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Tuesday, November 3, 2009

Election Mike O'Brien Braces for the Results

Posted by Stranger Election Control Board on Tue, Nov 3, 2009 at 6:00 PM

The race for City Council Position 8 has been particularly nasty, thanks to a well-financed campaign that outspent former Sierra Club chair Mike O'Brien three to one. The opposition campaign for Robert Rosencrantz, a conservative by Seattle standards, was bolstered by support from Forward Seattle, a PAC funded by landlords and realtors, which unleashed mailers an attempt to paint O'Brien as an anti-car zealot. "We have see in the past that negative attack ads—even complete lies—seem to work," O'Brien says. "I am hopeful that Seattle voters see through those strategies." O'Brien even filed a complaint with the Seattle Ethics and Elections Commission about what he says were unlawful campaign tactics.

"Internal polls show it is really close, but the negative ads have been damaging to me," Obrien says. But polling, he adds, is limited to landlines, and his supporters tend to be younger, progressives and immigrants with cell phones. He hopes a strong turn out and a backlash to his opposition campaign will help him out. "I've been getting calls from people saying, 'I’m voting for you because I heard what the other guy said about you and I didn’t like it,'" O'Brien says.