The West Seattle Democratic Women are sponsoring a debate between City Attorney Tom Carr and challenger Pete Holmes, who face off in the general election. The Carr campaign has been attempting to call into question whether Holmes, who chaired the police-misconduct oversight committee for five years in his capacity as an attorney, is qualified to be the city attorney. The debate emerged in the comments of this article a couple weeks ago and has erupted into a full scale attack. Not only has Carr's campaign doubted that Holmes's background as a bankruptcy attorney is inadequate, Carr's campaign manager Cindi Laws has argued that Holmes isn't a practicing attorney, and thus fails to meet the city-charter-mandated requirements for office (she even posted on her Facebook page today that "Holmes doesn't meet Seattle Charter requirements for the position he is running for"). She made the same argument when I spoke to her a few weeks ago. Goldy dismantles her bogus claim today on Horse'sAss.

Speaking of ass, Holmes has been kicking Carr's ass all over the map in District Democrat endorsement meetings—winning all but Carr's home 34th District—by decrying Carr's rabid pursuit of low-level, nonviolent crimes (like charging people caught in a bar sting with one-year jail terms) and defending the city in cases that Holmes says the city should just concede failure (like restricting the place a man can blow up balloon animals in Seattle Center).

The debate begins at 11:00 a.m. on Thursday, September 24 at the West Seattle Golf Course. There are only 175 seats available and you must RSVP on the debate's Facebook page for a ticket (the group hasn't set a price yet but they say it will be "a nominal fee").

Everyone running for city council will be on stage. Put your questions and demands for them in comments—pressing policy issues, truth or dare, feats of strength, pudding wrestling—and Washington Bus's Toby Crittenden will ask the best ones. Then you, the no-admission-paying audience member, decide when you've heard enough by texting your least favorite candidates off the island.

Free admission! Full bar! Lightning rounds! Face off between City Attorney Candidate Pete Holmes and incumbent City Attorney Tom Carr (assuming Carr shows up)! And more drinks!

Last week, The Stranger published its patented Snowball’s-Chance-in-Hell—O-Meter, which rates the likelihood of a candidate making it through the top-two primary. Mayor Greg Nickels is a shoo-in; the question is who will face off with him. Last night, the candidates went head-to-head at a forum at Spitfire sponsored by Friends of Seattle. The four challengers present (Mallahan was absent for a family emergency, Nickels was in D.C., and Elizabeth Campbell and Kwame Wyking Garret weren't there) began by jotting down answers to a lightning round of questions from moderator Erica C. Barnett, the sparkling new news editor of PubliCola. How do you get to work? Jan Drago, who lives downtown, walks. James Donaldson, a resident of Magnolia, drives a car.

It wasn't the most exciting debate—the room was full of local-politics insiders, and even they looked mostly bored—but the questions were good, Mike McGinn gave some great answers, and several of the candidates shifted states of matter (either melting or solidifying their Snowball’s Chance in Hell).

Mike McGinn made the strongest appearance of the night. His central talking point is opposing the deep bore tunnel under downtown, which he forecasts as a boondoggle of runaway costs that's bad for the environment and provides little long-term transportation value for the city. “If I am mayor, I guarantee you, they are not going to build that tunnel through town,” he said. It's a wise tack, considering polling conducted by his campaign in late May shows that McGinn jumps from fourth place to a commanding lead when voters are told the tunnel’s cost overruns could cost the city big bucks and that McGinn is the only mayoral candidate who opposes it. Barnett was smart to frame questions around obstacles—heading off proposals that the mayor couldn’t enact (as in, don’t talk about plans for light rail as a solution for transportation because that’s a regional issue, not a municipal one). But McGinn shot back that he didn’t buy the argument that the mayor is powerless to influence major transportation. He noted that Nickels went to Olympia and leveraged about $900 million in city spending if the state would cover the remaining $3 billion for a tunnel; McGinn would use that transportation funding for a surface/transit option and other tunnel alternatives. McGinn says that we would have money for other programs if we just avoid building the tunnel. He had few good ideas, such as convening social service providers for interventions for at-risk youth. He also turned The Stranger's critique that his education proposals are irrelevant because those issues are left to the school board, not the mayor; McGinn suggest replicating Norm Rice's education summits, drawing together local leaders, to help schools. "Don't just say schools are not our department, but ask how I can make a difference." He has solidified from a glass of ice water to a partially melted snowball.

James Donaldson supports expanding the street car line and thinks the way to solve the city's education problems is to continue to honor his commitment to reading to school kids one afternoon a week. He mentioned his size a lot (big problems need a big person, he said), and he talked about teamwork a lot (he knows about teams because he used to play basketball). Some of his statements were bizarre: When asked about kids, he said, “Everyone here is of child-bearing age,” referring to the group of bar patrons. He has been downgraded from partially melted snowball to a glass of ice water.

Norman Sigler, the most attractive candidate of the bunch (and a homosexual who is “not running as a gay candidate”), took issue before the forum with how The Stranger characterized his campaign platform—“blah, blah, blah”—and promised to present a lot of great ideas. On stage, Sigler repeatedly called to “bring everyone together" (AKA, blah, blah, blah) and his transportation idea was to “revisit the monorail.” Yeesh. He also suggested that we can help kids by focusing on all kids and all adults (focusing on everyone!). Last week, Sigler's status was water; he has since turned into water vapor.