Websites Speak Volumes About Ward 2 Council Candidates
by P.D. Lesko
Sex sells. It’s a tried and true marketing tool that has been used since, well, forever. Gallup & Robinson, an advertising and marketing research firm, has conducted multiple studies and determined that the use of sex in advertising results in significantly above-average success in communicating with consumers. Ward 2 Council candidate Sally Hart Petersen has been tweaking and refining her campaign website, particularly the “More About The Issues” section. Many of her answers are the same ones she offered in the June 2012 A2Politico Q & A she did. It’s a good read. Petersen even demonstrated her sense of humor when she posted an A2Politico bit of satire in which she stars to her campaign Facebook page with the comment: “The most wasted of all days is one without laughter.— e.e cummings.”
A trip to visit Sally Petersen’s website and Ward 2 incumbent Tony Derezinski’s website, and one sees immediately which of them in actually running for office, and it isn’t the incumbent.
While Petersen has been tweaking and fine-tuning her campaign message, Derezinski has posted nothing to his campaign website since May 28, 2012, when he slapped up the de riguer photo with Representative John Dingell.
It’s unclear when the members of the Hieftje Hive Mind Collective are going to get the message that while Representative Dingell is a lifelong Democrat (unlike a recent Hieftje drone Mr. Dingell agreed to endorse in 2011), he is not an Ann Arbor Democrat. Progressive political magazine Mother Jones regularly rolled its eyes and ragged on Representative Dingell for his refusal to push Detroit’s Big Three on emissions and fuel efficiency standards. When Dingell was forced into a run-off against former Representative Lynn Rivers, the Sierra Club and Former Speaker Nancy Pelosi endorsed Rivers.
Dingell was quoted in a recent interview as still “relishing” the drubbing he gave to Rivers. He’s not the only one who remembers Rivers’s defeat. There are loads of Ann Arbor Democrats who relish drubbing Dingell in the comment sections of the Detroit and Ann Arbor news sites. Mr. Dingell’s endorsement wasn’t weighty enough to save former Republican Stephen Rapundalo, Derezinski’s colleague on City Council for the past two terms, from a drubbing at the hands of Jane Lumm.
Despite the obvious fact that Dingell, unlike sex, does not sell in Ann Arbor as well as one would imagine, there’s Council member Derezinski, Tony D. to his online fans, in a political embrace with John Dingell in front of the Stadium Bridge, no less. Derezinski’s campaign website is still full of blank pages and stale content. He’s electronically A.W.O.L. Given the fact that he has one of the worst attendance records on City Council, has sponsored almost no resolutions, and busied himself primarily with voting in lock-step with Borg Queen Hieftje on everything from parkland grabs to refusing to spend surplus funds to reinstate lost citizen services, drone Derezinski’s campaign website is, well, just about what you’d expect.
Meanwhile, over at e-Chez Petersen, Sally puts her Harvard MBA and marketing savvy to work. Her tagline is rather clever: “A Fresh Voice for Ward 2.” However, line up Sally P. and Tony D. side-by-side and the comparisons prompt one to mentally change Petersen’s tagline to: “A Fresh Face for Ward 2.”
Below, watch this wonderful video of Petersen’s golf swing. You’ve got Derezinski (above), who comes off looking like a wax effigy of a 70s era politico. Then, below, you have the Real Thing. In her video, Petersen’s poised, athletic, smart and well, alive and engaged in a way that Derezinski can never hope to be in his crotchety, old-school, black-suited photo opp. with Representative Dingell.
Derezenski is to busy enjoying his favorite bar stool at Nights to be worried about the public…..Cheers!
@tim there’s is a GREAT piece in Hour Detroit about an urban farm in Detroit called Brother Nature. Detroit will be an agricultural hub the way it was in the 18th century when French farmers tilled the land. Lots of local agriculture popping up to supply local restaurants with local produce.
I agree that the era of the automobile looks like it’s coming to a close, but as long as the feds and states collect billions in tax revenues from transportation, there are gonna be cars, maybe fueled with hydrogen, water, batteries, something, anything. It’s gonna take a complete make-over of the political system to get Big Oil, the Big Three, etc…out of Congress and elect more people willing to fund research on alternative transportation.
In Ann Arbor, we have fauxgressive Green Wash. Alternative transportation is a way to get real estate deals done. At our house, we have had one car for 7 years. We drive, maybe, 7,000 miles per year. We bike, walk and bus. I lived in Rome, Italy for three years and learned to love my bike, the bus and subway. My kids think I’m CRAZY. LOL. However, I agree that we have to get away from using the car for every trip.
Detroit, as an agricultural hub, is not viable. It is surrounded by so much soon-to-be-dead paved sprawl that no farmer in their right mind would consider trucking (if there are to be trucks) in the future. Ann Arbor is still surrounded by farmland. It will be a regional hub, it’s just a question of whether it will be a GOOD one.
I do not know of any new urbanist thinkers in the Michigan political system at present but they are needed badly. The ideas that built the sprawl of SE Michigan need to be attacked as soon as possible.
http://rustwire.com/2011/03/11/michigan-business-owner-soul-crushing-sprawl-driving-us-away/
There is a great contraction coming. People will need to migrate back to where they do not have to drive for everything. Hopping in the car and driving to run errands is just not going to be practical or even possible when the cheap gas runs out. What’s left will have to be reserved for getting necessary raw materials into the value-add centers. Ann Arbor needs to be one of these and that process should already be underway. The fact that it isn’t is going to be a glaring short-coming sooner than people think.
You should check out a book called “The Great Disruption” by Paul Gilding. It will give you a different perspective on what’s coming in the near future. It’s not a doom and gloom manifesto, it’s more an action plan.
Enjoy!
@tim you make several EXCELLENT points, including the one that Sally’s “issues” bullpen is somewhat shallow. However, I think we can interpret this to mean that she is not a political insider. Her campaign crew is composed of lots of regular folks and that’s great to see, as well. Her site is full of statements that make it clear she wants to hear the different perspectives on the various issues, and that is a skill our City Council desperately needs.
As for your “hub” comments: It ain’t gonna happen. Ann Arbor has 70,000 residents. Dearborn has over 100,000 residents and was a major hub in the 20s-40s, thanks to Henry Ford’s penchant for controlling production and materials. Detroit is where Michigan needs to focus resources, because Detroit was a major metropolis, not just a hub. The “hub” envy is strong in this city, and is the source of many a wasted tax dollar chasing transit and “job creation” boondoggles that are really about real estate development scams way above our collective pay grades.
Is this really a comparison you want to push?
“..line up Sally P. and Tony D. side-by-side and the comparisons prompt one to mentally change Petersen’s tagline to: “A Fresh Face for Ward 2.”
I’m sure Walter Cronkite would pale next to one of today’s blow-dried CNN or Fox prompter-readers. Not that I would be defending Tony D- he’s largely a do nothing. But I have not heard anything new or different from Sally P, either.
She talked about developing the Washtenaw corridor to Ypsi- a stretch entirely dependent for its existence on an endless supply of cars and cheap gas. Well, the era of cheap gas is nearly over, although most don’t realize it and those that do, try hard to keep people from believing it. Drive, drive, drive, then park, then drive some more.
The 12,500 mile supply chain that currently fuels our lifestyle is about to be smashed but in A2.com, our leaders crow about the new Costco in town- a company entirely dependent on that doomed supply chain- as if bringing them to town were a triumph of effective government.
Nobody is talking about building Ann Arbor into a regional hub and value-add center for regional goods and produce.
Nobody is talking about what life here is gonna be like after the cheap gas is gone and people need to leave their cars at home.
Nobody is convincing anyone that leaving the car at home BEFORE that happens might be a benefit NOW. No.
No project can even be considered unless there is scads of car parking and access for cars, cars, cars included.
Getting people to do things they don’t want to do, but that they should be doing, is called leadership. All we get now are more of the same old ideas on how to fit more cars downtown (or into the car corridors like Washtenaw) to shop for more un-needed crap from overseas.
When the gas runs out, it would be great if Ann Arbor were already beyond gas. Turning the local/regional bounty into the things we all need for everyday living. What do these candidates have to say about these issues?