The 2016 November Election, Locally: Recap and Reflections

[XLFD]

The Mason County Press has a very concise vote tally of the local races that we earlier supplied in A Guide to the 2016 Local Elections.  Here are the basic results of those elections with winning percentage:

101st Michigan Congressional:  Curt VanderWall: 60%

Pere Marquette Trustee:  All except for Ron Soberalski at 11%.

Grant Treasurer:  Kristen Brandt:  54%

Scottville Councilor at Large:  Connie Duncil:  55%

Scottville 1st District:  Sue Petipren:  62%

Ludington Mayor:  Kaye Holman:  36% in a 3.5 man race, 8 votes more than Stibitz-Rozell

Ludington Councilor at Large:  Brandy Henderson:  60%

Ludington Third Ward:  Les Johnson:  72%

The Rural Fire Authority millage passed with 77% approval, and the MCE Bond/Indebtedness passed with 67%. 

You will notice that it was a bad night for challengers and people outside the political system on the local city's ballot even while Donald Trump was scoring 21% over Hillary Clinton.  The winning candidates were all incumbents or the most politically inside of the choices (exception Sue Petipren, who was going against another novice candidate in Nick Cilman). 

Three Ludington councilors got four more years without a challenger.  The county officers were even more uncontested, seven commissioners without competition, and no other county office under dispute in this November election.  The MCC Board of Education had three openings, but only two people ran for them.  Is there candidate apathy to go with a growing voter apathy?   Or are people so content with their current officials, they just feel like re-electing them? 

It's probably some measure of all of these depending on the case, but let me speak of my own situation.  I went to the city clerk for a petition to run for city councilor in April, learned it was just between the incumbent Les Johnson and myself for the title, so I was able to sit out the relatively busy primary vote in August.  Put out some signs, had some ideas to spur interest and debate issues with Les throughout the rest of that month.

The city refused my request to use the beach for a campfire in order to introduce myself to the voters, before I could reconfigure a new scheme, my father had health problems and died.  Much of the rest of the campaign season dealt with the funeral arrangements and helping my mother with her own set of problems. 

Still, I put out more yard signs, developed two radio ads to play four times for each of the ten days up to the election and made a competent showing at the COLDNews/Chamber of Commies debate where Les actually showed up.  Incredibly, Les had a set of notes he consulted for the several questions that were served up to him, and he shown a mastery of topics for that night, unlike the two times he ad-libbed comments at the end of a couple of recent meetings.  Hmmm, sound familiar?

WMOM invited candidates to come in and discuss issues meaningful to city politics, I came in one morning and talked about them meaningfully.  Les skipped that exercise, even though he was invited, much like he avoided any non-choreographed chance to discuss issues with the citizens of the Third Ward. 

I went out three afternoons in October and November distributing my campaign flyer, which frankly expresses my views on the main topics, and my remedy for some of the problems that the city has.  It is not a glowing testimonial to city leadership and the way the city is heading, and if you do not read this website on a regular basis, and research the facts yourself, you may doubt the assertions and data therein.  I expect many did, even though the vast majority of people I talked with who took Ludington topics seriously seemed to follow the dots. 

I was stopped the day before the election while walking through the district with my sandwich sign, having some transplant from upstate New York telling me what rubes all of us locals were and how climate change should not be scoffed at, while misrepresenting my handout (which said our leaders were "developing master plans based more on threats of climate change rather people-oriented concerns."). 

You can believe 'climate change' (aka global warming) all you want, but if your city's master plan offers dozens of pages on unfounded, unsupported notions of the topic which tells us our Northern Michigan climate is going to be the same as Oklahoma's in our lifetime then you might as well disqualify scientific inquiry altogether and theorize about faeries and magic spells too (see  2015 COL Master Plan for more predictions from eight years ago which have already been discredited by the data since.

But the kind of logic this constituent showed me, helped me rationalize why I did not break thirty percent of the vote, even when my opponent put out no yard signs, did no other kind of advertising, did no walking of the district handing out his own literature, did no mailings, did no in-depth qualifications of his votes or policy, and had a record of only raising taxes, fees, plus taking away basic civil rights, and financially benefitting his business from his public service. 

Most people just don't want to hear anything bad about how things are even when everything is trending that way.  Most people want to see politicians cooperating, being team players, rather than expressing disagreement over issues.  Most people want to believe in unreal stories of faeries and magic spells that their real politicians want to tell them. 

And to make a good story, you have to have a good villain too.  So that guy who was running for council who took our hometown heroes to court to get public records concerning a person who was entrapped by local SSCENT officers is obviously a consort of drug dealers; that guy who sued the city successfully several times for the city violating the FOIA and the OMA, cornerstones of transparent government, only does it to steal your money (even though he only gets back court and legal costs); that guy who allowed two website members to post comments that could be considered threatening if you interpret them in a way that wasn't meant, is in himself the biggest threat to polite society-- look he's even being interrogated by a police officer.

He's not defending the rights of the people assaulted by the actions of the city officials involved in either of those instances.  Oh no.  He's a pornographer like Larry Flynt, he's an ambulance chaser, or he's a drug fiend.  Unfortunately, there's enough of the population around to hear those narratives and assign these labels and more to me.  I'm just a convenient ogre in this drama, and if you don't believe them, you're just one of those hobgoblin henchmen I have. 

[Anon]

Sorry XLFD lost.  But even more sorry his dear father passed away.