Last Night
Last Night: Citizen Mayor. Some Hindsight Would Help.
Last night, I watched Citizen Mayor, the new documentary about the 2009 mayor's race in Seattle, produced by the Northwest Film Forum (and premiering tonight as part of NWFF's Local Sightings festival
).
The most striking moment comes about 50 minutes into the movie. A McGinn campaign volunteer is relating a story about how McGinn relayed the hope-and-change zeitgeist among the campaigners: Candidate McGinn told his volunteers that running for mayor is "kind of like leading the charge and not knowing if the army is going to be behind you." It becomes an obvious metaphor for McGinn's administration—pushing hard against his establishment critics, and counting on having the People at his back. Watching McGinn's People's Movement develop and succeed is a fascinating refresher of how appealing that energy was a year ago. (Remember McGinn sitting across from Joe Mallahan at a KTCS debate, accusing the status quo of "moving in and becoming [Mallahan's] advisers and funders, because the status quo wants that deep-bore tunnel"?)
But the story behind McGinn's propulsion to the mayor's office is a bit strange to see from the vantage point of one year later; the activist ambition that inspired his campaign has created more gaffes than gains at city hall. Citizen Mayor would have benefited from a little more self consciousness here. It would have given the film the narrative arc that it sorely lacks. Instead, it's comes off as a bit naive and myopic.
The movie spends a lot of time sitting down with also-rans like matchmaking service creator Norman Sigler and anti-tunnel/viaduct rebuild crusader Elizabeth Campbell—candidates voters didn't seem to think were that interesting back then—and not enough time digging into the real interesting political aspects of the mayor's race.
I'd also like the hear more about how Nickels' pre-election maneuvering set the stage for an election battle between an unknown cell phone company executive and a barely-known environmental activist. One of the best bits of the film involves political consultant Blair Butterworth explaining how former Mayor Nickels convinced prominent local politicians like Peter Steinbrueck and Tim Burgess not to run.
The sorta-thesis of Citizen Mayor —featuring McGinn as the hero—is essentially that politicking is a rich person's game (with its sympathies goo-ing all over Sigler and Campbell, who seem to be the only two candidates with the time to sit down for extended interviews) and its climax comes when the scrappy McGinn campaign overcomes the message-less, monied Goliath, Mallahan (PubliCola has a cameo in this scene; a volunteer reads the election results live from our site.)
The story arc isn't that clean, though; the movie starts not by laying out its case but with a Wikipedia-inspired history of the Past Mayors of Seattle). The money game was certainly a big part of the 2009 election, it's just a little too obvious. If you were here in 2009, you didn't miss it. What's missing here is a little more hindsight on Seattle's microcosmic flirtation with the hope-and-change era.
The most striking moment comes about 50 minutes into the movie. A McGinn campaign volunteer is relating a story about how McGinn relayed the hope-and-change zeitgeist among the campaigners: Candidate McGinn told his volunteers that running for mayor is "kind of like leading the charge and not knowing if the army is going to be behind you." It becomes an obvious metaphor for McGinn's administration—pushing hard against his establishment critics, and counting on having the People at his back. Watching McGinn's People's Movement develop and succeed is a fascinating refresher of how appealing that energy was a year ago. (Remember McGinn sitting across from Joe Mallahan at a KTCS debate, accusing the status quo of "moving in and becoming [Mallahan's] advisers and funders, because the status quo wants that deep-bore tunnel"?)
But the story behind McGinn's propulsion to the mayor's office is a bit strange to see from the vantage point of one year later; the activist ambition that inspired his campaign has created more gaffes than gains at city hall. Citizen Mayor would have benefited from a little more self consciousness here. It would have given the film the narrative arc that it sorely lacks. Instead, it's comes off as a bit naive and myopic.
The movie spends a lot of time sitting down with also-rans like matchmaking service creator Norman Sigler and anti-tunnel/viaduct rebuild crusader Elizabeth Campbell—candidates voters didn't seem to think were that interesting back then—and not enough time digging into the real interesting political aspects of the mayor's race.
I'd also like the hear more about how Nickels' pre-election maneuvering set the stage for an election battle between an unknown cell phone company executive and a barely-known environmental activist. One of the best bits of the film involves political consultant Blair Butterworth explaining how former Mayor Nickels convinced prominent local politicians like Peter Steinbrueck and Tim Burgess not to run.
The sorta-thesis of Citizen Mayor —featuring McGinn as the hero—is essentially that politicking is a rich person's game (with its sympathies goo-ing all over Sigler and Campbell, who seem to be the only two candidates with the time to sit down for extended interviews) and its climax comes when the scrappy McGinn campaign overcomes the message-less, monied Goliath, Mallahan (PubliCola has a cameo in this scene; a volunteer reads the election results live from our site.)
The story arc isn't that clean, though; the movie starts not by laying out its case but with a Wikipedia-inspired history of the Past Mayors of Seattle). The money game was certainly a big part of the 2009 election, it's just a little too obvious. If you were here in 2009, you didn't miss it. What's missing here is a little more hindsight on Seattle's microcosmic flirtation with the hope-and-change era.
