Do you most prefer the politics of Los Angeles, NYC, or Seattle?

[Crumpets]

Seattle may soon become a two-party city of Democrats vs. Socialists, and even if you don't like that prospect, it is certainly the most intriguing of any of these cities.

[Crumpets]

Seattle may soon become a two-party city of Democrats vs. Socialists, and even if you don't like that prospect, it is certainly the most intriguing of any of these cities.

You mean Democrats and one socialist.

Yes, for now, but the Socialists definitely have a very strong presence in the city, particularly in neighborhoods like Capitol Hill and the U-District. Republicans almost never run for city-wide office anymore, but Socialists do all the time, even if they have only won one election. I can easily see someone like Jess Spear winning an open-seat race, and Nick Licata and Pramila Jayapal are both pretty much on par, if not to the left of Bernie Sanders, even if they identify as Democrats. It's not a huge leap to see the Socialists making a play for their seats when they retire.

[Crumpets]

Is their any chance of electoral reform in Seattle, with the success of the Socialists?

Also what breed/tendency are these Socialists? I thought Sawant was an SEP goon for some reason, but I just googled and she's Spcialist Alternative (the wsws had a typically wsws article on her).

First question: We switched from 9 city-wide elections to the city council to 7 district elections and 2 at-large, although there's probably not going to be much more than that. Washington already has a top-two primary, regardless of party. So, you can have two people from the same party on the ballot in November or one from a major party, one from a minor party, and none from the other major party. This probably helped Sawant a lot in her city council campaign, since she managed to go from 35% in the primary to 51% in the general.

Second question: Socialist Alternative is definitely the most active and visible group in the city, although there are also some more hard-core groups that put up candidates (I remember there was one last election who was a staunch Fidelista). They are a Trotskyist group which is part of the Committee for a Workers International, and it is definitely a social democratic party, even if it is much farther to the left than anything we're used to in the US. Their target audience is mostly disaffected Occupy Democrats.

[Crumpets]

Is their any chance of electoral reform in Seattle, with the success of the Socialists?

Also what breed/tendency are these Socialists? I thought Sawant was an SEP goon for some reason, but I just googled and she's Spcialist Alternative (the wsws had a typically wsws article on her).

Socialist Alternative is the US affiliate of the Committee for a Workers' International, which grew out of the Militant tendency of the Labour Party. The UK equivalent is the hilariously named SPEW (Socialist Party of England and Wales), which operates through it's front group, er, 'coalition', the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition, whom I'm sure you're familiar with. They're social democrats who like to quote Trotsky, for the most part. They've more or less endorsed Sanders and more or less endorsed Chuy Garcia when he ran for mayor of Chicago.