Sound Politics: Nobles to run for City Council

April 03, 2007

Nobles to run for City Council

The Seattle Weekly reports that Monorail Board member (and fiscally conservative/socially libertarian/environmentalist/busriding Republican) Jim Nobles has declared his candidacy for the Seattle City Clowncil seat currently held by Peter Steinbrueck.

Good move. And if Nobles wins we will call him Councilmember, not Clowncilmember.

[And good call by Erica Barnett yesterday to list Nobles as a rumored contender]

Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at April 03, 2007 06:10 PM | Email This

Comments

1. Stefan--
It's KLOWNcilmember...
Didn't they teach you anything about Leftist spelling at Madison Memorial H.S. and the UW???

Posted by: Mr. Cynical on April 3, 2007 09:14 PM

2. Jim has my full support! I have no doubt that he will run a strong campaign--and if there's still any room for a sane man in this town--he'll clench the race.

Posted by: Patrick on April 3, 2007 11:08 PM

3. Jim Nobles has proven he can win in Seattle with his successful Monorail Board race. He is a Republican PCO, yet most Democratic politicians would look at his resume with envy--he works in social services, serves on the King County Mental Health Advisory Board, has a citywide elected office under his belt, serves as the president of an environmental organization (Republicans for Environmental Protection--Washington chapter), etc. I think he is the kind of guy most fair-minded Democratic Seattleites would cross over to vote for. When he ran last time, his opponent accused him of being a Republican (gasp!) and several Seattle papers and magazines outed him as such, yet Mr. Nobles won. I think he can win again.

Posted by: Tim B. on April 3, 2007 11:49 PM

4. Outstanding. This one I would actually vote for, had I not already escaped the Silly of Seattle. And I'll be happy to call him "Councilman," if he actually prefers that. But I'm also happy to buy him a red clown nose and white clown makeup, if he prefers *that*.

Posted by: TB on April 4, 2007 06:42 AM

5. Doesn't mean you can't vote for him, TB.

Posted by: swatter on April 4, 2007 08:18 AM

6. THAT rare of rare finds -- a GAY republican -- to boot.....

Posted by: ed dippy on April 4, 2007 12:36 PM

7. It is not possible to be "fiscally conservative" and an "Environmentalist" at the same time. Environmentalism is a massive property confiscation scam. It's the same as Romney's attempt to be the "conservative alternative" and a proponent of Government Imposed Universal Health Care at the same time.
Nobles appears to be, however, the first major find of Michael and the Youngsters, the KCGOP/Left juggernaut that will bring us VICTORY THROUGH CAPITULATION in the culture wars, unless you count Reagan Dunn. I think the problem, there, is that most people realize Dunn was imposed on King County regardless of the hapless and failed efforts of "The Winning Team" to eliminate his conservative primary opponent by rules violations.

Posted by: Doug Parris on April 4, 2007 10:52 PM

8. Doug,

You are so very wrong. Pollution is a massive property confiscation scam (in economics, the term is "externality," but it basically means getting a free ride on other peoples' property without paying the costs), and as anyone with even a basic understanding of economics knows that one of the few places that government involvement is justified in a minimalist state is in the case of externalities.

There are plenty of program options that employ market forces for dealing with these externalities that are far more fiscally conservative than either the top-down statist enforcement policies the left favors and the system mini-staters/anarcho-libertarians favor (massive one-off legal interventions in the form of private lawsuits). You just have to open your mind a bit and be willing to accept that dealing with the environment is not a question of whether the government should be involved but rather one of how the government involvement should look and how to best preserve a property-rights view with the regulation. Market systems allow you to do that.

I would highly suggest investigating the works of Paul Portney or his former home at Resources for the Future to get a bit of understanding of how you can address environmental externalities in the most fiscally conservative ways. I know from conversations with Jim that he is very attuned to this sort of approach, so I think your fears are extremely unwarranted.

Posted by: Marc on April 5, 2007 11:25 AM

9. I love that in the comments of the SW article, it says,

Diversity is good. Electing a conservative---of any sort---and Bush supporter would be bad.

without even a hint of irony.

Anyhow, Doug has once again revealed himself to be a complete and total ignoramus, Marc is completely right. Saying the Government has no roll in Environmental policy is basically the same as approving of anarchy. You don't need to be an enviro-nazi to believe that. Matter of fact, you need to be a fiscal conservative to even understand it.

Posted by: Cliff on April 5, 2007 10:12 PM