Your opinion on King County Prop1 ($60 car tab tax)?

[wutitiz]

And as for the idea of a Seattle entry fee, bring it on. I live on the Eastside and have gotten to the point where I only set foot in Seattle once a year, for the Seattle Marathon in Nov. I know a lot of Eastsiders who feel similarly. Go to Seattle and get your car stolen or vandalized...no thanks. There are good marathons in Tacoma, Vancouver, Yakima, Birch Bay etc. If Seattle wants to gouge visitors, maybe I'll run one of those other marathons next year.

[GoBlueInSeattle]

Originally Posted by wutitiz

I agree; I heard a Dem campaign consultant not connected w/ prop 1 say that they didn't do their homework. When a relatively modest tax for transit fails in King cty by a wide margin, someone has screwed up somewhere. This region has a history of voting yes on things like this, to wit Sound Transit. I expected it to pass. The pro side had an 85-1 advantage in campaign spending over the con side, but the con side apparently had a more convincing message.

They overplayed their hand. I also wonder if it was not a mistake for them to run a special election. Most people weren't even aware of the election. Only the motivated voters participated in this election. If they had waited until Nov, with the participation of the great unwashed the outcome might have been different.

One criticism I've seen is the campaign focused on the heaviest transit users - students/young people & low income people - which also happen to be the constituencies that have low turnout rates. They totally neglected to focus on the "probable supporters who don't always use transit" voters. Your basic Seattle area left-leaning homeowner - the kind who DO vote in every election, ballot measure, etc. - but who don't necessarily always use transit (they own cars, use cars, occasionally use the bus, but don't depend on it, but are generally a-ok with social spending programs).

The message I fear was also muddied with including roads in the measure. The hard-core car owners weren't going to vote for the measure anyway, so why toss them a bone they weren't going to bite?