On Sept. 18, Seattle area voters--some of them--will cast votes to decide who goes to the November general election in several key races: County Council, City Council, City Attorney, School Board, Port of Seattle. But by far the most watched campaign is the mayor's race, where the top three candidates--incumbent Paul Schell, City Attorney Mark Sidran, and County Councilman Greg Nickels--share one notable characteristic.

They each make most people want to puke.

Schell has been arguably the most dangerously incompetent mayor in the modern history of large U.S. cities. Mark Sidran has spent 12 years catering to the politics of hate and intolerance. Greg Nickels is a career politician whose only notable achievement was to head the finance committee of the board of Sound Transit--you know, the folks who just turned in a $1.2 billion (and counting) cost overrun, with, after five years, not a damn thing to show for it.

The idea that one of these men will be the mayor of the city of Seattle for the next four years is very, very frightening.

Even if the general election in November is between two of these guys, there's still time to rally around alternatives. A dozen other people are on the ballot for this race--a number of them espousing explicitly progressive platforms. We had planned to run a series of four articles from mayoral hopefuls over the summer, but only two of the four (Caleb Schaber and Christal Wood) got theirs in; Scott Kennedy and Omari Tahir-Garrett promised to write pieces, but never came through. So, instead, here's an overview of some of the "alternative" mayoral candidates. Pick one (or several) and get behind them, quickly--tell your friends, volunteer, donate, talk it up. There's less than a month 'til the primary, and this race needs all the help it can get.

Unfortunately, I haven't had a chance yet to interview all of the lesser- known candidates, so there may be progressives not on the list. However, I have met all six of the folks listed here (in alphabetical order), and here's what I know: Charlie Chong: Oh, Charlie, Charlie, Charlie. ETS! has endorsed you for mayor once and city council twice; you're singly responsible for getting both Nick Licata and Peter Steinbrueck on the council, and for giving us a council that is no longer a 9-0 autovote for downtown interests. We adored you, Charlie. Go home. Charlie's candidacy reminds me of nothing so much as a star athlete who's hung on for three seasons too long, his skills diminished, not able to tear himself away from the limelight. I have no idea why Charlie's running. I wish he hadn't. He still has good things to say, but is being universally considered a joke. Sad.

Bob Hegamin: Like Chong, Bob Hegamin is a peculiar mix of populism and conservatism. Unlike Chong, Bob has never been taken seriously. He's run for local office seven times since 1981, generally on a platform of government waste, overspending, corruption, and mismanagement. He's usually right, but nobody ever pays attention. So far.

Scott Kennedy: A progressive coffee shop owner and activist on Capitol Hill, Scott genuinely has his shit together; he has probably been more visible, and more credible, than any candidate here other than Chong, and has done a good job explaining his progressive views in articulate, measured terms at candidate forums. If we gave our endorsement today, he'd get it. Hopefully, his campaign will take off over the next weeks.

Caleb Schaber: Caleb is another candidate who has been surprisingly articulate and deserves a close look. He's a bartender at the Blue Moon and an artist (responsible for last New Years' monolith installation).

Because of this, his campaign has been written off by some people as a novelty, but it's not. As with Kennedy, hopefully, even if he loses (as he almost certainly will), the name familiarity and experience he gets will help him in future political endeavors.

Omari Tahir-Garrett: Okay, I take it back. Omari's been more visible than the rest of these folks put together, but for the wrong reason: it's because a bunch of people say they saw him bop Paul Schell with a megaphone last month. Omari hasn't done himself any favors with how he's handled himself in that limelight, and that's a shame; he's a long-time, principled activist who's done more for his community than the rest of the mayoral candidates (including the Big Three) (especially the Big Three) combined. Sometimes, he rants ridiculously, and sometimes, he tells uncomfortable truths that are worth paying attention to. A far better man than he's generally been given credit for, or than he's demonstrated this summer.

Christal Wood Christal worked hard on last year's Nader campaign, and if she'd only filed to run she would have at least finished fifth without lifting a finger--she would have been the only woman on the ballot and has captured the endorsement of the Seattle Green Party. Instead, she's running a vigorous write-in campaign, so you have to remember to write her in on the dotted line. Hopefully, they'll bother to count the write-in votes.

It's been appalling watching how mainstream media has set about determining who the "serious" candidates are. They're only the ones who've held previous big offices: Schell, Nickels, Sidran, and Chong. The others are dismissed because they haven't raised any significant money, and because they don't have the demonstrated administrative skills to manage 11,000 city employees.

(True enough--but neither do any of these other clowns.) For those of us who vote despite the rigged and corrupt nature of the process, it's necessary to vote for the people who best represent what we want (why vote for someone who will do what you don't want?). Don't let the media (including ETS!) screen your candidates out for you--do your own homework, and then back your choice to the hilt, because the winner of this race will have a big impact on Seattle for the next four years. It's too important a position to be filled with walking disasters like Schell, Nickels, or Sidran.