That looks like a close one overall. Though I think a lot of people expected it to be a close race that might have gone the other way. I’d e-mail Mayor Schweighart my condolences, but I don’t think he uses e-mail.

You DON’T f**k with Obama! Right guys! 
Rahm new that. Don knows that. And now, the day after he “announced” his re-election bid, it looks like Facebook does too.
http://www.mercurynews.com/business/ci_17777433?nclick_check=1
I think Huey Lewis got it wrong - Its really, really, really, unhip to be square.
 

Tom Bruno: Best ‘stache in CU? 

When is Gerard going to show his birth certificate?

Butch:
“You DON’T f**k with Obama! Right guys!”
 
I wouldn’t say it that way.  I would say that, unless you can rely on partisan hackery to get by, you really don’t want to alienate half of the people in your community.
 
TV news anchors can rely on partisan hackery because attracting ~50% of the audience is probably better than what they could get before.
 
It looks to me like the cost of resorting to partisan hackery is pretty high for the mayor of a small city—both in this race, and based on what I’ve observed about how local politics works here and in other places.
 

I’m an independant for life, my friend. Its not hackery, its reality. It must feel good to be on the same side as….forget it just message me on facebook.

Butch:
I was pointing out that Schweighart of shot himself in the foot by engaging partisan hackery during the Tea Party rally last year.  I was pointing out that he alienated and emberassed a lot of his constituents this way.  That’s just a really bad idea in local politics, and in just about every activity—though people seem to get away with it in DC and on Fox News for some reason.
 
Your statement looked like a sarcastic attempt to mock Obama fans (of which I am one), but I thought that was beside the point.  I was thinking about Schweighart when I wrote my comment, and trying to show you the big picture—and I didn’t intend to accuse you partisan hackery…  Though, in retrospect, your attempt to sarcastically mock about half[0] of the readers of the blog does kinda fit the description.  It’s all good, though—I only responded to your coment because it was an easy prompt from which to launch in to what I think the big picture happens to be—which is that polorizing tactics seem to be counterproductive in local politics, even though they seem to be effective in the media and in the US Congress.  Maybe it’s because we see our neighbors in person from time to time and realize that they’re mostly decent people even if we disagree?
 
[0] Give or take a few percent for 3rd parties and for the demographics of a university town’s audience.
 

Seth - sorry if this is too nitpicky but I think there are some undervotes, overvotes, and write-ins so the total of Gerard and Schweighart votes shouldn’t equal 100%
Luke/Butch: Fox News works as a business because they really don’t have any competition.  The other networks are all in the center left, or hard left.  I would point out that the crazy racist Al Reynolds still took close to 40% (IIRC) of the vote vs Frerichs in the last election.  40% of 300,000,000 people is a lot of potential viewers for a national network, even if they have to pay Glenn Beck to act crazy.
 

Luke I’m from urbana and support Prussing. Ol’ Jerry was gettin too comfortable fer sure. But my original points still stand, and are definatly more in line with that “big picture” yer talkin about.

Good comment at the News-Gazette site about the schools:
 
“Tensions are running high in this town and in this district and I think one of the reasons is because we’re putting band-aids on problems that require major surgery.”
 
That would be good to explore. Too bad the stupids here wanted to deny there were any problems and wanted to run around with their pants on the ground.