This weeks news that Mayor Nickels is going after "organizers, volunteers, and residents" of Nickelsville with big fines should the camp continue makes me wonder if he's on acid. KOMO's coverage of this last night was less than sympathetic of his plight. So what do you think of the Mayor's hardball tactics? Is he being shrewd, desperate, or stupid? The poll is at top right. More than one answer is allowed.
Posts
5 comments:
Your recent suggestion that Mayor Greg may be emulating Chicago political machine boss, Richard Daily, was very telling for me.
Daily figured in an important political lesson I received at 30,000 feet more than 30 years ago. It was given to me on a flight I shared with a Republican state senator from Maine. He was eager to defend his party affiliation in the wake of Watergate.
He said that a lot of the criticism being leveled at his party was mistaken. Republicanism and conservatism are being blamed, but the real culprit is "realism." He said, a political realist only wants to know, "what's the game in town, and how can I win." An idealist, on the other hand, "wants to know how we can play a better game." Then to finish making his case, he pulled out Boss Daily, the quintessential Democrat and political realist.
I'm voting straight "stupid" in your poll. I'm betting that Boss Nickels (or Mayor G as I prefer to call him) has overplayed his hand.
Oh, I forgot to mention: the game today--as established by George (Boss of America) Bush--is executive privilege, or unconstrained executive fiat and power, or... in a word, autocracy. Whether he ultimately knows how to win this one or not, he clearly knows what the game is.
I think he sees this as personal grudge and an affront to his power. Homeless people don't vote in large numbers, and they don't have enough allies for him to care about their protests. He does, however, care about neighbors' anti-homeless protests, he cares about his image as a liberal in the media, and he cares about setting "bad" precedents (people claiming power over city space he wants to monopolize for himself).
So he's not desperate, because he doesn't believe he is in any danger-- he thinks he can get away with anything. Who on the City Council has challenged him?
He's not stupid, so long as you exempt his total moral obtuseness from scrutiny.
He's shrewd, I guess. But only if you think it's ok for him to be totally unconcerned about the effect that his policies have on the poor.
I guess I'd say none of the above. D: cocky and amoral.
i like chicken-hawk. someone who never was in the service, cannot exhort troops to war but like the talk-show hosts who do, he can make war on someone; in this case, the vulnerable and defenseless. chicken-hawk for war on the poor
Definitely shrewd. He knows who his base is, and it isn't advocates or homeless people or housing or service providers or leftie journalists.
As Bush was caught on camera saying in a campaign at a fundraiser, "You're my base -- the haves and the have-mores."
Why would Nickels change strategy now and veer to the left and lose his long-time base? Would he win the next election that way? He might add a few shelter beds; he might not actually fine people, but he's not going to change his official position.
Will be very happy if I'm wrong.
Post a Comment