43rd Slog interviews -- reactions

Now that the five interviews of 43rd district Democratic candidates not named Jamie Pedersen are finished, and having read the candidate statements and their answers to questions of Slog readers (myself included), the following is what I personally took from the experience.

(Monday) Dick Kelley: Going into this, I didn't really have a favourable or unfavourable opinion of Mr. Kelley. Besides knowing he is the chairman of the district Democrats and apparently lost rather badly to then-Lt. Gov. Joel Pritchard in a 1992 statewide showdown, I did not know much about him. Plainly put, I have a much higher opinion of Mr. Kelley than I did last weekend. He was consistently respectful and refused to say anything negative about his opponents, or much of anybody else if your name is not George Bush or Tom DeLay. His move to not accept more than $100 from individuals is admirable for those of us who are proponents of fairer elections, and I sincerely hope it does not hamper his candidacy.

(Tuesday) Bill Sherman: Sherman was a big disappointment for me. He had, in my opinion, the strongest experience credentials of the field, and because of that I had been sort of leaning towards him in who to support (not that I live in the district or anything). His baseless assault on Rob McKenna's integrity and then subsequent run-around when I questioned him on it was not sufficient character or behaviour of a candidate for political office, coupled with his general negativity in tone and rhetoric.

(Wednesday) Jim Street: Prior to his interview, I was a tad annoyed with Street's campaign in that even as somebody who has been paying attention to this race I had not heard much of anything from his campaign. However, his performance in the interview was very, very good. He answered his questions very in-depth and played on his experience on the city council and as a King County Superior Court justice. Hell, he had the balls to take on the Viaduct question, which in doing so has the potential to come back to bite him in the future. Street, despite some policy disagreements (as if I'm going to be in complete agreement with any of these urban liberals), earned my respect and admiration.

(Thursday) Stephanie Pure: While I was disappointed in that Pure was unable to join in the discussions more often than she did, she was impressive when she was talking policy in the face of many questioners. She struck me as being on-the-ball, and I certainly won't write her off yet, though she has some ground to make up for me to support her. Some good substance in the interview, just not enough Pure to go around.

(Friday) Lynne Dodson: Another candidate I had more of a favourable opinion of going into the interviews was Ms. Dodson, but unlike Mr. Sherman, she did not lose it in her performance. Right off the bat, Dodson faced an assault of charges of not being a "loyal Democrat" because of past flirtations with Ralph Nader's campaign in the 2000 election, yet answered sufficiently to those charges about her idealistic intent to move the party in a more "progressive" direction. She stayed positive and her content was to-the-point and intelligent (though a peppering of punctual errors did irk me). While I can understand why a partisan D could be concerned about Dodson's "past" with the Greens, I personally find the independence admirable despite that I have never voted Green nor probably ever will.