My arches still ache from traipsing to eight election parties last night in downtown Seattle in To Boot loafers.
The vote tallies were depressing (and today's stock-market sell off and continuing slump in the U.S. dollar didn't help the mood). A few takeaways:
-- People don't want "politics" and compromise. I held my nose and voted for transit and roads -- Prop. 1 -- arguing that the package was better than doing nothing. Evidently there was just too much there for everyone to dislike.
-- Too few bothered to participate. Maybe Prop. 1 was so uninspiring that voters dismissed the whole election, which gave more power to obstructionists. How else to explain looney results like the victory of no-tax I-960 and the failure of simple majority for school levies?
-- The Establishment needs a shakeup. Everyone from council members to the biggest companies got slammed. On Prop. 1, they spent too much capital on TV ads and slogans ahead of the election, and not enough on honing the package and then inspiring the rest of us that it made sense. The region's leadership vacuum is clearer than ever.
So what's next? For transportation, the first priority should be reorganizing transit planning to align growth with infrastructure. Then we need transit plans with a) incentives to change lifestyle patterns and b) infrastructure that will start to meet growing demand.
Hopefully there's more to celebrate after the next vote.