When Eat the State! first expanded to its present newspaper format in 1998, one of the columns we tried to run regularly was called "Local Heroes," interviews with local activists who'd made a difference in our community. We wound up only running three of these columns--on the late Hazel Wolf, Vivian McPeak, and Jean Buskin--because they're labor intensive and the person who initiated the idea didn't have time to follow through. (We'd still love to have this as a regular feature, if anyone's interested in taking it on!) In brainstorming the column at the time, we came up with about a hundred people who could be profiled, but the people who were a priority to interview were fewer than a dozen. Even then, John Fox was on that list.

Now, Fox is atop that list. You won't read about it in the daily papers, because they despise Fox and love the man he derailed; and you won't see it on television, because they don't care about local politics (it rates somewhere just under celebrity triathalons). But John Fox, almost single-handedly, just prevented Mark Sidran from becoming the mayor of Seattle.

Fox has bitterly opposed Sidran almost from the moment he became city attorney 12 years ago. Even then, John was a seasoned veteran of local politics; for the last quarter century, he has championed the rights and the needs of the homeless and low-income tenants, the forgotten underclasses of a city that hates the poor. More recently, he has railed against the policies of the Seattle Housing Authority, reading the fine print to discover the ways in which SHA--Seattle's sole public agency designed to provide housing for the very poor--has intentionally eliminated much of its low income housing stock and helped drive the poor out of a gentrifying city. John has alienated politicians, and even at times his allies, with his tenacity and often creative and confrontational tactics. And Fox has a long, long record of opposing Mark Sidran's efforts to demonize and criminalize the poor and homeless.

As soon as Sidran announced for mayor, Fox convened a group of local activists concerned specifically about Sidran's so-called "civility laws." The group became the Sidran Truth Squad, publishing details of Sidran's sordid record on class and race issues, and dogging his campaign appearances. There were a number of other reasons to oppose Sidran's candidacy, and local media sneered at the Truth Squad's efforts--particularly the Sidran-adoring Seattle Times, and Joel Connelly, the P-I's designated community-activist character assassin.

But what the STS did was alert inattentive voters that Sidran was controversial. A vast majority of Seattle's voters (hard as this is for progressives to believe) had no idea who Sidran was or what he would do as mayor. They certainly weren't finding out from media coverage or the Sidran campaign itself (both of which focused on "leadership" and the Sound Transit debacle, which Sidran correctly criticized but offered no real alternative to). Even for people who bought into the media portrayal of STS as a bunch of lefty loonies, the idea that Sidran would stir up trouble--especially on racial issues, which have obviously been a civic sore point in the last year--had to make a difference for some of the folks who were otherwise undecided.

In such a close race, almost anything can be pointed to as having made the difference. But most of the factors in the Sidran/Nickels faceoff were predictable. Sidran, especially after Schell was eliminated, had a huge money advantage and the backing of the city's business elite, including the dailies, and big endorsements like Gov. Gary Locke and Schell himself. Nickels had labor, enviros, and the Democratic Party apparatus solidly behind him. Sidran rode the transit issue hard and well; Nickels was the nice guy and Sidran was the tough Giuliani-style leader. All this was easily scripted.

What was not scripted was John Fox, and in every close election there are usually one or two "x factors," things no consultant predicts that move just enough voters to make the difference. That's what Fox did, along with the gaggle of alarmed activists he convened. Because of his efforts, Mark Sidran is not only not Seattle's mayor for the next four years, but is out of elected office entirely. However Nickels--a dubious choice himself--performs in office, John has single-handedly made an enormous difference in the future of this city.

It's a feat worth honoring, remembering, and learning from.