Joe Mallahan, who is running for mayor, wants you to measure his qualifications based on his career as T-Mobile executive. "I believe I can do for the city of Seattle what I have done for T-Mobile," he says on his website. Here he is talking about his generosity to Hurricane Katrina victims as an executive for T-Mobile on YouTube. And here's his friend talking up Mallahan's work at T-Mobile on the campaign trail.

But Mallahan's campaign doesn't want you to associate the candidate with T-Mobile when it come to the company's poor track record on gay-friendly business practices. The Human Rights Campaign gave Bellevue-based T-Mobile the lowest ratings in Washington in its Corporate Equality Index in 2008 (.pdf; the company didn't get a review in the 2009 survey). Out of a 100 total score for LGBT-friendly practices, T-Mobile scored only 50 points on the report card, also making it the lowest ranked telecommunications company in the survey. In contrast, those monsters at AT&T, Sprint, and Motorola all got 100 points.

Charla Neuman, spokeswoman, says that Mallahan "would be shocked" by the news. She notes that Mallhan supports gay marriage, adores his lesbian neighbors, and marched in the gay pride parade. "He never had any hesitation to support the LGBT community. The fact that T-mobile is so low on the list will be news to him," says Neuman.

Mallahan also dismissed an anti-union memo apparently passed among T-Mobile executives. Jan Drago, who's up against Mallahan in the primary election next month, issued a statement this morning. Said Drago: "Joe Mallahan can’t have it both ways. He can’t brag about his management background as a T-Mobile executive when it’s convenient, and then disclaim T-mobile management practices when it conflicts with his campaign.”

The campaign for Jan Drago, the City Council member running for mayor, sent out an email last night rebuking Mayor Greg Nickels for giving Seattle City Light Superintendent Jorge Carrasco a $40,000 bonus. That morning, the other leading mayoral candidate (after Nickels and Drago), James Donaldson, had made a similar statement. The attack coming from Donaldson seemed like a cheap-shot attempt at election grandstanding; Carrasco’s contract and job performance basically entitled him to the bonus. But the attack coming from Drago is simply mindfucking—Drago one of the nine city council members who unanimously approved that contract in 2004 and reinstated it on June 23 last year. If she didn’t want Carrasco to be eligible for a $40,000 bonus, why did she approve it when it was clear the country was in a recession—a recession everyone knew was growing deeper?

The answer, of course, is that paying Carrasco $200,000 a year plus a bonus makes sense (even though that's a shit ton of dough, of the likes I will never see). He runs a gigantic utilities department. He also gets paid $47,000 to $118,000 less than counterparts in other counties, and giving him a bonus is the way to retain him. Drago turning around and attacking the mayor for executing that contract in good faith is absurd.

“It’s rank opportunism in an attempt to capitalize on headlines at the expense of good government,” says Nickels campaign spokesman Sandeep Kaushik.

Drago’s explanation, oddly, comes from her city council office—not her campaign. One of Drago’s aides says that the mayor should have withheld any bonus because the economy is screwed and Carrasco’s bonus was discretionary (different that the mayor's office statement yesterday that the bonus was required). But the argument falls flat. According to the contract—again, the one that Drago approved—the mayor was empowered to issue a 10-percent bonus for hitting a four-year tenure and an eight-percent bonus for a job well done, such as streamlining the department and reducing its debt (Carrasco did both). According to the contract: “In the event that the Superintendent does not accomplish all specified performance goals, the Mayor, at his sole discretion, may approve a bonus of less than 10%, or no bonus at all, depending on the Superintendent’s performance toward achieving the specified long term performance goals.” (The clause on job performance read the same, except it used the 8% figure, and it adds, "Payment of an annual bonus is contingent upon the Superintendent achieving the performance goals negotiated with the mayor.") Carrasco by all accounts nailed his performance goals. So while the bonus is at the mayor’s discretion, giving nothing for a job well done is clearly not the contract’s intent. Denying him the bonus, as Drago proposes, would have been asinine—Carrasco could leave the job (and no qualified person would want to fill a position that low balls the salary and then provides no bonus for a job done well). Sure, paying a city official big bucks in a recession could seem weird at face value—but not as weird as Drago approving the contract and then flipping out at the mayor for executing it.