Election 2009 Predictions- East Lansing, Lansing, and Detroit

I know I have taken an extremely long time off from blogging.  There is really no excuse other than I was burned out.  I am ready to get back on the laptop and letting people know what I am thinking and doing.  It will be interesting to see how people react to my blog now that I will be more stationary in the world! 

My goal is to blog about three to four times a week.  I am hoping to have a revised website by the end of the year that will represent the new stage in my life while at the same time keeping the core of my incredible journey intact.  I hope you will enjoy it!

2009 Local Elections (Let me pretend I am a political talking head)

 

East Lansing

The election is pretty boring with two popular incumbents, Kevin Beard and Vic Loomis, seeking re-election against two one-issue candidates, Hans Larsen and Phil Belfy.  It is safe to say that both Kevin and Vic will get easily re-elected.  Normally, a political talking head would use some grand analogy to things that get trounced such as grapes, the French military and the Detroit Lions but I will try to stay away from such conforming rhetoric.

To give myself a challenge for this election, I have devised two questions to test my political radar. 

Question 1.  Will the challengers get more than 200 votes each? 

Though the challengers scraped some money together and put out a mailing over the weekend, I still don’t think they will get more than 200 votes with the distinct possibility that the write-in candidate doesn’t break the century mark.

Question 2.  Will Vic Loomis or Kevin Beard get more votes this Tuesday?

This question is more difficult.  Vic Loomis is the Mayor so he does get more media attention and probably has better name recognition. On the other hand, it seemed that Kevin did a little bit more on the campaigning side.   Flip a coin.  It is probably going to be within a hundred votes but let me go out on a limb and say that more campaigning will get Kevin a handful more votes in the end. 

Lansing

Here is another take it to the bank prediction. Mayor Virg Benero will easily win re-election.  Virg has outspent and out-campaigned his challenger City Councilmember, Carol Woods.  Please enter your own trouncing metaphor now!   My guess would be at least 10 points depending on voter turn-out with a larger turn-out creating a larger gap. 

The real question will be whether or not my friend, Virg, will have any coat-tails for his candidates for the Lansing City Council.  History has shown that his support doesn’t always equate into victory.  His endorsements of Mary Lindemann and Jerry Hollister in their respective State Representative races didn’t carry them over the finish line in 2006.  More shocking was the loss of two incumbents, Harold Leeman and Bill Matt, who he had supported for the Lansing City Council in 2007.  My prediction will be no substantial coat-tails this election cycle.

At-Large- Brian Jeffries and Kathie Dunbar easily win their re-election.

Ward 2- Sandy Allen ekes out a win against the Benero supported Tina Houghton.

Ward 4- Jessica Yorko wins because everyone loves her including her challenger who gave up running against her many weeks ago.

Detroit

 

I predict Dave Bing will win his re-election campaign though it won’t be as large of a margin as most would have thought after the primary.  His realistic but tough budget decisions have made many enemies but not enough of them to vote him out of office. 

The Detroit City Council is a tough one because there are nine seats that are open but here are my predictions in order of those who I think will get the most votes. 

Ken Cockrel

Gary Brown

Charles Pugh

Brenda Jones

Kwame Kenyatta

Saunteel Jenkins

JoAnne Watson

Alberta-Tinsley-Talabi

Andre Spivey

Other Election Stuff

 

National Politics-  I will not be making any predictions on the national races that are being highlighted on the news.  I am sure that will reduce my marketability as a babbling talking head.  I just can't believe that the Governor's race in Virginia or a Congressional seat in up-state New York have any correlation to anything other than a Governor's race in Virgina and a congressional seat in New York.  If you watch the news you would think these races will actually mean something for elections in 2010 or 2012.  Trust me these races are not about President Obama or the viability of a Palin presidential run.

 

Kalamazoo Human Rights ordinance will fail.  (I hope I am wrong!)  I hate the fact that the anti-gay rhetoric, lies and deceptive ads could be rewarded but it is possible.  Kalamazoo show me that I am wrong!

 

I am not going to quit my day job at least not until the results come in Tuesday night!  Don't foget to vote!

 

Comments

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[Travis]

Thank you very much, Sam. This is the first time this local politics stuff made any sense to me :)

You have a good way of making it simple for us political people who have no interest in learning how elections work :)