Just when you thought you could stop thinking about voting for a little while... there's a Seattle City Council election coming up!!! Try to keep your pants on.

Okay, Amy, you say, tugging your pants back up to your waist, I get that sitting bare-assed at my computer is a bad idea, especially because I'm at work right now, but why should I care about the City Council elections already? When they're not until the fall?

I hear you, friend, I hear you. But here's the deal: three candidates have already announced their bid for Richard Conlin's seat, and the filing deadline isn't even until July 29. The vultures are out for steaming-fresh political carcass, and they're eyeballing Conlin as the easiest mark. Same thing happened in the last Council election-- easy marks were targeted early-- and the race blew up, with 19 candidates, a strip club scandal, and two incumbents defeated. Pop some popcorn and pull up a chair!

So who are the vultures? Number one is Paige Miller, who's been on the Seattle Port Commission forever and can be counted on to support business interests over neighborhood interests when it comes to big transportation projects like the Alaskan Way Viaduct (which if you haven't noticed already, is the political issue of the century in Seattle).

Number two is Dwight Pelz, Sound Transit board member and King County Council member who will be losing his Council seat when the KC Council shrinks from 13 to 9 (we voted on this. No joke). He's a good pro-environment lefty with a love of mass transit and planned urban growth. Yummy.

Number three is Casey Corr, who used to be Mayor Nickels' communications director. Don't worry, I haven't heard of him either. Word is he's pretty conservative (for a Seattle liberal, that is), and someone with his close ties to the Mayor's office will be a lightening rod in a city that likes its council to be independent.

Why's Conlin so weak? I like the guy-- he's good on pedestrian and bike issues, and he's into that whole sustainable growth thing. Hot. Very hot. But we've got this love-hate thing with process here in Seattle-- we know that we are fucking ourselves every time we call one more meeting or order one more study, but we can't help it. We love the pain. Conlin is the guy you can count on to order one more study, and if voters are having an anti-process mood swing come election time, he gets the ax.

Council members Drago, McIver, and Licata are all up this time around too-- we'll see how long this race takes to shake out.