Election Morn
Urban Oasis’ thoughts on last night’s election results:
I am almost gleeful in anticipation of the schadenfreude I will no doubt be feeling over the next 2 years — Ann Arbor is going to be feeling some serious buyer’s remorse. “Wait, we just elected a retiree and a B&B operator to govern one of the largest cities in Michigan that’s home of one of the largest universities in the country? WTF were we thinking?â€
We can’t possibly leave A2 any time soon with two years of this kind of madcap hilarity ahead. Anyone looking for a roommate?
“I am almost gleeful in anticipation of the schadenfreude I will no doubt be feeling over the next 2 years — …But of course, the clowns who elected these two….
…My hope, I should note, is that we will see a resurgence in the local Republican party.”
A little sadistic, isn’t this? Not to mention elitist. (Re all the poor plebeian “clowns” who are the voters…and why not just let only the Ph.D. academic elitos vote instead, then, some would say, instead of “the unwashed masses”?)
And re the wish for powerful Repubs: great, now we can have Ann Arbor Ghraib, not just Abu Ghraib.
(Note to aaio: I thought you’d've titled it “Post-Election Mo(u)rn” or something.)
posted by David Boyle on August 8th, 2007 at 12:05 pm“Anyone looking for a roommate?”
I have an unfinished basement you could crash in for a while. I’d have to ask Mrs. Structure Dude, though. Especially if you’d be having any loud parties. And we keep kosher, but only during Passover.
But I was kind of thinking that you might just pass this site on to Boyle to save him the trouble of popping in several times a day to redirect your traffic to his own page. He could just move the whole shootin’ match (crappy photos and all) right over here.
posted by Parking Structure Dude! on August 8th, 2007 at 12:24 pmOh funny man. Perhaps you could run it instead, rename it “Being a Pervert Is Underrated”, and go wild until you get arrested for your activities like this.
posted by David Boyle on August 8th, 2007 at 12:39 pmschadenfreude?
This is a word you learn in grad school, folks.
Not to worry, everyone. Mr Winling will be leaving town before long, like Murph, Brandon and their fellow travelers who worked so hard (snicker) to build the stillborn “New West Side” renters action group.
posted by mucho gusto (back in disguise) on August 8th, 2007 at 9:56 pmMeh, I decided I’d rather just put-on shows at some point.
I guess this is a general life-trend overall for me.
posted by Brandon on August 8th, 2007 at 10:37 pmSee? You guys lost interest and moved on. No stick-to-it-ivness. Little ability or interest to see the long term. For you it was just another term project.
Just goes to show that old age and treachery will overcome youth and enthusiasm every time.
posted by mucho gusto (back in disguise) on August 9th, 2007 at 8:41 amWill the last one to leave Michigan please turn off the lights?
posted by Nick on August 9th, 2007 at 12:17 pmYou assume there will be a budget to pay for the electricity at that point.
posted by MDS on August 9th, 2007 at 9:31 pmI don’t know either of the people elected, but it seems like a retiree might have lived long enough to have some common sense, and a B&B owner might have a combined sense of both preservation and business. Those all seem like good things to bring to council!
posted by Monica on August 11th, 2007 at 1:56 pmIt’s incredibly presumptuous and elitist of anyone (not surprising from someone with a know it all attitude like Mr Winling) to predict that just because someone is a retiree and a local small business owner that Ann Arbor will have any sense of remorse after having collectively exercised their rights in an election.
Like Mucho Gusto said, it appears that aaio and the folks who run down the city here on this blog couldn’t muster the votes. Here in the US, we call that democracy and those who take their rights seriously came out and voted. Right or wrong, depending on your point of view, that’s how it works. Just because you have a smart tongue and a soapbox doesn’t make you any better or wiser than anyone else.
If your opinion on how things should be run and how things might be better here in Ann Arbor were really the way to go, more people would have come out and voted for your way of thinking. That obviously didn’t happen, your ideas were not validated by the voters. Mike Anglin and Sabra Briere’s were.
posted by tan, rested, and ready on August 12th, 2007 at 11:45 am“That obviously didn’t happen, your ideas were not validated by the voters. Mike Anglin and Sabra Briere’s were.”
What are you, GW Bush? You’re assuming that this was some sort of a referendum on development. Don’t you think that there’s a sliver of a chance that they voted for Anglin or Briere for other reasons? Ms. Briere, as an example, has a pretty good resume in terms of public service. As we have read here, Anglin did an awful lot of door to door work.
And have you forgotten that Greden won, and won big against Ms. Bullington? And how did Schmerl do when she ran? There’s your answer as to how people feel about the Greenway being the most important issue before the City….she ran on nothing else. “Greenway NOW!”, if you’ll recall.
Who’s the one being presumptuous?
I’m actually beginning to think that the new blood may not be a bad thing…..if Anglin and Briere are truly anti development (and are smart enough to understand the tools that they hold), they should push really hard to finish updating the zoning, finish the Master Plan, and force the Planning and Bldg. Dept. to use the MP and updated zoning each and every time. This would be a great thing. We’ll see.
posted by todd on August 12th, 2007 at 12:04 pmCounty-wide the turnout was less than 8%. There’s no mandate there. At all. Apparently most people just don’t care. THAT’S what should concern us all.
posted by OWSider on August 12th, 2007 at 1:01 pmApathy may be part of it. But holding the doggone primaries in August isn’t exactly conducive to high turnout.
It’s hard to believe that this is unintentional. I’m sure Larry can set us straight on that point.
posted by todd on August 12th, 2007 at 1:53 pmLet me take a stab at it, todd. State law has said for a long time that if you have a general election in November you must have the primary in August.
The situation is peculiar in AA (and in the county as a whole) because nearly all the students are gone in August. So the primaries are always decided by the year-round residents.
This year, though, at least in the First Ward, voter turnout was at a recent low. I had expected 1200 votes to be cast in that primary, based on voting behavior in previous August primaries. Much to my surprise, only 910 votes were cast. That number is 25% below my prediction. I suppose reduction is due in part to the Pfizer exodus.
Remember, also, that for people to vote in a particular election they have to feel they have a stake in the outcome. The vast majority of voters don’t care that much about City politics. Ergo, the outcomes will always be in the hands of relatively small numbers of motivated folks.
posted by David Cahill on August 12th, 2007 at 5:35 pmThanks for the explanation Dave, and please send my congrats to the missus.
posted by todd on August 12th, 2007 at 6:03 pmRight or wrong, depending on your point of view, that’s how it works. Just because you have a smart tongue and a soapbox doesn’t make you any better or wiser than anyone else.
Actually, I’m going to say that, yes, in fact, aaio is probably wiser and better than others, particularly Anglin and Briere.
Also, I don’t know what went on when you grew up, when when I was a young boy, we were told that casting a vote is what gave us the right to complain about the results. Now we are told by you that, in fact, even those who have cast votes cannot complain about the results, either. That, good sir, is unAmerican! Once we’ve voted, it becomes our God-given right to complain about politicians and question the mental acuity of those who put them into office!
posted by Constantine on August 13th, 2007 at 10:16 amI would be hesitant to call any election a mandate when one of the town’s most significant populations is away for the summer, and hampered in voting by absentee ballots thanks to the generous Mr. Rogers. Not that many of us would have voted anyways, but it’s hard to garner student interest in civic participation when we are schematically and purposefully alienated from having any influence at the ballot box in a one-party city.
-A Student/Citizen who proudly drove 2 hours to vote in the 3rd Ward
posted by MDS on August 13th, 2007 at 8:24 pmWhen MSU was on the quarter system, and the absentee ballot laws were different from today, there was an absentee ballot drive among students every spring, so that thousands of students could participate in the August primary.
Now that both MSU and UM are on the semester system, this can’t be done. During April, the last full month when students are here, it’s too early to apply for an August ballot. Add to that new laws which prohibit the collection of filled-out absentee ballot applications, and student mass participation in primaries becomes an impossibility.
Since the universities are unlikely to alter their schedules, the best answer would be to move the general primary from early August to early May. Many states already have May primaries, and the turnout tends to be better than in August primaries.
There are two main objections to May (as opposed to August) primaries. (1) It would lengthen the general election campaign. Once nominated, a candidate would have six months rather than three months to campaign. (2) It would move the candidate filing deadline three months earlier, to February. In general, longer lead times help incumbents because challengers are less organized.
I think the greater participation in May (not just among students) is a stronger argument than either of those.
posted by Larry Kestenbaum on August 13th, 2007 at 10:41 pmSo, Dean Constantine,
You from A2?
Live in A2?
Ever bought porn at the Blue Front, back when they had some?
Ever voted in A2? Nothing on your websites home page indicates that you’ve ever been here. Or are you so ashamed of whatever time you spent in Ann Arbor that you are loathe to mention it.
You ever met Mike or Sabra? Or do you get your news from aaio and those who only criticize Mike because of his grammar and his website?
And what rules are those? I still have the right to bitch even if I don’t vote. It’s the US of A, dude! Not voting never prevented anyone from NOT bitchin’!
todd? MDS? It IS intentional! It’s that vast OWS homeowners/Greenway/tiny building gang conspiracy that decides that elections happen when students aren’t in town!
I think some of you bad asses should run for office and get the New West Side Angry Renters Association to vote for you!
posted by mucho gusto on August 13th, 2007 at 10:55 pmmucho gusto, I guess you’re a native, A2′er, right? You must be one of those pain-in-the-butt fanny-pack-wearing midwestern tourists who come to DC and don’t understand that you’re supposed to stand on the right and walk on the left when you’re on the escalators and end up getting in my way while I’m going about my business. Man, you people piss me off.
And what rules are those? I still have the right to bitch even if I don’t vote.
Google seems to agree with me, 1.9 million times over.
Or do you get your news from aaio and those who only criticize Mike because of his grammar and his website?
“Only” criticize Mike because of his grammar? mucho gusto, grammarliness is next to Godliness. This is a serious test of one’s character. I think we can all agree that aaio is a much better writer than Mike, which gets back to my “aaio is probably wiser and better” argument above. You really trust placing A2’s government in the hands of someone with a poor command of grammar? See, this is why the founding fathers were skeptical of direct democracy!
posted by Constantine on August 14th, 2007 at 1:55 amThe last time I was in DC it was for Clintons’ first inauguration. My wife and I attended the Michigan inaugural ball courtesy of my friend Carl Levin. I got so drunk I almost puked on Liz Brater and Larry Hunter who got a little negative press for commandeering a city car and driving it to DC.
The first time I was in DC it was for the New Mobilization anti war protests in ‘72 long before your parents conjoined. I was gassed and clubbed by an agent provocateur at Dupont Circle after spending a couple of days on pinched credit cards at the Watergate HoJo’s learning how to drive 16 penny nails through golf balls to pitch out of the window to the freeway below.
Ask Dave Cahill about the tear gas the got tossed into the back of the school bus we were staying in on the GWU campus. He knows!
Grammar and spelling? The Founding Fathers? I read the Constitution, dude, and they spelled “happiness” with two “f”s at the end! WTF?
They didn’t learn you that at that fancy Pingry school?
posted by mucho gusto on August 14th, 2007 at 6:54 amI think at both Pingry and Groton they place the word “happiness” in the Declaration of Independence rather than the Constitution.
posted by Dale on August 14th, 2007 at 1:37 pmSorry, mucho gusto, but I was never at GWU, wnad wasn’t in any school bus that got gassed. Sorry to puncture your balloon.
Also, those esses that look like effs are called “swing esses”. They were quite the rage for a long time. Now they have fallen out of fashion, which is a Good Thing.
posted by David Cahill on August 14th, 2007 at 1:47 pmGeorge Wafinghton’f and Thomaf Jefferfon’f ftyle out of fafhion? Ye godf!!!
posted by David Boyle on August 14th, 2007 at 10:43 pmmucho gusto, why is it that you always pull the “I protested in the 60s” card whenever someone mocks you? Seriously, you’re just playing into the very stereotype of A2 as the place of “aging-radicals-turned-domesticated-NIMBY-homeowners.”
posted by Constantine on August 15th, 2007 at 4:20 pmDavid, you weren’t there but you knew those folks.
Michels, Murdoch, Jackson, Brown, Paster, Gorczak, Arnie, Williams and the gang who lived on Cross St and down in the Gutter. I think Walrus drove the bus. But you’d moved on by then.
Connie? You have a past, I have a history.
And you play into the geek-turned-economically-envious-grad-student-from-a fancy pants-prep-school-who-wished-he-got-laid-more-often-thinks-his-shit-don’t-stink-Barnes and Noble-shopping-in-love-with-his-precious-moleskine-notebooks-but-keeps-it-old-school-with-a-pen-even-though-he-loves-his-gadgets-and-posts-pictures-of-his-empty-notebooks-pages-on-his-lame-too-much-to-say-about-myself-vanity-website stereotype.
Go get yer fingernails dirty, pretty boy.
posted by mucho gusto on August 15th, 2007 at 10:08 pmI was liking (well, that’s a strong word) the new non-creepy-stalker, non-horizontal-scrolling mucho gusto.
posted by ann arbor is overrated on August 16th, 2007 at 8:43 amMucho horizonto scrollo is no mucho goodo.
posted by David Boyle on August 16th, 2007 at 10:51 pmI could turn this into a pissing match, but this is went from vaguely amusing and humorous to creepy.
posted by Constantine on August 16th, 2007 at 11:06 pmMan, some people are far too easily creeped out.
On the creep scale, mucho gusto is several notches below Jack Nicholson in The Shining and Andy Kaufman when he wrestled women. Now that really creeps me out.
It’s a big, dangerous world and if a mucho gusto pissing match on the internet creeps you out, you’re either incredibly sheltered or missing your anti-anxiety meds. I’m sure most people can outwit me, but a pissing match? Bring it on!
So how high up on the tree trunk can you piss?
posted by mucho gusto (marking his territory) on August 17th, 2007 at 8:51 amMucho Gusto - you are a creep!
posted by 1whonos on August 19th, 2007 at 1:41 pmComing from you, I’ll consider that a compliment!
Don’t leave out raving lunatic, wacko, Grandpa Simpson, or NIMBY.
posted by mucho gusto on August 26th, 2007 at 1:07 pm