Marty McLaren Officially Dominates Incumbentville
This has been a good election for incumbents. After this election, we'll see no change in Seattle's City Council members and, even more surprisingly, we won't see much turnaround in our scandal-wrecked school board. One challenger, however, has officially triumphed, with a lead of over six points: Marty McLaren. Her post? The West Seattle-elected position currently held by School Board President Steve Sundquist. The next-closest challenger, Sharon Peaslee, is over a point and a half behind her opponent Peter Maier, which becomes more and more significant as the last of the ballots are counted.
The incumbents' victory is a little perplexing; after some unfortunate dealings with contractors and a huge hole where money should have been, Superintendent Maria Goodloe-Johnson was fired, and the public seemed to want blood from the board. One grown adult even hissed at a school board debate back in September.
McLaren, a former teacher, gained an edge in the race with her support from the Teacher's Union, which called a lot of attention to the Goodloe-Johnson scandal early on. Her most notable position is doing away with the Discovery math books -- at one point even filing suit to block them -- a curriculum she says just doesn't work.
Even at that school board debate, though, as much as the crowd jeered the incumbents, it still was a significant challenge for a challenger to break through: only Kate Martin, who said that Goodloe-Johnson came from a "puppy-mill of Superintendents," gained the favor of the text-to-vote audience poll. Martin is now trailing incumbent Sherry Carr by over five points. It was a tough race to get this pain-in-the-ass, overworked, underpaid, glorified volunteer position, and McLaren seems like she can rise to the occasion.
