Robin LedbetterLast night, over a keg and neon plastic cups, the King County Young Democrats conducted a straw poll (with little red plastic drink straws, what else?) for the King County Executive’s race. “This is kind of the race this year,” explains KCYD chair Robin Ledbetter. “This is the powerhouse race.”Ledbetter says that for her and her companions, the most important issue hands down is transportation. Larry Phillips has made transit one of his biggest campaign issues, pointing to his call for an audit of Metro that, now completed, might prevent some of the deep route cuts predicted by Ron Sims earlier this year when the agency was facing a $100 million shortfall. But Dow Constantine was the driving force behind that adorable little water taxi, is younger than Phillips, and in with rock stars. Any and all of those reasons might explain why he walked away with 344 stirring straws to Phillips’ 87. Unsurprisingly in a crowd of mostly young, hip Seattleites, Eastsiders Ross Hunter and Fred Jarrett garnered only 59 and 58 votes respectively.