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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsSocialist doesn't win, but receives 46 percent of vote in Seattle city council election
By Eric Scigliano
Kshama Sawants election-night party seemed more like a rent party or a rally. The venue, Capitol Hills Melrose Studios, was a cement-floored basement, not a hotel ballroom. There was not a TV screen in sight, just many, many posters and vinyl banners. Two featured the iconic image of Che Guevara that once graced so many dorm rooms and head shops. One bore a classic inscription: Trabajadores del mundo, únanse Workers of the world, unite!
Fresh-faced young greeters along the long table at the entrance insisted that arrivees sign both a sign-up sheet and a name tag, and implored them to contribute $15. This party is costing us $1,200, one explained big money for a socialist running for city council.
Once I entered the party a pleasant woman in an enormous furry cap and fingerless gloves paused to check out my name tag, and I checked hers. Meow, it said. Woof, I naturally replied. She laughed and said, Its the anarchists versus the socialists, and we both got it. Cats are anarchists, dogs are socialists, though not necessarily democratic ones.
........(snip)........
With 46 percent of the early returns, Sawant came closer to winning than even her supporters expected, closer than not only all the other three city council challengers but than Mayor Mike McGinn himself. And that was running against an incumbent widely regarded as able, earnest and solidly mainstream-Seattle progressive. Richard Conlin had won by wider and wider margins since 1997, when he himself unseated a City Council incumbent. .................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://crosscut.com/2013/11/07/elections/117332/disenchantment-dismay-less-your-kshama-sawant/
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Socialist doesn't win, but receives 46 percent of vote in Seattle city council election (Original Post)
marmar
Nov 2013
OP
MineralMan
(146,296 posts)1. Anything is possible in local elections.
That's worth remembering. A surprisingly small number of voters can make anything happen, and that's why no election is too small for people to work hard on. First, win the city council election, and then move up from there. That's how you do it.
gopiscrap
(23,760 posts)2. Excellent
wasn't Bernie Sanders a socialist when he was elected mayor of Burlington Vermont?