Mark Sidran is rapidly emerging as the favorite Seattle mayoral candidate among certain people who don’t live in Seattle.

Specifically, among certain Eastside and Vashon Island business moguls who seek to spread the Word According to Limbaugh, in which the role of government is (1) to further accelarate the concentration of wealth and power in the corporate elite, and (2) to subject the rest of the populace to draconian, even militaristic social controls.

Directly, Sidran’s “get-tuff” platform wouldn’t immediately benefit the bosses of Paccar and Food Services of America (who are among Sidran’s biggest financial benefactors). But indirectly, a hard-right administration running America’s third or fourth most supposedly-liberal town would be a boon to the promoters of a rigidly caste-stratified society (no matter how much they publicly emote about “empowerment” and entrepreneurism).

And, of course, the mandatory-mellowness and demographic-cleansing tactics Sidran’s pursued as City Attorney have benefitted many condo developers, real-estate speculators, and “market-price” restaurateurs these past eight years.

But the question remains: Sidran’s proven adept at raising big bucks from out-of-town (and out-of-state) Right ideologues (to the point of violating the individual-donation limits he’s supposed to be enforcing), but can he translate that loot into real votes from real in-town voters?

I suspect not. He’s done such a successful job of pissing off so many resident Seattle individuals, groups, and influence bases, the election’s already turned into a strategy issue: Not merely to prevent Sidran’s election but how to prevent a Schell-SIdran final race. (Incumbent Paul Schell, we all know, is little more than the gentrification “good cop” to Sidran’s “bad cop.”)

Should we all wholeheartedly back generic respectable-liberal Greg Nickels in the primary? Or would a strong Nickels run merely split the stop-Sidran vote, leaving a stronger Sidran to face a weaker Schell in the final?

Heck if I know.