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.