On Sept. 16, Seattle holds primary elections for (among other things) Mayor, five City Council seats, seats on the School Board and Port Commission, and King County Council. In most of the races, a major theme has been voter dissatisfaction with "business as usual"--the control of city government (and taxpayer money) by a clique of downtown business interests, and the funnelling of our money into megaprojects and developer pockets rather than social needs and basic services.

But who, exactly, is this clique, and who are their electoral proponents? In a city where council seats carry no party affiliation, and where there's functionally only one major party anyway, it's often hard to tell where the alliances are. As always in politics, the first rule is: follow the money. So we did.

What's below is based on campaign financial disclosure reports filed through mid-August. We went through them looking for donations by candidates to other candidates, and support from other major local political interests. Some interesting patterns emerge.

THE PLAYERS: (to save space, we're only listing what appear to be the major candidates in the mayoral and city council races):

Mayor: Port Commissioner Paul Schell; City Council members Jane Noland, Charlie Chong, Cheryl Chow; County Council member Greg Nickels.

City Council, Seat 2: Former City Council member Sherry Harris; former Civic Foundation Pres. Brian Peyton; YES! (A Journal of Sustainable Futures) and In Context founder Richard Conlin.

Seat 3: Downtown community activist Peter Steinbreuck; Demo. Party activist Dian Ferguson; Thomas Goldstein; Fletcher Shives.

Seat 4: Incumbent and Council Pres. Jan Drago faces no real opposition.

Seat 6: Former ACORN director Fred Buhl; Civic Foundation and anti- stadium activist Nick Licata; ALT-TRANS founder Aaron Ostrom.

Seat 8: Incumbent (appointed last January) Richard McIver faces no real opposition.

THE MONEY: Are there defacto slates? Among the candidates: McIver has gotten $200 from City Council member Margaret Pageler; $25 from Noland; $25 from Peyton. City Attorney Mark (Darth) Sidran gave to Jan Drago. County Council member Maggie Fimia (in a tough re-election battle for her anti-stadium stand) gave to Drago, Goldstein, and Licata. Chong has donated to Licata, Peyton, and Shives. Chong aide Matthew Fox donated to Peyton and Shives. Steinbreuck donated to Licata. Nickels and Goldstein both donated to Norm Rice's mayoral campaign before he decided not to run. Aaron Ostrom donated to Drago and Conlin. City Council member Sue Donaldson donated to Ostrom. State legislators Frank Chopp and Velma Veloria gave to Cheryl Chow. The Stark of notorious campaign consultants Gogerty & Stark (if it sucks, G&S helps mastermind it--the stadiums and the Commons votes being recent examples) donated to Drago, Rice, and Richard Conlin.

The big boys put money on all the horses. Jan Drago has already maxxed out (in separate contributions) on Boeing; every major mayoral candidate has gotten Boeing bucks (including Chong), as have Peyton and Conlin. Nordstrom's choice for mayor: Paul Schell. Jan Drago gets big Nordy money, too.

Jan Drago, Greg Nickels, Richard Conlin, Thomas Goldstein, Aaron Ostrom, and Brian Peyton have all raised at least a quarter of their money from outside Seattle. Nick Licata and Charlie Chong are the only major candidates who've raised virtually all of their money locally. Noland is spending $15,000 of her own money.

Through the end of July, totals raised (in thousands of dollars) are:

Mayor: Noland 89, Schell 67 (in only two weeks!), Nickels 49, Chow 29, Chong 26. Council: Drago 56, McIver 40, Goldstein 31, Conlin 25, Steinbreuck 24, Licata 22, Peyton 16, Ostrom 14 (he had only filed a few days prior), Harris 14, Shives 7. Buhl and Ferguson had just filed to run and had yet to report.

THE LESSONS: In the open seats, Thomas Goldstein, Aaron Ostrom, and Richard Conlin are emerging as the consensus downtown candidates. Ostrom and especially Conlin are surprising in this regard; both are running heavily on their legitimate activist credentials, with Conlin getting a lot of support from environmentalists especially. He seems to be working both sides of the fence well enough to have supplanted former Council disaster Sherry "If We Ignore Her, Will She Go Away?" Harris as the downtown fave. Ostrom, while trading on his reputation for progressive transportation ideas, has in public forums been advocating policies indistinguishable from Downtown Uber Alles queen Jan Drago.

Both Drago and McIver--the latter having never run for office before--have amassed huge campaign warchests despite having little or no chance of losing and no real need to spend any money. This shows the whole campaign fundraising scam for what it is--legal bribery. Drago and McIver are getting money not just for what they can do next term, but for what--unlike other candidates--they can do now as sitting council members, before next January.

The phenomenal amount of money being raised by Drago, Noland, and Schell especially suggests how afraid downtown interests are of losing their unanimous hold on city politics. Charlie Chong's election last year scared them shitless. Chances are excellent the next mayor and at least six of the nine city council positions--more likely eight--will be firmly in downtown's pocket. The real competition in this process is not whether large businesses will get favorable treatment from the city, but which large businesses will get the most.

The final lesson: the rich have far more to gain and lose financially from city politics, and they spend like it. Until our elections are divorced from peoples' ability to buy them--through districting, spending limits, community organizing, etc.--they'll continue to dominate Seattle's elected officials.

To check out the money trail yourself, visit the offices of the Seattle Ethics and Elections Commission, 600 4th Ave., Room 226. Their web site-- http://www.ci.seattle.wa.us/~seec/--tends to run 2-3 weeks behind, but still provides entertaining browsing, too.