The PI.com has a report on today's (apparent) big news in the mayor's race. I think they're missing the real story, though.

Here's how the PI see today's news:

Part 1: Mike McGinn holds a press conference saying Seattle voters should get a say on the $4.2 billion tunnel project, of which Seattle is on the hook for $930 million plus any cost overruns.

Part 2: Joe Mallahan fires back with a press release accusing McGinn of doing hysterical push polling about the tunnel.

The PI, however, misses the crux of today's standoff, which for my money, laid the Mallahan campaign strategy (which may be a smart one) bare.

The story today is not the competing analysis of dollar figures or push polls about the tunnel. The story today is a charged political line in Mallahan's release.

Here's the the DNA of Mallahan's campaign in one quote about McGinn:

"He offers an elitist, unrealistic and catastrophic vision for Seattle."

There it is. He said it. McGinn's an "elitist." (If Mallahan's said it in a formal press statement before, I've missed it.) Of course, he's saying it here in the context of criticizing McGinn's opposition to the tunnel plan. McGinn's alternative is a surface/transit option which Team Mallahan argues will devastate freight capacity at the port and snarl downtown in traffic.

The larger message, of course, is to paint McGinn—with his bike riding and broadband (and arugula?)—as out of touch with working class voters.

McGinn successfully appealed to working class voters himself in the primary with his anti-tax pitch (ironically, this is bundled in the "elitist" anti-tunnel message), and Mallahan is smart to try and reframe that stance as anti-Port worker. Mallahan needs to reclaim this bloc to win.

With a page out of Sarah Palin's playbook, Mallahan openly moved in that direction today.

In response to the "elitist" tag, McGinn tells PubliCola:

"Let me get this straight. Joe Mallahan, a millionaire who is self-funding his campaign with hundreds of thousands of dollars, who has surrounded himself with  every member of Seattle's power elite, who has never taken the time to volunteer and rarely even bothered to vote, is calling me the elitist in the race.

Really?

By resorting to name calling and personal attacks, Mr. Mallahan is trying to lower the level of discourse in this race.  This isn't how we do things in Seattle."