A few days ago I blogged here about an election card in which Mike McGinn, candidate for mayor of Seattle, sounded like a conservative. McGinn is an environmentalist who is against the proposed deep-bore SR 99 tunnel; on his election card he argues against the tunnel because it has no entrances or exits for downtown, and because it puts Seattle taxpayers at risk. I didn't say these were bad arguments. I think they are pretty good arguments. I just said they were conservative arguments.

Now comes a survey showing that McGinn is the preferred candidate among Seattle Republicans. Here is the breakdown:

McGinn 15%
Nickels 10%
Mallahan 9%
Drago 5%
Donaldson 2%

There are far more Democrats than Republicans in Seattle, so Nickels is ahead overall. But McGinn is ahead among Republicans.

I'm not saying he's a Republican. (In this town, that's almost libelous.) I don't think any of the candidates I named is a Republican, nor could a Republican get elected. But given the candidates the Elephant party has to choose from, McGinn stands out because of his position against the tunnel and in defense of the taxpayer.So he gets more of their votes than any of the the others.