Seattle’s business establishment has put its stamp on the early general campaign

Seattle’s business establishment has put its stamp on the early general campaign season, hosting the first mayoral debate and now issuing its list of endorsements, via the Alki Foundation, an arm of the Chamber of Commerce. (Full list of endorsements on this pdf.) No big surprise at mayor, where Mike McGinn lost the downtown business vote as soon as he opposed the tunnel. Perhaps little more surprising, or at least meaningful, is the endorsement of Dow Constantine in the KC Exec race: It may make it harder for private-sector Susan Hutchison to claim the GOP “I’m better for business” mantra. Though of course she could try to spin it in an anti-elitist way–a right-leaning attack on big money, a la Mike Huckabee, to whose presidential campaign she donated $500 in 2007. As for the Council the races, the primary endorsements (of the non-lefties and tunnel-supporters) all hold, as all of the Chamber’s candidates made it through to the general, which bodes well for this round’s endorsees.