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Thursday, July 14, 2005

“The Opposite of What She Said.”

Posted by on July 14 at 10:40 AM

Casey Corr defies the mayor? I don’t buy it.

At last night’s candidates’ forum in West Seattle (which my colleague Josh Feit also writes about below), the former Greg Nickels spokesman answered every question by defiantly refuting whatever Jan Drago said. Jan’s for the monorail? Casey hates it. Jan wants to spend the city’s Metro dollars on the South Lake Union streetcar? Casey “agrees with Nick” Licata, who says Metro bus hours shouldn’t be siphoned off to serve a single neighborhood.

Asked whether the city should transfer Metro hours that currently serve other parts of the city to the South Lake Union streetcar, Corr responded: “The council was wrong. The mayor was wrong. When I’m on the council, I will not pit neighborhoods against each other. … I agree with Nick.”

Politically, Corr is in a bind. After four years crafting Nickels’ agenda, he needs to distance himself from the mayor if he wants voters to take him seriously. He also needs to make a strong case against Drago, whose race he just jumped into early this week.

But for a guy who, one month ago, was unable to come up with a single issue on which he differed with Nickels, Corr’s sudden turnabout seems politically expedient and unconvincing.