Who I am voting for, Mayor of Fort Wayne 2011
Posted by Mike Sylvester - 10/16/11 @ 7:43 pm - Filed Under Featured, Local Politics
Many people vote early. I am generally not one of them. I generally vote on election day.
The top of the ticket race is Mayor. There are three candidates this year:
- Paula Hughes, Republican
- Tom Henry, Democrat (Incumbent)
- D Haley Ahrendt, Independent
This race has been hard for me. I really did initially want to see Tom Henry defeated. I could have easily supported either of the Republicans who were defeated in the primary (Brown and Doden); heck, I would have given Brown $100.
I cannot vote for Ahrendt since he is not running a real campaign and barely even responded to my request for more information about him. What information I did get was too general and tells me little about what he would do as mayor.
I cannot vote for Paula Hughes for several reasons:
- I do not care for her negative campaigning
- She is a large Government Republican who supports all of the failed downtown projects
- I do not think her campaign has been honest
- She helped defeat Jon Olinger for School Board and replaced a good small government type with big government liberal Becky Hill
It is truly painful to admit; however, next month I will be voting for Tom Henry for Mayor. Mayor Henry has been an average Mayor at best; however, that looks better than the alternatives.
I think Tom Henry will win this race. My prediction is:
- Henry 52%
- Hughes 47%
- Ahrendt 1%
A year ago if you would have told me I was going to vote for Tom Henry for Mayor I would have laughed really hard…
Mike
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14 Responses to “Who I am voting for, Mayor of Fort Wayne 2011”
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I have to agree. I am a Republican that will have to vote for Mayor Henry. The thing that upsets me so much about Hughes is that she has really never done a whole lot of good in any position that she has served in. I also cannot vote for a person that hires someone to raise her own child.
A better way is to agree on a write-in candidate and pursue it vigorously. Even if not successful at first, as a side effect it can make two ruling parties a bit more flexible in their dualistic grip on power and it can eventually create an alternative in voters’ minds. In any way it would create a precedent. Any takers on this blog? If not, why not to ask on others?
The history is full of examples that has been thought to be not doable but has been done. Besides it is an American way: just do it.
Have you considered not voting? I understand most people will just vote for the least bad candidate, but given two truly bad options, choose neither by not voting.
Not voting is a fake option in my opinion: there is no “against” vote for uncontested locals. I did it once, and my non-vote candidate got 100% of votes anyway. Once I see it as a fake option it does not fly with me in other cases.
Another time I attempted to decline participating in voting/non-voting for uncontested locals and was told that if I refuse to participate in some voting, I cannot participate in voting for others contested candidates, .. because voting machines programmed that way and there were no paper ballots. I had to walk away in order to not participating in what I see as fake election.
It turns out one has to register a local county write-in candidate, probably city one too so it may be too late to add a write-in name to a ballot. So Ahrendt may be only possible protest candidate. At least he is not under influence of party machines. Van Wert write-in major candidate seems to run unregistered. On federal level one can write-in whomever one wants. Not so sure why this county is so special.
As you know I do not have the hang up on “negative campaigning” that you do. If the ads are issue based and not personal, I think it is part of the competitive process.
Is Paula the perfect conservative I would like to replace Tom Henry with?. No, But despite that, between the two, she is the best choice.
When Paula becomes Mayor, we may see conservative tendancies, we may see liberal tendencies, I really don’t know. I have been surprised by candidates going both directions in the past.
But I do know what we will see….
1. Pat Roller in the cheese line.
2. Beth Malloy , the Deputy Mayor who likely could not have found Fort Wayne on a Map three years ago will be back in Chicago where she belongs.
3. Rusty York will collect retirement.
3. The people who surround the mayor will likely be from Fort Wayne. (I hope).
4. Every decision will not be made after spending hundreds of thousands on consultants or putting together a committee of the “elite” to provide a smoke screen for a decision that has already been made.
My prediction…
Paula 54%
Henry 44%
Ahrendt 2%
And yes…. a year ago if you told me I were going to vote for Paula Hughes I would have laughed really hard:)
[...] a previous post I discussed the Mayor’s race and the fact that I am voting against Paula Hughes; which means [...]
John,
Your four points about Paula Hughes are all points that I hope are true if she does in fact win…
Mike
Dead composer,
The deadline to register as a write-in candidate has passed. In Indiana, you do have the option now of voting for only for certain elected offices. However, write-in votes for people who have not declared themselves as candidates are not counted.
Aha….the consultants are already surrounding Paula’s campaign. I ran into her and table of 20 at Starbucks’ downtown location, chatting about what? Shovel-ready-sites. I am buying a lot in the boondocks.
Jon,
I rather lose this election than have to hear Paula Hughes for the next four years. I wonder who her BFF Becky Hill will vote for? Maybe you and Becky can hold hands while waiting to vote? You are better than this Jon.
Spencer,
The question is which one would be better for Fort Wayne. When Paula wins, there will be a new group of folks running the city. Hopefully the new folks will be more transparent, have more respect for the tax payer and run a more efficient government. Paula is not a fix to all our problems, but since she favors using ABC wages as our common wage our construction for major projects will drop 20%. If you don’t think that is an issue look at the dozens of donations from Unions to Henry, Kennedy, Goldner et. al.
As it happens I have devoted the past year to unseating the other co-chair of Becky Hill’s campaign, Karen Goldner. When that is over… and Russ has soundly crushed Karen… I will devote another year to unseating Becky Hill…and John Pierce. I hope you will help me.
Mr. Olinger,
I’m curious what you have against Pat Roller. She was born and raised in our fine city and was a respected employee of Lincoln Financial Group here in Fort Wayne for many years before becoming our City Controller. She is not a policy maker and serves at the pleasure of the mayor. I don’t believe there has been a city controller more qualified than she.
Spencer-
Jon is obviously much more magnanimous than you or I. After we get past holding our noses in November, we should go all in on Pierce and Hill.
[...] a previous post I discussed the Fort Wayne Mayor’s race. In my previous post I predicted Henry would beat [...]