Posts Tagged ‘Greg Ridgley’

I had high hopes for Greg Ridgley, the 18-year-old Spokane city council candidate.   He was young, nervy, and full of new ideas for the Lilac City.  And lets face it, he would have provided lots of things to blog about.   I wrote about him last month here.  At 11:05 a.m. an individual named “bonzai” posted a comment on that article predicting: “Today is judgment day for young Mr. Ridgley. I bet he gets only 3 or 4% of the vote in today’s primary.”

Well, right you were, the results were released at 8:00 p.m. by the Secretary of State, and Mr. Ridgley only received 3.34% of the vote.  Mr. bonzai made a good prediction.  The results of the election are here.

The 3.34% that Ridgley received was way lower than lawyer Steven Eugster received at 16%, and he ran for election after having been suspended from the state bar.   Eugster was known for suing the city of Spokane.    Ridgley, did however, soundly beat (by a 3-2) margin David Elton, a candidate for city council who recently was arrested for threatening to kill the council president, according to news stories.  Maybe that was the problem – the protest vote was split this year.  If you are really fed up with city government, do you vote for:  1) an attorney that sues the city,  2) a man who allegedly threatens to kill city officials, or 3) do you vote for an 18-year-old out of protest?

Maybe the protest chic of voting in an 18-year-old has worn off.  18-year-olds can and do win election races, according to news stories.   But I started to worry about Greg Ridgley’s chances when he never really developed a strong internet campaign.  It seems if you are young, you at least have to use the medium that favors your demographic.  Also, when I would travel to Spokane for court, I really didn’t see his campaign signs up.  He made a lot of campaign appearances, and I am sure he really got a lot of public speaking experience.  He seems to be taking the election loss in stride.  His latest posting on Facebook is “Greg went all in and lost in Texas Hold ‘Em Poker.”

Indeed you did Mr. Ridgley.  We hope to see you again.

How young is too young to run for election?  This subject came up in an earlier blog post that discussed potential sheriff candidates.    A reader shared that he thought that one local Sheriff’s deputy, were he to run for sheriff, would be way too young.  See comment.  That surprised me a little bit.  I always assumed that a person in their mid-thirties was in pretty solid territory age-wise to run for a job for a local elected official.  I may be a little biased because when I was elected prosecuting attorney in 1998, I was only 28 years old. I have to admit, I felt a little iffy about stepping into the political ring at that age. But at the time I was aware that our state representative, Cathy McMorris, was only 29.   Cathy McMorris was elected to the State Legislature when she was only 24.   Cathy McMorris (now known as Cathy McMorris Rodgers) went on to become the State legislature’s minority leader, and later was elected to US congress at age 35.

The subject of  a suitable age of an elected official has arisen recently in the political campaign for prosecuting attorney in Grant County.   Earlier this year a deputy prosecutor by the name of Angus Lee was appointed to step in to replace John Knodell who was elected judge.   Angus Lee was appointed by the commissioners.   Angus Lee is 32 years old, and is a 2004 graduate of law school.  When I was elected prosecuting attorney at 28, the issue that was the hardest for me was managing people and running an office.   I think the trial work can pretty much be handled by any prosecutor with a few years under his or her belt.   In Grant County, Angus Lee has a pretty big office to run, and lately his office has had a lot of turnover, as other prosecutors get used to their new boss.    I don’t know Angus Lee too well because I have only had one case with him.

I read in the Spokesman Review last week that an 18-year-old high school senior by the name of Greg Ridgley was running for city council in Spokane.  Now an 18-year-old on city council would be pretty interesting, don’t you think?   Greg Ridgley’s campaign seems pretty low key right now.   When I looked him up online, he didn’t have a web page up.    I had court in Spokane this morning and I looked all over for his campaign signs but I didn’t see any.  Ridgley has a facebook page that discussed his campaign and his recent trip to Australia as a youth ambassador.  My suggestion to him would be to promote his campaign as much as possible on the internet.  The use of the internet in politics is a very hot topic in the media.  See for example the debate of Jennifer Gregerson’s use of Twitter.  See article.  It seems that if Greg Ridgley found a way to use the internet for his campaign in a novel way, he would garner more attention.  Greg Ridgley is going to be a senior at Gonzaga Prep and is running as a Republican.  The funniest thing about Greg Ridgley’s campaign is the interesting comments that people have made about his campaign on the internet.   None of the comments have been disparaging.  One Spokane resident posted a comment that Greg Ridgley “has to have more sense then the rest of them and he has not had much of a chance to be corrupted.” Another wrote of Ridgley “Pure honesty and interest to help the community. No good old boys to owe. Fresh. Clean. Passionate. Way to go. The rest of his peers who can vote will be doing it”.  See comments.

What would people think about an 18-year-old senior running for city council in Republic, or Colville or Okanogan?  It seems like people would be more receptive to an 18-year-old on a city council, rather than in a position of mayor where more power is placed in a single position.   An 18-year-old running for sheriff would seem to pose a problem.   Under State law, a person has to be 21 to carry a hand gun.

As for me, I would not have a problem voting for a person in their 30′s for sheriff.  What do you all think?