The election is over.  Twitter and Facebook can go back to normal.  I don’t need to read another post that says, “If you don’t vote–you can’t complain.”  Though you might tweet it, they still are going to complain.

Kalamazoo Surprise

It was my first take at being a political talking head.  The result?  I still need to keep my day job.  I was able to guess many races correctly but a few took me by surprise. The biggest surprise for me was the Kalamazoo Human Rights ordinance.  I thought the last minute barrage of misleading ads would tip the scales.  Kalamazoo voters proved me wrong and beat back the lies 2-1 with a resounding victory.  Congrats  K-Zoo!

Lansing

It wasn’t a surprise that Virg won but the end result was much bigger than most pundits had thought.  Well played, my friend.  I had made the statement yesterday that the Mayor would not have coattails in the city council races and I was somewhat right.   He was only able to pick up one of the two seats he targeted by helping Tina Houghton defeat incumbent Sandy Allen.

Detroit City Council

Overall, I was able to correctly guess the mayoral election and eight of the nine finalists for the Detroit City Council.  My biggest surprise was that Charles Pugh still ended up the top vote-getter and now President-elect of the Council after the press coverage of his recent home foreclosure issue.  I had thought that issue would have catapulted Gary Brown and Ken Cockrel, Jr. above him in the standings.

National Politics

Just like I said yesterday, the national media and the political parties will pontificate on the results of the Governor’s races in NJ and VA and the Congressional NY-23 seat.  The bottom line, in my opinion, voters were not voting on health care or Obama.  They voted their pocketbooks and the economy.  If anything that should send a signal to local and state politicians that the voters will be voting the economy in the next election.  You better have a good message or candidate that can tackle that issue or you are toast in 2010.