Brendan Kiley reports from Rock Salt:

Runte’s party and numbers seem stagnant, so I hopped across Westlake Ave to a house where hoodied youngsters and good old rock ‘n’ roll spilled out of the open door. I walked through the door into an empty vestibule, then hallway, then room, where a group of 30 (about the size of the Runte party) were grooving to an art punk trio from Sacramento called the Brilliant Red Lights. They were great! A young man next to me asked who I was and I said I was covering Al Runte’s campaign across the street for The Stranger. He smiled and nodded. I stayed for two songs of lovely, life-affirming music before slipping back to Runte’s lugubrious party, where new numbers had just come in—63.7 Nickels to 35.3 Runte.

Would-be mayor Runte began a speech. Some quotes: “We are the party of labor, of the environment, of civil rights. How we have let that slip away from us… Thank all of you who worked on this campaign, and all of you who turned out. This campaign has been so much fun. We started late, but next time—if there is a next time, and who knows—we may win this election. We will start earlier… If Mayor Nickels has won this election, he’s earned it—because we made him earn it… What made this country great is not coronations, but elections…. As Teddy Roosevelt said, ‘If you don’t like what you see in the mirror, throw your hat in the ring.’ “

[Ed. note: Teddy Roosevelt never mixed metaphors like that. The actual quote: “My hat’s in the ring.”]

There was a standing ovation. Then Runte sat down. I sat next to him. He and someone in a three-piece suit whose name I didn’t catch discussed launching a Runte blog. “You’re a good writer,” Three-Piece Suit said. “And you’ve got things to say.”