Voters' message is clear: Show us something new

Here come the neophytes.

In a low-turnout election, still newly in the middle of August, voters pushed the mad button to express angst about the economy and other worries. The devil you do not know became better than the devil you do know.

Three of four surviving candidates for two of the top public jobs in our region, mayor of Seattle and King County executive, have limited civic résumés. The desire for change in a sour economy trumped the more common demand for experience. Both leaders could be newcomers with huge learning curves.

In the mayor's race, voters wanted change so much they were willing to fall for a relatively unknown environmental leader and a cellphone company exec who skipped a lot of elections.

Just give us someone new, voters chanted. Or yelled.

If Mike McGinn, former chairman of the local Sierra Club, becomes mayor he wants to undo a long-fought agreement on a deep-bore tunnel to replace the Alaskan Way Viaduct. He prefers a surface-transit plan that will overwhelm downtown streets and the freeway.

McGinn lacks respect for an agreement eight years in the making. He needs to branch out from this one topic and become articulate on a range of issues bearing down on the city.

Top priorities in the mayor's race should be: fixing the city budget, now $73 million in the hole, making Seattle streets safer and less threatening with so many aggressive panhandlers, and developing smart transportation improvements.

Joe Mallahan, a political newcomer who brings credible management experience from his years at T-Mobile, has to offer arguments more compelling than I-am-new-and-I-am-not-the-mayor. He and McGinn need to find something beyond slapping Mayor Greg Nickels to run on.

Nickels ran a lousy mayoral campaign, acting as a punching bag for the other candidates for several months. He was too slow to react to challengers.

In the county-executive race, a clamor for someone new, Susan Hutchison, might be more compelling than the fact that she leans Republican in a largely Democratic county — even if she is sneaky and coy about it.

This is a nonpartisan office, but only recently. Democrats are unlikely to let anyone forget Hutchison's partisan inclinations.

County Councilman Dow Constantine, who calls himself a progressive Democrat, does have sufficient government experience. He chaired the council but also has shown limited interest in reform.

The county budget is broken. Spending is unsustainable. Parks are closing. Voters are left with one candidate who won't know how to fix government and another who won't.

Constantine promised one union he wouldn't touch current health benefits. In the months ahead, he has to prove he is not a puppet of the Service Employees International Union, one of the most politically aggressive unions in the state. He has to be specific about spending cuts he would favor.

Hutchison has to become much better versed on issues and prove she has the intellectual heft to lead the county.

In the weeks ahead, she must be clear how she might avoid closing parks, the budget in general and employee contributions to health premiums. Her stealth campaign for the primary is finished. She needs to stop hiding from the media and state clearly how she will improve the county.

Constantine has represented progressive lefty West Seattle. He has to prove he can grasp the needs of a much larger territory. So far he has not been convincing he can do that.

In Seattle it took 65 years before voters ousted an incumbent in the primary, Paul Schell in 2001. Just eight years later, citizens who are just as cranky and worried about the economy and the future did it again. In essence, voters told Nickels we cannot take another chance on you. It might snow again and we are not willing to take that risk.