I posted the above photo last night, while the "Democracy Vucher Meet and Greet" hosted by the Coalition of Refugees, Immigrants and Communities of Color (CIRCC) was underway. Shortly before the program began, a photo was taken of seven of the eight District 3 candidates present—Robert Goodwin was also there, but I don't recall if he was there yet when the photo was taken. (He can be seen at far right on the dais in the photo at the bottom of this post, with the clever slogan T-shirt Seattle needs a Goodwin.)

There are currently officially nine candidates for District 3 participating in the Democracy Voucher program. Only one of those people present was someone named Asukaa Jaxx, a person who is apparently intersex, and according to this Seattle Gay Scene piece from when they also ran in 2019, "Oddly, Jaxx doesn’t appear to have any formal social media presence set up on the internet though they are apparently accepting vouchers."

2023 doesn't appear to be any different, in which case, I am baffled as to why Jaxx would bother to run at all. Now I would be very interested in whether or not any of the other eight candidates—all of whom were present last night—know anything at all about this person.

Anyway. I suppose I have to be careful about what I say about all these people here, given the likelihood of most of them getting Googled a great deal. Thankfully, I suppose, campaign websites and campaign event notices and news articles would presumably fill up the top search results. And I don't actually want to get too particularly catty anyway, because as I noted when I posted the above photo to my socials, the vibe between all the candidates has so far been surprisingly jovial and friendly—even supportive. It did occur to me that this would have to be an effective tactic on all of their parts, as only two candidates can make it past the August 1 primary, and being nice to each other now would be the way to go if any current networking is to pay off in the long run—getting people who had to bow out to work for one of the campaigns thereafter, for instance. (There's no way of knowing right now whether that's what Shobhit would do.)

I'd done a lot of the posting on Shobhit's campaign socials as well; I also shared the above photo on his Facebook, Twitter and Instagram campaign accounts.

Beyond that, I do also want to share what I posted to socials this morning, which is really true:

I've been having a lingering thought about the meet-and-greet I attended with Shobhit last night, at which I heard statements from no fewer than 15 candidates running in merely 3 of Seattle's 7 districts, and which was hosted by the Coalition of Immigrants, Refugees and Communities of Color (CIRCC).
I'd say a solid 80% of them were incredibly strong, well spoken, with good ideas and good plans. An even higher percentage of the strongest contenders were queer and/or people of color—a great thing to see in a city as White (70%) as Seattle.
In stark contrast to the numbing, negative feedback loop effects of social media and virtually all news sources, it was a legitimately uplifting experience, making me feel both good and hopeful about my future and the future of the place I live in and love so dearly.

I don't think people who are deeply disillusioned by politics in America realize how kind of revitalizing it can be to attend an event like this. Sure, some people might just find it dull. But, if you're there to hear people speak about issues you care about—in this case, the prevailing themes were homelessness and the climate crisis—it can be a very engaging, and yes, even hopeful experience. In this year's election, as much as half of the City Council could be replaced, which could significantly alter the direction of city leadership, and by extension the city itself.

I do think it's important to remember that other half, and that any of these candidates can have all the great ideas they want; they still have to work with the rest of the council. I did find myself rather drawn to one of the candidates for District 1, whose vision felt very complementary to Shobhit's platform. In any case, few people say this thing that Shobhit says often, and did mention during his speaking time on the dais: he is dedicated to doing the work put before him, even if it's a compromise. He's not interested in "taking my ball and going home," and will do the work needed to impliment whatever concensus decision is reached, even if it's not precisely what he thinks should be done. This is in pretty stark contrast to, certainly the outgoing District 3 councilmember, and arguably even some of his fellow candidates. (Admittedly, not very many of them. I actually was very impressed with teh vast majority.)

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Anyway, Shobhit and I had to skip this week's Action Movie Night at the Braeburn Condos theater for this event, which was clearly the right decision even as soon we we heard the voicemail at Shobhit's number inviting him to it. After actually being there, though, it was even more clear that it was absolutely essential that he attend. With the one exception already mentioned, it was pretty clear the other candidates felt the same way.

I wasn't even all that disappointed, myself, that I had to miss the movie night—which was originally supposed to be my choice of movie—even though I was one of clearly very few "civilians" present. I was quite glad to have attended. It's too bad more people weren't there; between the 15 candidates who spoke (from only Districts 1, 2 and 3) and another three or four people who were part of organizing the event, it's entirely possible civilian attendees were outnumbered two to one by candidates and organizers themselves. Which seems a little counterintuitive and, ultimately, a bit ineffective. It served much more as a mere meet and greet between candidates.

Someone did record the Q&A, which I had assumed at first was being live broadcast. But, when I asked a guy from CIRCC at the end of the event, I was informed there was intention to post the recording online, but it had not been broadcast online. In fact, there was literally nothing whatsoever posted online about it beforehand, which did make me rather wonder how many people would indeed attend. Their Facebook page hasn't even had any posts since December 2020; the website listed there doesn't even load in a browser. So, even though the guy I spoke to told me I'd made a good point and they would look into getting more information online, I remain a little mystified.

As for the candidates themselves, I think Shobhit made statements as strong and persuasive as any of the others. The only potential issue is how thick his accent remains, which gets less and less decipherable the more passionate he gets and the faster he speaks—and he's very fired up and passionate about this campaign, which makes it a bit of a catch-22.

That said, I was also happy to see how strong most of the District 3 competitor candidates were. Joy Hollingsworth, who has long been the frontrunner by far in allocated Democracy Vouchers, got an early start and is clearly seasoned at both making statements and arguments at events like this, and, basically schmoozing—with fellow candidates and potential constituents alike.

It was interesting to learn, last night, that one of the candidates is a prosecutor and one is a public defender. It was surprising that the public defender was the only one who pointedly defended police sweeps of homeless encampments. Shobhit (also pointedly? maybe) avoided stating a strict position one way or the other, but most of the rest were adamant that sweeps should stop outright. What only a few of them openly acknowledged was how complex this issue is, with no immediate solution that is good for everyone involved. That did get brought up during the deliberation of a resolution condemnding sweeps during the 43rd Democracts monthly meeting over Zoom Tuesday evening, although the resolution passed by a wide margin regardless.

I do think it's useful to note that a group of people present at either type of event—43rd District Democrats, or CIRCC—are never a respresentative sample of overall Seattle voters, or even overall District 3 voters. When Shobhit meets with individual voters across the district, a lot of them talk about how unsafe the encampments, and the large homeless population, make them feel. So what do you do then, if you want a majority to vote for you? The prevailing idea among all discussions of the homelessness crisis is the need to build hundreds of thousands of units of affordable and low income housing, which likely is indeed the most effective long term solution, but it's also the one that will take the most time. What to do about the problem right now?

Honestly, I still think there have to be successful approaches in other cities we could look to as models. I wish more candidates spoke about that.

Anyway, by and large among the other candidates, they ranged from notably polite (Efrain, who remembered that we first met at the Town Hall in March) to sweet (Ry, who is also the youngest, in their twenties—with actually legitimate arguments about younger people's concerns getting ignored) to friendly (pretty much all of them). Bobby Goodwin was the only one with campaign branded products: his T-shirt; a hat; a koozy. I'm actually kind of surprised there isn's a merch store at his website.

There was one candidate from District 1 who was super eager to get me to contribute $10 to her campaign and get her to the qualifying number. She asked me multiple times, and even followed up after District 1 was done and District 2 candidates had been seated on the dais and were being introduced: "Well, what did you think?" she asked. I was like, "I'm still thinking."

I mean, I am intimately familiar with this process now, and I totally get the hustle. I kind of felt like this barely fell short of being hounded, though, and found myself wanting to avoid her as much as I could thereafter. I found another person from District 1 to be a much stronger candidate. I haven't contributed to any candidate besides Shobhit, and there's nothing stopping me from contributing to others, but I can't contribute to all of them. Even if I contributed $10 to one candidate from all six of the other districts, that would cost me sixty bucks, which I am not prepared to spend. Shobhit's about to take a sabbatical from his job to focus on campaigning.

Speaking of jobs, I do think Shobhit has one key, unique thing about his experience, which he mentioned during his time to speak on the dais: he's made six figures at Microsoft before, and he's worked a minimum wage job (the latter currently, actually, which I think actually makes far more of a difference than the other way around), which gives him a broad perspective when it comes to both workers and businesses.

Well, in any case, clearly the next few months are going to be interesting, and difference. I still don't know what the hell we're going to do for our anniversary next month, if anything. And I hate not knowing, but disappointment is a part of life, I suppose. It's not the end of the world. We better do something great in 2024, though. We may have been legally married ten years this year, but next year we'll have been together for twenty.

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[posted 12:28 pm]