on trade issues was only a precursor to her heroic work in 1999, and she deserves everyone's support. But she's not likely to win. Hopefully, she'll run again and, next time, stick more closely to the local issues people understand and care about. In the meantime, she deserves our votes anyway, in lieu of the national holiday she really deserves. Sally Soriano.

Seattle School Board, Pos. No. 5: Six candidates, five of them pretty good, vie to replace Michael Preston: Tyson Vo (the forgettable one--seems to invoke the need for discipline a lot); Juan Cotto, David Barfield, Mary Bass, Dana Twight, and Pat Wright. Wright, of Total Experience Gospel Choir fame, is a fixture in local social justice circle, and is fairly likely to appear in the finals against the rather oily (personable, but disturbingly ambitious) Juan Cotto. Twight has long been a central person in the Citizens' Campaign for Commercial-Free Schools (which I helped start and still adore). But I have to say that I was most impressed in the interview with Mary Bass, and given the district's enormous, pressing problems with disproportionality- -that is, black students get much worst grades and lots more discipline--the African American Bass gets the slight nod over Twight, for the need to replace the board's only African-American with someone else from that community. Why can't these six be running for mayor? Mary Bass, but vote for Wright or Twight with pride.

Seattle School Board, Pos. No. 7: (This appears in the Voters' Pamphlet as the last page of Pos. No. 1--beware of the typo!) Wet noodle incumbent Jan Kumasaka is awful; she was elected to the board as a suitably docile replacement for the "Japanese seat" (her predecessor was also Japanese), and she's done very little beyond nod off or suck up at meetings when vigilance and a bullshit detector are desperately needed. Her challengers are Charlie Mas and Garry Breitstein. Long-time teacher Breitstein is anti-testing, which is admirable but too late--it's a state- and federally-mandated reality, and the challenge for the board is ensuring that the WASL's don't lead to the entire district teaching to the tests. Mas seems a bit more grounded, but let's go with Breitstein just to get a testing-skeptical voice--and a teacher--on the board. And let's get Kumasaka out. Garry Breitstein.

Seattle City Attorney: Ding, dong, the witch is dead, which old witch? The wicked witch! Ding, dong, the wicked witch is--oh, um, hi. The best news here is that any of the three candidates running would be a quantum inprovement over Sidran, which is to say, none of them are his clones or subordinates and all are critical of the job he's done--which they should be. Jim Cline is the most suspect--he's running as "pro-union," but it turns out that his unionism is primarily police guilds and he has a union-bashing history; the King County Labor Council is opposing him. He is, however, highly critical of Sidran's management--an issue progressives forget due to his "civility" atrocities, but it's yet another horror story. Tom Carr, inexplicibly, says he'd keep Sidran's top two guys, but he's also a long-time Democratic activist and strong on social justice issues. Edsonya Charles is the least-known of the candidates, but the best; she was central to the anti- I-200 affirmative action fight and has a solid history of doing good things. She's a bit weak on managerial experience, but more trustworthy, I think, than someone whose campaign is based on his party connections. She's also the most common choice of the progressive lawyers and PD's in town. Edsonya Charles.

Seattle City Council, Pos. 2: (Position 4, incidentally, is Nick Licata's seat, and since he has only one opponent--and, happily, a token one at that--he won't be on the ballot 'til November.) In each of the three city council races on the ballot, a disappointing incumbent is running against vastly politically superior challengers. Here, it's Richard Conlin and four challengers. Conlin has been maddening. On some issues, the former Green and YES! Magazine guy is great--nuclear subs at Seafair, teen dance ordinance, sustainability projects. But on too many other things, he's been poor to awful--especially on class issues. He's a relentless apologist for gentrification (including SHA's removal of low-income housing) and victim- blaming; he was the swing vote that upped contribution limits for local elections by 50% to $600, a move that's stacked the local political odds even more heavily in favor of downtown big money. His tendency to new age, feel- good rhetoric is never more patronizing than when he's lecturing poor people on their failings. Conlin's good deeds are outweighed by the harm he's done, and he has two good challengers: Michael Preston and Jay Sauceda. Preston spent 20 years as the most progressive voice on the school board, but for the last two terms he's been a virtual no-show, and embroiled in financial controversies to boot. He says all the right things, but isn't likely to do the work. Jay Sauceda, however, is. A former aide to Charlie Chong during his year on council, Jay previously put out the invaluable "911" guide to local community activism. He's not ideal, but his failings are far less grating than Conlin's. Jay Sauceda.

Seattle City Council, Pos. 4: The horrendous Jan Drago defends her big business-soaked seat against Curt Firestone. The worst candidate in the council races, running against the best. Curt Firestone.

Seattle City Council, Pos. 8: There are four people running against incumbent Richard McIver, but the only one who matters is Grant Cogswell, who put the first monorail initiative on the ballot. (Stan Lippmann is running--at least he's not running on his anti-vaccine platform this time-- but if he gets more than one vote--his own--he'll run again, so don't you dare.) McIver, a career housing bureaucrat, was originally appointed by a heavily pro-downtown city council as a House Negro--a "safe" African American to fill the seat abandoned by wife-beater John Manning. Now, he's the only non-white on the council, and it's fallen to him to describe to the council what it's like to be racially profiled (WTO) or living in a neighborhood under seige (Aaron Roberts). He's done a barely adequate job at these things; meanwhile, he's been a disaster as transportation chair (for proof, try driving or riding a bus somewhere); and most of the rest of his performance hasn't been very good, either, although he has been offering a few more progressive votes of late. Cogswell is better on virtually every issue across the board. I would normally be reluctant to replace the council's only non- white, no matter how repulsive (and McIver's only mildly so); but he'll win easily anyway, so go ahead and vote for Grant Cogswell.

Mayor of Seattle:

Shit.

No, wait. Check that. SSHHHHIIIITTTTTTTTTTTTTTT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

That's the selection of candidates, as well as the response of an astonishing number of voters this year, for Seattle's most powerful job. We're confronted with three front-runners, all of whom are, in their unique ways, surely signs of an imminent apocalypse. And then there are nine other folks running, at least seven of whom have some claim on progressive credentials--and every single one of them has flaws, too, many of them serious. Usually, in a major race, there's a general concensus among ETS! volunteers. This time, among those I asked, I got the following: One for Kennedy; two for Schaber; two for Chong--one serious, one because they thought Chong was so pathetic it'd be funny; one "none of the above"; and one refusing to vote in the race. I can't ever remember such a variety of responses among ETS! folks to an important, contested race.

What to do? You decide: I'm gonna rate candidates, more or less from worst to best, and then suggest how I'll personally choose, but leave it to you to pick for yourself.

Paul Schell: A lot of people won't agree with my listing him as worse than Sidran, but at least Mark is predictably evil. Schell is dangerously-- fatally, in Kris Kime's case--incompetent, which I think is worse. But it's ajudgment call.

Mark Sidran: Satan incarnate. Civility laws, race and class bigotry, union-bashing, incompetent management--what's not to hate and fear?

Richard Lee: Stark, raving mad. Best known for his obsessive "Who Killed Kurt Cobain?," but more notorious in local media circles for the string of no-contact orders with media outlets from Chicago to Seattle.

Max Englerius: Nut alert! Check out the latter part of his Voters Pamphlet statement; it goes downhill after he mentions being fired by the city. The worst is at the end: No drinking without a "Liquor Consumption License," obtained by mandatory attendance of "classes [which] teach how liquor effects [sic] the nervous system. Keep democracy on a benevolent track." I think he's serious.

Scott Whittemore and Piero Bugoni: Danger, Will Robinson. Two candidates who are complete mysteries--no Voters Pamphlet entry, no campaign appearances, nada. Scott is not to be confused with Thomas Whittemore, a fairly decent unsuccessful candidate for city council two years ago. According to the Seattle Times, he was last heard from in July, when his answering machine said he was checking into a mental institution. Maybe he was just on his way to a candidates' forum.

Greg Nickels: With Schell and Sidran, the third frontrunner, and not much better--but clearly better. His biggest claim to fame is being the finance chair for Sound Transit as it has become perhaps the biggest sinkhole of taxpayer money in regional history. Other than that--and bashing WTO activists--he hasn't done much in office, except run for, and lose, other offices. But now might be his time. A typical liberal, in all the worst senses of the word.

Bob Hegamin: His fairly reasonable sounding anti-corruption, anti- waste message is somewhat belied by the fact that he's run for office seven previous times since 1981, and still hasn't gotten a single contribution.

Omari Tahir-Garret: If Omari hadn't allegedly whacked Paul Schell with a megaphone, he'd merely be a somewhat well-known zealot. Now he's a famous one, and the good activism he's done over the years has been buried not just by The Incident, but by how he handled his fifteen minutes. Too bad.

Christal Wood: Christal is a nice person--when she's not livid because you didn't flock to her campaign. She's going to be very, very angry this fall, because she didn't get on the ballot and is running as a write-in; almost nobody knows who she is (a shame--as the only woman, she would have finished at least fifth doing nothing else). Christal was endorsed by the Seattle Greens--I believe because she's the only member running--and she worked hard on last year's Nader campaign. Her platform is great. The problem? She seems fairly...Unstable? Immature? Her ETS! article in July, railing against people who hadn't flocked to her campaign when they'd never heard of her, wasn't a good sign. She's relatively young, and I'm hoping additional activist experience will ground her some and give her abetter network with which to run for office. That's the hope. She could also become Richard Lee. It could go either way.

Charlie Chong: ETS! has endorsed Chong three times--it would have been four, had we been publishing in 1995. We backed him over Schell four years ago. But that was then. Now, he's not a serious candidate, despite polls showing him a solid fourth. In part, it's his age and health; he doesn't look good, and I doubt he'd survive four years (seen then & now photos of Paul Schell from 1997?). That means, what, Margaret Pageler as mayor? Eek. But more, his focus--what there was of it--is gone. The anti-downtown movement is basically dead; Chong is running only because he doesn't like the other candidates, but seems to have no clear idea of what he's offering instead. For both reasons, it's a good thing he's making few actual campaign appearances--exposure won't help him. It's sad--like seeing a star athlete hang on past his prime.

Caleb Schaber: I like Caleb; I wish he hadn't chosen a photo for the voter's pamphlet that makes him look like a biker who's been in the holding cell three nights. But then, he hasn't seemed to be running very hard, anyway, which is a shame, because he has good ideas and good things to say. And remember, a few years ago Portland did elect a guy from a bar (Bud Clark) as mayor. It beats having 12 years of City Attorney on your resume.

Scott Kennedy: Definitely has rubbed some people the wrong way, but Ilike Scott; his platform is solid, he's thoughtful, young, energetic, and could be a good candidate in the future. Unfortunately, he seems to have been very disorganized this campaign; at the first five engagements I was aware of involving him (an ETS! article, the SW ed board interview, another interview, and two fundraisers) he was either late or MIA, and that's not a good sign for someone who wants to be 11,000 people's boss.

That's it. No clear-cut choice--just a number of clear-cut disasters at the other end, and nobody who commands enthusiasm or even suggests competence.

Often, ETS! has recommended skipping a race, or a facetious write-in, but with the terrifying Schell and Sidran near the top of the polls, the stakes are too high for that. For the first time in ETS!'s five years, I have no idea what to recommend. Here's what I'm going to do--take it for what it's worth. My top priority is knocking out either Schell or Sidran (ideally, both). I'll look at the polls going in. If there's a chance that both Schell and Sidran would face off against each other in the final, I'm voting for Greg Nickels. If Nickels is leading in the polls and it looks like Chong could finish second, I'll vote for Charlie Chong. (But only if Nickels is ahead; Chong would lose bigtime in the final regardless, so Chong vs. Sidran or Schell is death.) Otherwise, I'm voting for a lesser- known candidate. I'd recommend Caleb Schaber or Scott Kennedy. Good luck. We'll need it.