How liberal is Seattle?

[Haakon]

Originally Posted by eskercurve

Define "fit in"

If you decide to make a point of strutting your political and financial philosophy on others, you will be scorned and make very few friends.

If you decide that stuff is best left alone to yourself, small and polite discussion groups, and the ballot box, then you'll do fine.

Seattle is quite liberal. But so long as you do not try to foist your ideals on others, you will be cool.

Correct, except he will have to live with having liberal ideas 'foisted' on him wether he wants them or not.

Small and polite discussion groups, in other words don't dare speak out if you're a conservative or risk being ostracized.

The further you get from Seattle the more conservative people are. Even Bush won most of the districts votes, the problem is west King Count/Seattle have enough votes to tilt the entire state.

[richard222]

Seattle is San Francisco North! Extremely Liberal/Progressive in most every way. City government is as corrupt as Chicago, and city services are terrible. Streets are in bad shape and will not get any better. Metro has the highest percentage of bus riders in the country, due to the traffic congestion and poor road maintenance. Democrats and Liberals run the show, and if you are conservative, your vote will not count. It took three recounts, but Christine Gregour (sp) finally won the election. The people voted down the baseball stadium, but the legislature put it in anyway. King county has always elected a state auditor, but until a couple of years ago the legislature stopped him from doing any auditing of any state department or project. It was only after a referendum by the people that he was allowed to start doing his job again and now the reports are coming out, and every one shows waste and corruption. I lived there for 30 years and it is a beautiful area with lots of good things going for it. Good government is not one of them. If you are a Liberal/Progressive/gay/pro-abortion Democrat, You will love it!

[SonicsFan93]

Originally Posted by richard222

Seattle is San Francisco North! Extremely Liberal/Progressive in most every way. City government is as corrupt as Chicago, and city services are terrible. Streets are in bad shape and will not get any better. Metro has the highest percentage of bus riders in the country, due to the traffic congestion and poor road maintenance. Democrats and Liberals run the show, and if you are conservative, your vote will not count. It took three recounts, but Christine Gregour (sp) finally won the election. The people voted down the baseball stadium, but the legislature put it in anyway. King county has always elected a state auditor, but until a couple of years ago the legislature stopped him from doing any auditing of any state department or project. It was only after a referendum by the people that he was allowed to start doing his job again and now the reports are coming out, and every one shows waste and corruption. I lived there for 30 years and it is a beautiful area with lots of good things going for it. Good government is not one of them. If you are a Liberal/Progressive/gay/pro-abortion Democrat, You will love it!

Don't rope Safeco Field into this. That worked out just fine.

Mariners | Safeco Field still a gem after first decade | Seattle Times Newspaper

Safeco Field still a gem after first decade
Larry Stone
Seattle Times staff reporter

By its 10th birthday, the Kingdome had already been declared an eyesore, deemed obsolete, and scorned as a financial albatross for one of its two prime tenants, the Mariners.

By contrast, as Safeco Field nears its 10th birthday — which arrives on Wednesday with the Mariners in the midst of their All-Star break — it still has the full bloom of youth.

To listen to the Mariners talk, in fact, Safeco is just in its infancy. Though the ballpark's very existence, after the long, protracted political battle to get it built, is credited with keeping the franchise in Seattle, they perceive their new home will have more staying power than three Jamie Moyers.

"We look at what Wrigley Field is in Chicago, what Fenway means in Boston. We can see this being a 100-year facility," said Bart Waldman, the Mariners' executive vice president of legal and governmental affairs. "That's how we treat it. We hope to get to that iconic status."

[TheTravellers]

Originally Posted by BellevueGuy

Very. =)

Being a fiscal conservative myself, I sometimes find the city's anti-development / super-green "let's all use bicycle & charge 20 cents for plastic bags" crowd hard to concur.

But I always console myself that San Fran is even worse. LOL! And political views aside, people in general are laid-back and very nice.

Cars and SUVs clogging the underdeveloped roads and causing pollution, lack of good public transportation to the city forcing more people onto those roads ... that's the side of Seattle nobody mentions when talking about its green reputation. Brag about recycling and maybe nobody will notice!

[richard222]

Don't rope Safeco Field into this. That worked out just fine

Hey Sonics fan, You missed the point. The voters turned down the field. The legislators then turned around and went against the will of the public and voted it in! Inventing new tax revenue sources, paid for by the public! It has been successful, but could it have been built without taxpayer money?

[SonicsFan93]

Originally Posted by richard222

Don't rope Safeco Field into this. That worked out just fine

Hey Sonics fan, You missed the point. The voters turned down the field. The legislators then turned around and went against the will of the public and voted it in! Inventing new tax revenue sources, paid for by the public! It has been successful, but could it have been built without taxpayer money?

It's not like the voters vastly rejected the Safeco Field funding. It was a 50.1 to 49.9 vote. And funding package approved by the legislature wasn't the package rejected by the voters. The voters didn't vote against a stadium, but a particular funding package. And, the funding package was comprised mostly of hotel and rental car taxes. We were taxing people who don't even live here. You make it sound as if we're taking food off the table for needy children, and diverting funding from education for this stadium.

[jenlion]

Originally Posted by Haakon

Correct, except he will have to live with having liberal ideas 'foisted' on him wether he wants them or not.

Small and polite discussion groups, in other words don't dare speak out if you're a conservative or risk being ostracized.

The further you get from Seattle the more conservative people are. Even Bush won most of the districts votes, the problem is west King Count/Seattle have enough votes to tilt the entire state.

The "problem"? Um, no. More people = more votes. That's NOT a problem!

You know what I think is a problem? When you drive west and every billboard insults seattle, the state government (capital is Olympia, not Seattle, guys!), and any board depicting a democrat is defaced. Did the cascade loop last fall and no way in hell am I ever going back to Winthrop... overnight political posters showing Obama and Gregoire (several of them in different places) were plastered or destroyed violently with some pretty nasty stuff. Right by where we slept.

That's the BS I left behind in Texas, the stuff that people don't like they stomp out. Equating being not-in-the-majority with not-being-represented. NOT the same thing, though I guess after the last eight years it must feel that way. Funny.

Wherever you live, you are exposed to the political message prevalent locally. It's no more "foisting" here than it is in Kansas. If you're conservative and move here, you'll likely disagree with your neighbors. If you're liberal and move to Texas, you'll likely disagree with your neighbors.

The difference is that here, it possible to live in peace while disagreeing with your neighbors. You don't have to worry that just because you disagreed with them that they're going to burn your house down and shoot you because you needed killin'. You might not get invited over for wine after dinner if you tell your neighbors they're a bunch of baby-killing devils going to hell, but that's about it.

And it's not like it's universally "blue" close in to Seattle. I keep getting mis-delivered mail for a neighbor one street over from me that has the same house number (I'm a "st", he's a "ct"). Found out he's a white supremecist when I accidentally opened his mail. Great. The stuff in those deliveries literally made me vomit. I hope he doesn't realize that some of it didn't arrive, because I'd be quite afraid if he knows that we know his predilections. He's not liberal/progressive/gay/etc. So, take comfort that there are some non-liberals voting in king county, if that helps.

I'm so sick of this system. I wonder if there is any return from this madness. I wonder if that thought's been wondered from the beginning of time and I'm just the latest person to wonder it -- probably -- but seriously. Seems so #@$*!)(#*@#_#$ hopeless.

[BellevueGuy]

Originally Posted by richard222

Seattle is San Francisco North! Extremely Liberal/Progressive in most every way. City government is as corrupt as Chicago, and city services are terrible. Streets are in bad shape and will not get any better. Metro has the highest percentage of bus riders in the country, due to the traffic congestion and poor road maintenance. Democrats and Liberals run the show, and if you are conservative, your vote will not count. It took three recounts, but Christine Gregour (sp) finally won the election. The people voted down the baseball stadium, but the legislature put it in anyway. King county has always elected a state auditor, but until a couple of years ago the legislature stopped him from doing any auditing of any state department or project. It was only after a referendum by the people that he was allowed to start doing his job again and now the reports are coming out, and every one shows waste and corruption. I lived there for 30 years and it is a beautiful area with lots of good things going for it. Good government is not one of them. If you are a Liberal/Progressive/gay/pro-abortion Democrat, You will love it!

The words are harsh but I actually agree with everything you said.

Sometimes I feel powerless because the status quo is so ingrained and people will vote for any idiots with a (D) beside their name. Not to say GOP is necessarily better in anyway, but it's nice to keep them on their toes.

In WA, especially Seattle, they have got so comfortable I think the whole system is incompetent at best, corrupt to say the worst.