Sometimes a shocking event serves as an indicator that a city has changed.
No, this column has nothing to do with somebody jumping off a bridge. I’m talking about Mark Sidran’s recent $100,000 cash transfusion to his own mayoral campaign. Seattle’s biggest self-donation ever didn’t even come as a surprise: Seattle City Attorney Sidran zeroed out his campaign war chest on an early wave of pre-primary television advertising, and he had little choice but to access his own deep pockets.
With the three-way mayor’s race destined to become the city’s most expensive ever, Sidran’s grab for his own wallet could impose a new financial requirement on candidates for the city’s highest office. In other words, nonmillionaires need not apply.
And no, that’s not a stretch. The fear that a wealthy local would try to buy the mayor’s office surfaced four years ago, when City Council member Jane Noland donated $87,826 to her own primary effort and pundits feared that well-heeled developer (and eventual winner) Paul Schell would be forced to follow suit. Those fears didn’t pan out; Noland was eliminated in the primary, and Schell drew the underfunded Charlie Chong in the final.
But Money Mark and his millions could change Seattle politics as we know it. Already lagging behind challengers Schell and Greg Nickels in the fundraising column, Sidran seems to have tapped out his relatively narrow base of in-city support. Schell has raised almost $350,000 so far and is expected to spend most of it before the primary (his 1997 campaign cost almost $400,000); Nickels has raised about $320,000. Both are struggling to keep the cash coming in.
There are definite rules in politics, and they are constantly changing. Sidran’s donation (and the future ones he’ll have to make if he survives the primary) will add one more clause to the definition of a “viable” mayoral candidate: Must be able to donate a half-million bucks to own campaign. The daily newspapers aren’t worried: With their one-two backing of Schell in 1997 and Sidran in 2001, they’ve been careful to endorse only millionaires for Seattle’s top job.
