She has a doorbelling operation. A laid-off part time econ prof, she had her students canvassing for her in her challenge to Frank Chopp. The real test will be when she inevitably has to leave the state to get a job in her field. Will her supporters keep and expand on her voter database and use it with other candidates? I'm not holding my breath.

and that would keep her in the state for awhile.

As to whether her supporters keep her doorbelling operation together, no one can tell. Depends on whether they stay together in general, whether they can attract more candidates for other offices, and a variety of other factors.

(on edit)it's not really fair to say "she had her students doorbelling for her"-that sounds like she abused her powers as an instructor and forced her students to take part in a campaign they actually didn't WANT to support. If any of her students backed her, it was solely of their own free will. And Sawant's supporters were never JUST her students-they were people of all ages and races from all parts of her district. And her support base has only grown in this campaign.

If she had beaten Chopp, it wouldn't have harmed a damn thing. And now, there's no good reason for any progressive-minded person to back the right-wing corporate-toady incumbent she's challenging.

The city of Seattle has all or parts of 6 legislative districts. There is a movement afoot to have city electoral districts, which would give the less well heeled more of a chance.

This race is non-partisan, and the incumbent is utterly unworthy of any but Republican support.

That will happen again this year, but there is vastly more territory to cover, and also a Dem party challenger to Conlin. If she beats him and goes on to the general election, that would be a real landmark event. The August primary will apply only to contests with more than two candidates.

Conlin is supposedly a 'Pro-business Democrat", whatever that means.

--when he was the King County Dems voter outreach chair. He's young and has not held any other kind of office, but his stated values aren't corporate.

http://electbriancarver.com/

Isn't the real point, in a race like this, to elect the most progressive candidate?

I doubt Carver backs anything close to Sawant's living wage proposal.

Most candidates are Democrats, and they seek the endorsement of the King County Democrats and of every Dem legislative district organization with some or all of its territory in Seattle, even for non-partisan contests. (A Camp Wellstone organizer said that there are two things that distinguish workshops held in Seattle. 1--nover overbook because just about everyone who signs up will show up. 2-it's the only workshop in the entire country where people usually include their state legislative district in their personal introductions.)

I'm sure that more than a few members of these organizations will vote for Sawant to raise the issue of living wages, but the problem with progressives left of the Dem party is that they care far more for ideas than for elections. I've lived here 31 years, and Sawant is the first non-Dem progressive candidate who has ever bothered with a canvassing operation.

More typical is the ISO member who said at a health care panel I was on that nothing could be done unless progressives built an independent progressive party. Afterwards, I asked him what precinct he lived in. He said "I think the 43rd." I said "That's your state legislative district--what precinct?" He didn't know, and had never considered getting a CD with a list of King County registered voters for $30 from the Elections Department. Maybe Sawant is teaching him something, but I'm not going to hold my breath.

Conlin got 48%. He's something of a snake, and I think she'll get pretty close to him in the general election. Other incumbents got 60-75% of the primary vote.

because of how sickening the Seattle Times endorsement of Conlin will end up being.

I think she is going to surprise people. We'll see if she has the staying power to try again, and if her supporters use voter data to run other progressive candidates.

This result suggests that Sawant's campaign infrastructure could be the base to launch such a campaign(it will also be necessary to give such an effort possible candidate faces other than Sawant's, so the whole thing isn't dependent on her personal appeal.

This kind of thing almost got Matt Gonzalez elected mayor of SF a few years ago.

(There also needs to be an initiative campaign to create ward-based municipal elections rather than have every seat be "at-large". "At-large" municipal politics usually ends up getting controlled, at least subtly, by the local corporate elite, who tolerate some mild liberalism but won't allow any alternative to the current model, in which they are treated as gods who walk the earth, and to whom sacrifices must always be made.
or
If the Left were to be on the verge of winning control of local gov't in Seattle at some point, I'd really hope the national Dems wouldn't ever do what they did in the SF mayoral race, where they sent in heavy-hitters like Gore to campaign for that economic-royalist homeless-bashing scumbag Gavin Newsom. It's great that Gavin fought for SSM, but there is no excuse for any Dem, anywhere, to EVER make life harder for the poorest of the poor. No progressive greater good ever comes of that.

There is opposition to it among the more establishment Dems, but considerable support among the grasssroots. I'm hoping that people working on Sawant's campaign have come to realize that most voters aren't policy wonks. A lot could be done to get people to be better informed, but that does not mean you are going to turn most voters into political junkies. I became aware of that only in 2004. That was the year that Dennis Kucinich and Howard Dean asked their supporters to join their local Democratic party district organizations--in contrast to Nader in 2000, who only asked us to lobby to get him into the presidential debates.

Are they afraid they'll lose their "you HAVE to vote for me, because I can win citywide and people who agree with you can't" argument?

Or is it just that they wouldn't get all the corporate donations if they were running in districts where corporations can't necessarily buy the result?

I'd expect Sawant's people to be all over this...after all, they've chosen a central plank for their campaign(a real living wage proposal)that anyone who works for a living can connect with-something Conlin gave them a big opening to work with by opposing past living-wage proposals on the City Council.

It'll be hysterical hearing the Times(and Joel Connelly on the P-I website)blow gaskets over proposals for democratizing Seattle politics.

--and districts won't stop big money. The counterargument is that shoe leather is a counter to money, and it counts for more in a smaller districts. Incumbents are by definition successful fundraisers, and don't want to give up the advantages they now have. In Seattle, most elected officials are Dems, and the split is between corporate Dems and left Dems. The former, when campaigning, always try to sound more progressive. Gee, now where have we seen that before?