Why Seattle elections are great (and Dan's endorsements!)

There's a guy running for King County Executive named Goodspaceguy (just one name), who has a blog (note the title) in which he continually refers to himself in the first and third person.

That said, if you're in Seattle, you should vote, because then you can be self-righteous about voting. Who to vote for? I'll tell you, based on recommendations I can gather. (the "voter's guide" you get in the mail is useless.) If you disagree on anyone, let me know; I'm by no means well-qualified or very knowledgeable here. I read local blogs. Here's what I've gathered.

Let me also say that I think the biggest issue at stake is the deep-bore tunnel. We have a crumbling Highway 99, AKA the Alaskan Way Viaduct. The plan, as of now, is to replace it with a $4.2 billion tunnel. Problems:
1. it's way too expensive
2. it's underfunded (even at $4.2 billion)
3. will this be another Big Dig (like that thing in Boston which sucked)? Okay, nevermind, that's not a logical argument, it's just an attempt to elicit fear.
3. (most importantly) it makes Seattle car-friendlier. Furthermore, it makes it sprawl-friendlier by making it easier to get through downtown, without ever actually going downtown.

This is a big issue, because it's a lot of money. I'm afraid of getting mired in this plan for a decade, raising taxes higher and higher and cutting other stuff because we're so out of money for it. So my #1 criterion for a candidate in this election is "is he/she against the tunnel?"

And I'll put these races in ballot order, with bold if I particularly care. If you only vote in one race, vote McGinn for mayor.

King County Exec: Dow Constantine. Sierra club (and other environmental groups?), the Stranger, Cascade Bicycle Club, some Eastside democrats.

Court of Appeals, Division 1, District 1: Anne Ellington. Seattle Times, Stranger, and I don't care enough to dig deeper.

Port of Seattle Commissioner, positions 3 and 4: Rob Holland and Max Vekich (Stranger likes Albro but he has a lot of big-business donors). Stranger, Publicola, Eat the State (hard left group; I'm stretching here)

Seattle Mayor: Mike McGinn. (this is in big letters, for all you facebook readers) Publicola, Stranger, Hugeasscity, Friends of Seattle, and he's the most (only?) anti-tunnel.

Seattle Council position 4: David Bloom. Seattle Weekly, Eat the State, Publicola, and he actually said something in his voter-guide statement. This race is interesting. Apparently the Seattle Transit Blog hates Bloom, but the far-left loves him, and he's an activist. Dorsol Plants seems good too, and I like young people because I am one.

Seattle Council position 6: Jessie Israel. Cascade Bicycle Club, Friends of Seattle, Seattle Transit Blog. Apparently Nick Licata's been around for a while, and a pretty good standard lefty who votes "no" on bad ideas. But Israel seems likeable and full of good change ideas, and better for transit.

Seattle Council position 8: Mike O'Brien. A big "no downtown deep-bore tunnel" in bold letters sold me. If that's not enough, how about the Stranger, Publicola, Cascade, Friends of Seattle, and the Seattle Transit Blog? Thank goodness one of these races is easy.

Plastic bag tax: oh my god vote yes. Everyone agrees. Except the $1.3 million from the chemical lobby.

Seattle School District No. 1 Director District No. 5: Mary Bass. I guess. Publicola and Eat the State are behind her. Seattle Times isn't, but I tend to disagree with the Times, really. It's the newspaper for the suburbs. Publicola has a good point: if the schools are going to get shaken up soon (likely) good to have someone with experience there.

Discuss! You have a few days to convince me if I'm wrong on anything here, and then I'll mail in my ballot.