Election wrap-up: Livingston County out of step with the rest of the state

The news is not good, obviously, and it’s hard to even find any good news in this loss. Working hard, actually getting out and talking to voters with a good candidate running against a candidate with a very questionable ethical record means nothing if you just have a D after you’re name. That’s just sad.

But for the 14,469 people who voted for Mike thank you so much, and he enjoyed meeting you.

In Mike we had a dedicated family man with real family values, man who had a real jobs plan for the economy, had business experience in the real world, would actually listen and talk to voters and could work with both parties. He lost 65-34 percent to a career politician with a record of unethical behavior who blew off the people of the 66th District. Mike did the best of any Democrat against Mr. Ward, but that’s little comfort. The difference in the race? The incumbent had an R after his name. In this county, it seems if Ted Bundy ran as a Republican he would win.

After this result it will be hard to find a quality Democratic candidate to sacrifice and work hard just to be a sacrificial lamb with his only function to preserve the Democratic process. The real loser is Livingston County when there is no choice. The county will end up like Detroit elections where there often is no Republican candidate. The only difference is to Detroit’s credit they always have primary elections, and they always challenge an incumbent. That rarely ever happens in Livingston County.

The conventional wisdom is you run against an incumbent to gain name recognition, and then you run again with name recognition for the open seat in the next election. But Mike said this is a one-time thing, and after seeing how hard he worked how can anyone ask Mike and his family do it again.

The only saving grace is the people of Michigan saw what the real problem was in Michigan and changed it. The great news is Mr. Ward is no longer the Floor Majority Leader, and he is now in the minority party. It will be impossible for him to introduce the show legislation that will get approved in the House and die in the Senate so that he can wave it around and say, “look, I’m doing something.” I only hope the Democrats are not as heavy-handed as Mr. Ward and the other so-called former “leaders” in the House were.

The problem is now the Democratic majority are the ones left to solve the problems with the SBT after the irresponsible vote by the Republicans to end it early. Another mess the Republicans dumped in the laps of the Democrats.

My prediction for the next two years is Mr. Ward will be as scarce in Livingston County as water in the Mojave Desert, but he will be seen frequently in Shiawassee and Ingham Counties as he raises money for his next political office, the open Senate seat in the 22nd District.