Position 4 candidate David Bloom.

The two Mikes—McGinn, currently in the top spot in the mayoral primary, and O'Brien, far ahead of the pack for City Council Position 8—were the story of last week's primary election.

But what about the two Davids—Bloom (in a distant second place for Position 4) and Miller (in a distant fifth place in the six-way race for Position 8)? Both raised a respectable amount of money (around $68,000 for Bloom, around $64,000 for Miller), and both were the subject of early predictions that they'd come in first (in Miller's case) or a relatively close second (in Bloom's).

Instead, Miller ended up in fifth (778 votes, as of this afternoon, behind fourth-place finisher Bobby Forch), and Bloom got just 18 percent to his leading opponent Sally Bagshaw's formidable 51 percent. On election night, Bloom told me he was "astonished" and "disappointed" at the results; Miller hasn't  returned a call for comment.

Both Davids have a fair amount in common. Both oppose density except in specific cases; both talk about "protecting our single-family neighborhoods;" both oppose investing money in big downtown projects like the Mercer Mess instead of things like sidewalks in the neighborhoods; and both have long been involved in grassroots activism—Miller as longtime head of the Maple Leaf Community Council, and Bloom as co-founder of the Seattle Displacement Coalition and former deputy director of the Seattle-area Church Council.

And they're both throwbacks.

Both Davids' defeats clearly stem, in part, from voters' repudiation of the no-growth-no-matter-what neighborhood movement of the '80s and '90s.  Although that perspective clearly still resonates with some voters, a far bigger swath are moving toward candidates like O'Brien and McGinn, who argue convincingly that being pro-neighborhood these days means supporting things like rail, density and urbanism. The neighborhood-vs.-downtown battles of the 1990s, in which environmental crusaders and neighborhood activists squared off against growth and density, now resonate less than the battle over what Seattle will look like in 50 years. That's the battle O'Brien and McGinn are waging, while Miller and Bloom are mired in the movements of 20 years ago.

To be fair, there's more to their disappointing showings than that—particularly in Bloom's case. As Bloom's campaign consultant John Wyble notes, Bloom was up against a candidate, Sally Bagshaw, with roots in the city's deep-pocketed establishment and a Rolodex that would be the envy of any first-time candidate. All the messaging in the world couldn't have put Bloom (a political unknown who, as Wyble puts it, "started at zero") on top against a well-connected candidate outspending him three to one. And Bloom, frankly, misspent his money—investing heavily in ad buys on obscure cable programs, instead of packing voters' mailboxes with flyers, as Bagshaw did.

"Sally did a typical Seattle campaign where you raise $150,000 and don't really talk about the issues and just come across as a nice, pleasant person," Wyble says.

There's also a question of whether Bloom and Bagshaw didn't split the older demographic, which tends to vote disproportionately in primary elections; neither, unlike their 25-year-old competitor Dorsol Plants, who came in third, had particular appeal to younger voters.

The fact that Mayor Greg Nickels didn't make it through the primary has hobbled Bloom's ability to pit himself as a voice on the council opposed to the mayor's downtown development agenda in the general election. Now, he has to position himself as an anti-establishment alternative to Bagshaw—a tougher pitch, given that many voters haven't heard of either candidate.

Wyble says that the first time the campaign saw a poll on Bloom, he was at 4 percent. Since then, "He moved 16 points [to end around 20]. He didn't move 38 points." In a two-way matchup against Bagshaw, Wyble predicts that Bloom will find it easier to distinguish himself (compared to a five-way primary). "Bloom has the most pointed message of, 'We have too much downtown development; we need to focus on the basics," Wyble says.

That may be the optimistic spin of a campaign consultant. Other observers, including Bloom supporters, have compared him to a dead man walking—he knows he can't pull ahead 30 points by November, but he also knows he can't just pull out now. So he has to go on, campaigning with no chance of winning, until November.