The August 4th primary is just around the corner, which will mean the end of the line for about 30 Seattle City Council candidates who won’t make it to the general election. According to the Seattle Times, the sheer number of candidates running in the first district election for the Seattle City Council makes the outcome unpredictable. A whopping nine candidate are vying for Seattle’s District 1 seat and eight are competing for the District 5 seat alone.
Considering it’s an election in the city of Seattle, one can reasonably expect more than a few bizarre candidates. That assumption would be more than fair. So, this Friday Funny we’re taking a look at the top 5 most odd candidates to grace the city’s ballot with their presence and one reason why they deserve a spot on this list. Without further ado,
- Seattle City Council member Kshama Sawant, seeking re-election in District 3.
Seattle’s favorite socialist deserves the top spot on this list. We could pick any number of reasons that qualify her—it was certainly difficult to settle on one. That’s why we went ahead a picked these two:
No one could deny that Sawant’s arrest at a protest in SeaTac over Alaska Airline’s push to block the $15 minimum wage was one of her most bizarre moments. While being led away in handcuffs, Sawant compared her “life-threatening” situation to “all the best activists in the past and in the present.”
Any list of the absurd things Sawant has done or said would not be complete without her call for machinists to take over Boeing after the union rejected a new contract deal. She said,
“The executives don’t do the work, the machinists do… We can re-tool the machines to produce mass transit like buses, instead of destructive, you know, war machines…We don’t need the executives; we need Boeing to be under democratic, public ownership by workers, by the community…Let’s redo the machines to build mass transit and help society.”
- Seattle City Council member Mike O’Brien, seeking re-election in District 6.
No list of bizarre Seattle candidates—and possibly even people—would be complete without O’Brien. The councilmember earned his spot on this list because, last month, he thought floating his kayak in Elliot Bay to join Greenpeace protesters—dubbed “kayaktivists”—was a good use of city time.
The Coast Guard detained a total of 24 kayaktivists, including O’Brien. They each received a $500 fine. No news of whether or not O’Brien has attempted to bill that $500 as an “official” expense for “constituent relations.”
- Bill Bradburd, seeking election to one of the council’s two citywide seats.
Bradburd, who describes himself as a neighborhood activist, earned a spot on this list for the shear silliness of his campaign slogan. His campaign slogan proudly declares, “Take Seattle Back!”
Of course, the obvious follow-up question is back from what? Seattle is already in the hands of people like Bradburd. There is no need for Bradburd to “take Seattle back” to the far-left, not with people like Sawant and O’Brien already on the city council.
- John Persak, seeking re-election in District 8.
Persak, an active International Longshore and Warehouse Union member, is taking on incumbent Tim Burgess. Persak earned a spot on this list with his reasoning for why he is seeking election. Persak told the Seattle Times that he decided to run because he doesn’t believe that Burgess is liberal enough… that’s not a joke, he said that. Like fellow council hopeful Bradfurd, Persak appears to have difficulty understanding the current state of politics in Seattle.
- Rob Johnson, seeking election to one of the council’s two citywide seats.
Johnson is the executive director of Transportation Choices, a transit advocacy group that pumps funds into liberal campaign causes. He entered the race with political weight behind him, gaining the support of King County Executive Dow Constantine and King County council members Larry Philips and Joe McDermott.
Johnson earned a spot on this list for helping to lead the charge on the original Proposition 1 and blatantly lying to King County voters on why they need to pay more of their hard-earned tax dollars to “save Metro.”
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