I'd been hearing this rumor for weeks, and thought too highly of him to believe it, but we just got a press release announcing that former Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels will run for Secretary of State.

“We need a Secretary of State not only working with counties to improve election oversight and participation, but a strong voice for transparency on how campaigns are financed, and keeping the voice of citizens in the initiative process,” said Nickels.

Oy.

First of all, Washington Secretary of State is the race where Democrats go to die, having last claimed the office sometime in the late 1400s. Second, to my recollection, no Seattle mayor has ever gone on to win any statewide race ever. The rest of the state hates us. Third, the last time Nickels ran for office—in Seattle—he came in third, behind Joe Mallahan and Mike McGinn, for chrisakes. Joe Mallahan and Mike McGinn!

Wait, I haven't run out of numbers yet.

Fourth, while I like Nickels, and voted for him in the primary, and I don't doubt he'd do a decent job as SoS, he has no particular qualifications for an office that's largely concerned with running elections. Of course, neither do either of the other Democrats running, but then they're not former Seattle mayors, so they don't automatically generate the suspicion throughout the rest of the state that their candidacies are part of a Seattle conspiracy to steal future elections.

And fifth, this is an office that has been dominated by former county auditors, like current Secretary Sam Reed and his hand-picked successor, Thurston County Auditor Kim Wyman. So I can't help but believe that a Nickels-Wyman race would just hand the office over to the Republicans in a landslide. Again. And that's a sad way for Nickels to put the final nail in his political career.