Gary Locke for Seattle mayor?

If you’ve gotten to the heart of the Seattle mayoral campaign over the past few decades, it usually goes something like this.

A handful of meaningful, usually persuasive votes come into play, creating a diffuse electorate in primary school. This process often starts in January.

Meanwhile, institutional executives have quiet conversations on the side to see where their support might come together. In January this unifying candidate is usually absent.

As the spring progresses, the early candidates are making some progress, but the momentum is slowing. At the same time, institutional actors are starting to band together around some key names. Until April there are only one or maybe two institutional candidates left after these “back room primaries”. One or two of them announce their candidacy.

When the registration deadline expires in May, the field will be set. With a relatively broad field, the candidate who is able to get the most institutional support is likely to make it through elementary school. The candidate who can mobilize the most anti-institutional support is likely to make it too.

In the general election you usually have an institutionalist and an anti-institutionalist. You have to go until 2001 when you last had two main candidates in elementary school: Paul Schell and Greg Nickels. In 2009 we had two underdogs in the general, although both had some institutional credibility at the time: Mike McGinn and Joe Mallahan. McGinn was arguably more of an institutionalist than Mallahan in that general election, though none was as institutional as Greg Nickels, who ran for a third term that year and lost in the primary.

The point here is this: In Seattle politics, there will very likely be at least one Seattle-style institutional candidate in the general election this year. And if so, that person has not yet announced their candidacy.

For this reason, Gary Locke causes a bit of a stir.

Gary Locke was one of Washington State’s most successful political figures: a lawmaker, a chairman of the funds, a King County executive director, a twice-elected governor, an ambassador to China, and a trade secretary.

And an earlier keynote at our Re-Wire conference a few years ago to top it off.

Locke’s re-entry into civilian life put him in a number of advisory and advocacy roles, including chairing a group advocating for the Trump-mediated USMCA. Last year he received a position as interim president of Bellevue College.

While I’m sure these are interesting positions, the move from trade minister to interim president seems to be a little lacking.

Because of this, some people are talking about Gary Locke running for Seattle mayor. A campaign pro who didn’t want his name to be used told me so.

Gary is a “Seattle Way” led by a consensus-building leader. This is still very popular with a lot of people here, despite the dispute over our politics. And since the council remains the figurehead of sophomoric behavior, it might be nice to have an adult in the room again.

His recent comments (above) on anti-Asian hate activities were easily seen in the context of a crowded elementary school in a progressive city.

Politics in Seattle differs from his time as a representative of the 37th Legislative District for the past few decades. It’s also reasonable to believe that the two-time governor may not have the fire in the stomach for a local race as controversial as the Seattle Mayors’ race.

But maybe that doesn’t matter.

If Locke is the only institutionally supported candidate in the running, his badge alone is likely to get him into the general election, especially if the crowd continues to grow.

That would leave the question of which likely non-institutional candidate would join him and whether that would be an electoral challenge.

It’s too hard to predict before all of the candidates have submitted. What is clear, however, is that Locke’s entry into the race would fundamentally change the dynamics, perhaps irrevocably in Locke’s favor.

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