by Mark Neuman

We spoke with King County Council member Dow Constantine, who, along with Susan Hutchison, will advance to the general election in November in the race to become the next King County Executive.

As of Friday, Aug. 28th, vote count totals showed Dow in second place with 27 percent of the vote compared to Susan Hutchison’s 33 percent.

“We are in a very strong position to win the general election,” Dow said from his victory celebration Tuesday night (Aug. 18th). “I am very happy with our numbers.

“The four office-holding Democrats in the (primary) race were really splitting up the vote. And now we have a chance to consolidate that.”

We asked Dow Tuesday evening: Are you, generally speaking, having a good time tonight?

“Generally? Yes. It was pretty nerve-wracking leading up to the announcement of the vote totals. My girlfriend, Shirley, and my mom and dad and I were sitting and waiting for the results to come over. And when it happened it was a big relief.”

We asked Dow about his strategy for his general election campaign.

“There are two distinctions between the two remaining candidates,” he said. “One, Susan Hutchison has a philosophy which is way out of synch with the people of King County.

“And two, there’s also the issue of experience. Susan Hutchison has zero experience at solving the kinds of problems that we’re facing in our economy (and) in our county.

“I have served in the private sector as well as the State House and Senate and the King County Council. I have a strong record of reform legislation of exactly the kind that’s going to be needed as we weather this economic crisis,” Dow said.

“The four Democratic elected officials in the primary, including myself, had a robust exchange of ideas during the campaign. These are all bright, capable people. We raised a lot of great ideas.

“We need to throw open the doors of this county to everyone’s ideas and everyone’s proposals for innovation.

“I have had conversations on several occasions with (primary candidate and State Representative) Ross Hunter about how we can work together in the future between the state and the county to solve some of these structural problems. I’m very excited about that opportunity,” Dow said.

King County Executive election results as of Fri. 8/28/09:

• Larry Phillips 40157 12.10%
• Fred Jarrett 40411 12.18%
• Stan Lippmann 3580 1.08%
• Alan Lobdell 7971 2.40%
• Susan Hutchison 109699 33.05%
• Dow Constantine 89515 26.97%
• Ross Hunter 36136 10.89%
• Goodspaceguy 3862 1.16%
• Write-in 572 0.17%

Read our interview with opposing candidate Susan Hutchison here.