by P.D. Lesko Fifth Ward Council member Carsten Hohnke has had enough. In his email to constituents, Hohnke told readers he was stepping down after two terms to “spend more time with his family.” A classic political dodge. Norman Fowler, a member of Margaret Thatcher’s Cabinet, was supposedly the first politician to give the “spend [...]
by P.D. Lesko Fourth Ward Council member Margie Teall has talked a good game for a long time. The incredibly incurious (Ann Arbor News/AnnArbor.com), overly obsequious (Ann Arbor Observer) or just plain naive (Michigan Daily) local media have made it possible for her to talk a good game. To date, the city’s local media have rarely [...]
A2P Notes: Maybe you missed the piece in Time in October 2011 where writer Adam Cohen wrote the most frightening case study you might ever read. It begins: The Occupy Wall Street movement is shining a spotlight on how much influence big-money interests have with the White House and Congress. But people are not talking [...]
by P.D. Lesko In November 2011 Second Ward Council member Stephen Rapundalo sent a damaging email to AnnArbor.com in which he painted himself as a disingenuous opportunist, writing that he wanted to “look engaged” prior to the election. AnnArbor.com went on to endorse Rapundalo in the City Council race, but the scathing comments by AnnArbor.com readers left [...]
by P.D. Lesko Sometimes, endorsements can help a candidate get elected. Sometimes they can’t. Sometimes, a political endorsement can actually cause voters to be less likely to vote for a candidate. That’s exactly what’s happening in Michigan to Mitt Romney. A recent Public Policy Polling survey conducted February 17-19 found that only 13 percent of [...]
by P.D. Lesko Former Second Ward Council member Stephen Rapundalo was not popular. He had earned a reputation among constituents and city staffers as being nasty. One police officer, when asked about Rapundalo prior to the November 2011 general election in which Rapundalo was ousted from office, said with a chuckle, “Oh, we don’t like [...]
By P.D. Lesko Operation Hilarity may not be quite so funny to Markos Moulitsas Zuniga. Moulitsas Zuniga owns the liberal blog Daily Kos which has over 300,000 registered users and serves up 2,000,000 pages per month. Moulitsas Zuniga launched Kos because he believed “the liberal Ivy League mandarins, consultants, and wonks, many of them refugees [...]
by P.D. Lesko Congressman John D. Dingell, Jr. is 17 months away from breaking the late Congressman Robert Byrd’s record for total combined congressional service in the House and Senate. Dingell has been in the U.S. House since 1955, when he was elected to fill the seat held by his father, who had held it since [...]
by P.D. Lesko Judging from the number of bills Michigan GOP members pushed through the state Senate today, one could be led to believe that voter fraud in Michigan is a problem of epidemic proportions. However, nothing could be further from the truth. In a 2004 federal court ruling, Judge David Lawson concluded that there [...]
by P.D. Lesko It’s February, and in another 60 days or so those in the mood to run for mayor and City Council as Democrats or Republicans will have gone to the City Clerk’s office and taken out petitions. Those running as Independents have until August 2012 to turn in nominating petitions. City Council candidates [...]
