If you couldn't tell from our glowing prose, the SECB was enthusiastically unanimous in our endorsement of Richard Mitchell in the race to unseat 17-year incumbent Jane Hague in King County Council District No. 6. He's just simply better than us. And you. Trust us. In fact, if we had any hesitation, it was over who would have the best shot at defeating Hague, the uber-impressive Mitchell, or the better known Seattle Port Commissioner John Creighton.

Personally, I like Creighton, who has proven a pleasant surprise and an effective reformer during his two terms at the port. As I told him in the interview, he's one of the few elected officials for whom I've had the pleasure of voting first against, and then for. But as the video above shows, Creighton's got a "John Creighton problem" that in my opinion is more than enough to cancel out any electoral advantage he might have from his name ID, or his oh so Eastside I-used-to-be-a-Republican-before-I-was-a-Democrat pedigree.

Hague herself has a "Jane Hague problem," an embarrassing DUI arrest for which even the Seattle Times saw fit to call her out in the second paragraph of their enthusiastic endorsement of Mitchell:

Four years ago, Hague was stopped for drunken driving, was ill-mannered to police and blew an alcohol reading of 0.135, more than two-thirds above the legal limit. She was running for re-election but kept her arrest quiet during the filing period so that she had no credible opponent.

If these indiscretions were enough to cost Hague the Seattle Times' support, they're certainly enough to cost her the support of many 6th District voters, but only, you know, if voters actually hear about 'em. And whatever the circumstances, Creighton's own alleged indiscretions simply don't put him in a position to effectively go after Hague's weak point by raising the character issue. The story is out there—newspaper clippings, blog posts, videos like the one above—and you can be sure as hell that Hague would use it to blunt attacks on her own failings. We didn't mention it in our own endorsement because we preferred to highlight Mitchell's many positives, but drunk driver vs. stalker, accurate or not, well, I think that's a narrative that probably works to Hague's advantage.

Not surprisingly, Creighton didn't raise the issue of character or ethics in our SECB interview. Mitchell did (regarding Hague, not Creighton), and he did so both tactfully and effectively. If all it took to beat a mediocre incumbent like Hague was to put up a far superior challenger, politics would be far more uplifting. But it's not. To win this race, we need a challenger who is both willing and able to kick Hague while she's down. And that's a challenge for which the squeaky-clean yet aggressive Mitchell is simply better equipped.