Michigan legislative action thread
Posted on 08/08/2013 3:58:26 AM PDT by cripplecreek
“I’m proud of Detroit.”
On the other end of the line was Sen. Tupac Hunter (D-Detroit), who is a member of the Mike Duggan inner circle. He was calling to remind everyone of what the senator said last week in the midst of a media story line that somehow his candidate for Mayor of Detroit could not win an uphill write-in campaign.
So much for that story line.
“You said you would save that tape,” he chuckled as he basked in a very impressive victory for his guy for mayor. Mr. Duggan defied the experts and finished fir - not second - in a contest that sends a lot of messages. And Sen. Hunter thinks all of them are good.
“Detroiters are intelligent. Detroiters can spell…I’m not cynical enough to think that this is going to be this huge disaster because somehow Detroiters just can’t get it,” was the sound bite from last week.
Detroiters did get it. They want change and the rest of the state should be listening.
On the premise that a predominately African-American city would never vote for a white person, Mr. Hunter says the results speak for themselves.
But how did this “uphill” climb turn into a walk in the park?
Answer: Sandwich boards.
While there were a ton of factors that contributed to this incredible win, the sandwich board decision was critical.
With last-minute candidate Mike Dugeon also in the race, the Duggan campaign moved to reduce the potential confusion between the two.
In addition to a strong media ad campaign, on Election day volunteers went to each polling place knowing there would not be enough time to verbally engage each voter as they rushed in and out to vote.
“Put it in writing,” the senator reveals was the move they made. Sandwich boards with the instructions on how to write in the Duggan name were used and it worked. “Ninety percent got the name right,” Mr. Hunter reports and as for the Dugeon candidacy, he got an unofficial 17 votes.
So much for voter confusion.
Now the contest is down to Benny Napoleon, who finished second and whose name was on the ballot, against the write-in guy who wrote a little bit of political history election night. And they said it couldn’t be done.
Mr. Duggan’s name will be on the November ballot so a write-in is not necessary, but for good luck they may drag out the sandwich boards again.
This is not what the data says. I was a Detoiter and I doubt the odds.
Let's assume they CAN spell, they can sign their name on a bouncing check.
Let's also assume they are sick and tired of the status quo and want real change.
50 years of Democratic Operant Conditioning has left them a drugged and listless population.
This is why, they continued to vote for one corrupt Mayor, year after year until now.
I am not sure that Detroiters can pull themselves up out of the muck, alone. Maybe if the football team Lions win 5 consecutive games, there is a chance...
In short, even the Dog Catcher can win.
OMG, I am a former Detroiter and can’t spell, eeegads! I meant “..will vote for Bozo...” and not “Cote for”.
Sorry.
Presumably, he is marginally better than Napoleon.
Looks like a lot of the big money like Roger Penske and Dan Gilbert endorsed him.
How long before ballots have the picture of the candidate next to their name?
First, primary election turnout in Detroit is so low that results can be had if you can get your voters to show up. In the general election, other things will be on the ballot that the "takers" care about more.
The level of despair among voters shouldn't be discounted. Detroiters have been listening to the "change" mantra for 60 years, while things continued to deteriorate.
Among all the candidates, Duggan was the only one who was "for" anything. All the others were pretty much just "against Duggan" or "against the governor".
For some optimism, if second place man Benny Napolean had received ALL of the other candidates' votes, he would have had only about 1000 more than Duggan.
Mike is a talented manager, and for him to be effective his policies will have to look far more conservative than most Democrats would ever expect. If he doesn't turn it around, he's a failure. I don't think there's much to fear here.
After this win, probably November.
Now two of the three, actually all three but the Blacks do not have the intelligence to realize it, are beginning to see the crop they are about to reap from the seeds they so gleefully sown in 2008 and 2012 and as harvest day grows nearer, the tears they are beginning to shed become more and more bitter.
I think any mayor should be little more than a financial manager anyway. Dave Bing had potential but was too old and didn’t have the fire in his belly for a fight.
To a certain extent, it's already happening.
In the 2000 election, my niece's fiance had to vote in a precinct on Detroit's east side. He said he had to wait in line for approx. 3 hour and watched as van after van was driving up and unloading the elderly. The vans were being driven by volunteer UAW workers......
After Seth finally got inside the building there was an individual handing out fliers that were designed as such that each "positive" candidate had their picture on it while the "negative" opponent had a picture with a red "X" crossing it out.
Additionally, the flier was sized so that all the voter had to do was lay it on the ballot and check off the recommended condidate.
This was a blatant violation of voter laws but nobody could have cared less........
As a side note, the UAW is very active in rounding up the elderly and infirm and providing them with transportation to the polls on election day.
Ruth Johnson has been fighting voter fraud but its an uphill fight when she has the fight the governor every step of the way.
“Obviously he’s not our guy “
why is it obvious that he is not our guy? Benny Napoleon is our GUY??!!!
Don’t worry about it, I was reading the thread.
It has been theorized and has some small amount of correlation that my presence causes typos.
We don’t really have a guy in this race but I’ll support the guy who represents something different. Business leaders appear to support Duggan and that’s a good sign.
“We don’t really have a guy”
why don’t we have a guy? We are washing our hands of it so as to not strain our brains? If Duggan is not our guy, then whom?
Or our we trying to placate the coalition of the angry here in never-happy land? Perhaps we should not try to placate the unplacatable.
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