In the results of a poll released this morning, 41 percent of the people in Seattle said they would vote for Joe Mallahan if the Mayor’s race were held today. McGinn is close on his heels with 36 percent. The rest are undecided.Toss in the 4 percent margin of error and you could hardly call this race a sealed deal. But it brings to mind conversations I’ve mostly eavesdropped on over the last week. Following the Greater Seattle Chamber of Commerce debate at Cinerama last week, two men had a discussion about what they’d just witnessed. Both agreed that McGinn came off well, one had even met with McGinn a few years ago and had gone into the meeting wary of McGinn’s Sierra Club ties. The man told his debate-watching companion he was surprised to find McGinn both “smart and open-minded.” His companion agreed.But no amount of open-mindedness changes the fact that McGinn refuses to budge on his pledge to stop the process for building a tunnel below First Avenue to replace the Alaskan Way Viaduct. And that’s where a lot of people are drawing the line. The Alki Foundation, the fundraising arm of the Chamber, recommended voting for Mallahan.A group of non-politically minded friends took a thumbs up/thumbs down poll on the tunnel at a bar last week. Three didn’t care, three just wanted the damn tunnel to be built, and one was an enthusiastic thumbs-up supporter of the project.Jordan Royer has put together a group of diverse tunnel proponents from downtown businesses to waterfront restaurants to Allied Arts, all of whom want to see that tunnel go in. The poll I’d like to see is how many people would vote for McGinn if he changed, or even just softened, his position on the tunnel.
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