Excerpted from Publicola’s 4/28/11 Daily Fizz
City council member Jean Godden’s campaign kickoff—held last night at FareStart Cafe downtown—featured a guest list of current and former elected officials, campaign consultants and city staffers making their obligatory $100 contributions, and a who’s who of old Seattle political royalty and labor representatives.
Spotted: SEIU 775 director David Rolf; firefighters union head Kenny Stuart, who did Godden’s money pitch, along with a group of union-shirt-wearing firefighters (“why won’t they take them off?” one female operative whispered); city council members Sally Bagshaw and Tim Burgess (council member Tom Rasmussen showed up fashionably late); city union coalition leader Adrienne Thompson; real estate investor Mark Barbieri; HistoryLink director Marie McCaffrey; and chefs from several swank local restaurants, who toasted Godden after she made her brief campaign stump speech.
Best line of the night, delivered by Godden after the firefighters’ funding pitch: “As my hairdresser always says, if you want to see a good-looking man, start a fire.”
Both Godden and her consultant, Cathy Allen, referred to the fact that Godden, 79, is dating, but neither woman was naming names. When PubliCola asked Godden who she was dating, she said only that there are “one or two,” including a retired dentist from Sun Valley “who comes out to see me from time to time.” Godden noted that the dating pool for older women isn’t huge; “I don’t want to be a cougar,” she joked.
