City Hall
Now it All Makes Sense.
We're generally pretty rough on Mayor Mike McGinn at PubliCola. (It's our job.) We've even taken to calling him Hugo Chavez here at the office to spoof his rigid-messaging politics and his perpetual alignment with "the people."
However, I like McGinn. (We endorsed him. In the primary too.) In fact, I was the first reporter to start writing about the significance of what he was up to, picking up on his updated version of neighborhood politics back in 2005 .
So, here's a little love for the guy. Not only did he give me the best quote ever yesterday when he accused his critics of creating "ontological mazes," but when we changed the subject from the tunnel for a second, and he started talking about personal stuff, I got a glimpse of McGinn that makes it all make sense. In a good way.
I asked McGinn to tell me about meeting President Obama (McGinn was one of the locals who got to greet the president when Obama touched down in Seattle on Tuesday.)
McGinn didn't have much of a story to tell—and, despite being a lifelong basketballer, he says he refrained from talking hoops with the president or challenging him to head up to Greenwood where McGinn's got a hoop in his driveway, because "everyone's always doing that to the president." True.
But then McGinn told me this. Obama is the third president he's met. As a Sierra Club leader, he once met Bill Clinton. And as a congressional aide in the 1980s for Oregon Rep. Jim Weaver (D-4, Eugene ... figures!), he once met Ronald Reagan.
However, those weren't McGinn's tell-your-grandkids-about-it meetings. His favorite handshake? The time he met the Speaker of the House, during the Reagan era, liberal firebrand Tip O'Neill.
Now, it all makes sense. A recalcitrant lefty—not to mention an East coast Catholic—is McGinn's hero. O'Neill, of cousre, was the Democrats cantankerous last line of defense during the Reagan years, and as McGinn recalled to me yesterday, he was doing "the people's" work.
However, I like McGinn. (We endorsed him. In the primary too.) In fact, I was the first reporter to start writing about the significance of what he was up to, picking up on his updated version of neighborhood politics back in 2005 .
So, here's a little love for the guy. Not only did he give me the best quote ever yesterday when he accused his critics of creating "ontological mazes," but when we changed the subject from the tunnel for a second, and he started talking about personal stuff, I got a glimpse of McGinn that makes it all make sense. In a good way.
I asked McGinn to tell me about meeting President Obama (McGinn was one of the locals who got to greet the president when Obama touched down in Seattle on Tuesday.)
McGinn didn't have much of a story to tell—and, despite being a lifelong basketballer, he says he refrained from talking hoops with the president or challenging him to head up to Greenwood where McGinn's got a hoop in his driveway, because "everyone's always doing that to the president." True.
But then McGinn told me this. Obama is the third president he's met. As a Sierra Club leader, he once met Bill Clinton. And as a congressional aide in the 1980s for Oregon Rep. Jim Weaver (D-4, Eugene ... figures!), he once met Ronald Reagan.
However, those weren't McGinn's tell-your-grandkids-about-it meetings. His favorite handshake? The time he met the Speaker of the House, during the Reagan era, liberal firebrand Tip O'Neill.
Now, it all makes sense. A recalcitrant lefty—not to mention an East coast Catholic—is McGinn's hero. O'Neill, of cousre, was the Democrats cantankerous last line of defense during the Reagan years, and as McGinn recalled to me yesterday, he was doing "the people's" work.
