New to City Politics in the Great Frogopolis? Never fear, cats and cadets, the ultimate primer is just around the corner. You can learn all you need to know in the upcoming May 6 election.
Didn’t know there was an election on May 6? That’s lesson numero primavera. No one pays a durned bit of attention to primary elections, and the voter turnout will most likely never approach double figures. Translate that into the probability that more than nine in ten registered voters have no plans to vote this Spring either.
But that’s just a scratch on the surface of what you can learn in the particulars of the May 6 E Day. Consider the strange saga of the election in District Two to permanently fill the seat vacated when Uncle Dennis improbably fell into the Mayor’s office.
Two for the show
By last October, polls had Uncle D with a clear lead over incumbent Mike Bellbottoms. Back room conversations began in earnest to decide who would be appointed to take his place in January. The first rumor to burble up out of the political miasma was that Carty S. Finkelgruber was interested in the seat, proving yet again that the Fink simply will not go away.
Folks with a lick of sense and a long memory realized the Finklestinker could simply not be allowed to return to Council, but whither a viable alternative candidate? Then from out of the hinterlands of the New South End arose a likely taker, one who could inspire the allegiance of sufficient members of Council to garner the appointment and with the political might to win the seat.
Molly McHugh Branyan seemed to have the right stuff. Daughter of former Democratic Mayor John McHugh, she was the Democratic candidate against Uncle Dennis back in aught seven and lost by a mere two hundred fifty votes. A veteran of tough campaigns and known in the District, she could muster support from labor and old guard Ds alike.
‘Til at the last minute, just before the inevitable Lucas County Dems endorsement, she decided she didn’t wanna, after all.
The Dem endorsement thus fell to political newcomer, labor official Matt Cherry. His basic credentials included saying “Yes” when asked if he’d take the seat. Endorsed by the Ds, he was appointed by the D majority on Council forthwith, and must win on May 6 to keep his seat.
Meanwhile the ongoing bumbling of the Dems meant that another likely candidate slipped through their fingers. School Board member Bob Vasquez, who finished first in the voting last fall, had been snubbed for the no-brainer endorsement in that election. He accordingly was never approached by the dithering Dem establishment for the District Two appointment.
What goes around comes around. Vasquez has now entered the race, splitting D votes just as happened in September of Twenty Thirteen, when A Lo and Joe Mac split the vote and neither cleared the Primary. Never one to learn their lesson, it’s déjà vu all over again for the Mad Ave Dems.
Then there’s the “Independent” in the race. Marsha Helman has been a D and even decided to seek the Democratic endorsement. The Ds were too busy shooting themselves in the foot, so Helman instead sought help from longtime buddy, Republican Councilman Rob Who?deman. Robby said he’d be glad to help, but only if Helman didn’t run as a D.
That left two possibilities: seek the endorsement of the Jon Stainbrook-led Lucas County GOP, or go it alone. Helman took one look at the broke ‘n’ goofy Stainbrook group and hightailed it on back to Who?deman’s side. Which left her as an Independent.
Stainbrook and his greasy minions in turn endorsed the odd duck Joe Celusta, who finished dead last in the race for an at-large seat last fall. He even finished behind the Green Party candidate, but that didn’t faze ol’ Jon. Neither did the fact that Celusta spends more of his time pining for the halcyon days of the nineteen fifties, when his Grampa was mayor, than proposing policies for the Twenty-First Century.
Lessons learned
So there you have it. A weak and doddering Lucas County Democratic Party coupled with a GOP run by a gaggle of misfits equals a pair of less-than-inspiring endorsed candidates, one backed by labor which will give him a leg up, the other backed by the ghosts of Christmas past who will decidedly finish last. The two majority candidates are each running without the backing of their Party, one as the “Independent” du jour and the other as a winning Party outcast.
If that little tale didn’t tell ya all you need to know about the state of City Politics in Twenty Fourteen, we could try the one about Jack Ford missing the deadline to appear on the Primary ballot against fellow D Edna Brown and instead circulating petitions as an “Independent” to square off agin’ her this Fall. But that lesson will have to wait for a future column.
For now suffice it to say, City Politics is all mucked up. Long live City Politics!
