My old Alma mater, the Stranger , put mayoral candidate Mike McGinn on its cover today.

Very cool. PubliCola endorsed McGinn , and we'd like to see him go through to the second round. The Stranger cover can only help McGinn in the tight race among the challengers—the Stranger distributes about 80,000 copies and has over 400,000 readers.

It's not very often the Stranger puts a local candidate or ballot issue on the cover to nudge an election.



I only did it a few times when I was news editor there back in the 1950s: For Nickels against Mark Sidran in the 2001 general election; "No and Hell No!" on the rebuild and tunnel in the 2007 special election; Yea on the  big monorail vote in the 2002 general election; and for Judy Nicastro and Heidi Wills in the 2003 primary election.

4-0, baby.   (Nicastro and Wills went on to lose in the general, but we  nudged their sorry asses through that tough primary.)

Here's hoping McGinn keeps the streak alive.