The Aftermath of Yesterday's Primary

     Another primary has come and gone, and with few surprises.

     Indeed, things more or less played out about the way I anticipated, but there's much to break down, so let's skip the long-winded intro and get to it:

• Governor. Brian Calley insisted on trying to walk this fine line between being a "political outsider" and being Rick Snyder 2.0. Ultimately he couldn't pull off the former, so he embraced the latter, but despite the much-touted economic comeback, Snyder is not exactly the name you want to hitch your wagon to. Patrick Colbeck never had the name recognition among the general public, favorite though he might have been among the Tea party and religious set. Jim Hines, even less so, despite his appeal to the more moderate wing. Schuette was always the man to beat here; he's been effectively campaigning for the job since he took his current post, waging high-profile ideological battles for much of his first term. Then, of course, Flint happened, and he seized on the opportunity to distance himself from the man who would be his primary opponent this year.
  
  The Democratic results don't come as much of a shock, either. Once Mike Duggan and Dan Kildee announced they wouldn't be running, former Senate Minority Leader Gretchen Whitmer became the new chosen one. I tend to think either of the former would have had a better run at this based on name recognition; the mayor who's being credited for engineering Detroit's turnaround, and the congressman advocating for Flint on a national level, but Kildee's in his current spot for life if he wants it, and Duggan... well, I can't explain that one. But even beyond the somewhat Hillary/Bernie-ish dynamic of this one (establishment centrist vs. progressive idealist), it wasn't hard to predict this outcome. Whitmer had support from the UAW and the MEA, plus quite a few big-shots in the party. Support for Abdul El-Sayed came more from the progressive activist wing of the party; people like Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Shaun King. Big on ideals and grassroots activism, but lower on financial backing compared to the organizations that fund campaigns like Whitmer's, and that still counts for a lot. Unless, of course, you're Shri Thanedar, and nobody takes you seriously. You've got to give Whitmer credit: "fix the damn roads" is the kind of bumper-sticker slogan people remember. Of course, there's an elephant in the room to be addressed here: There is a not-statistically-insignificant number of people who have said they wouldn't even consider El-Sayed specifically because he's a Muslim without knowing anything else about the man... well, "racist" may not be the right word for it. But there's a rather loud group of prejudiced folk out there, and I'm not gonna say that didn't factor in enough to scare Dems out of throwing him up in a general election.  Enough that it swung the election to Whitmer, though? Doubt it..
  
  Even the Libertarians managed to pick the candidate that would be most palatable to the general electorate, as Bill Gelineau won out. Sorry, but John Tatar comes off as the kind of guy that believes fluoride is a mind control agent, chemtrails are a thing and whose first words during any police encounter are "am I being detained?" Of course, it's hard to see Gelineau having much of a chance in the general election, other than managing to siphon off a few votes from those disillusioned with the two major-party candidates.
  
• U.S. Senate. Really thought Sandy Pensler's relentless attack ads on John James might have swayed this thing in his favor, but apparently GOP voters saw right through a guy whose positions on everything have... evolved, to say the least. James is definitely the candidate of the two that had the better shot in the general, though; military veteran, businessman, first run for office as opposed to being a perennial candidate, and by and large a more optimistic message. Hard to see Debbie Stabenow being particularly vulnerable, but James should put up a good fight.
  
• U.S. House. Amazingly, the actual progressive won! Kimberly Bizon takes this one over Frank Accavitti, so where the former Eastpointe mayor ends up next is anyone's guess; he ran for the seat last time and lost. Not sure how much of a hope she has in one of the most conservative districts in the state, though.
  
• State Senate. To say the least of it, your not-so-humble correspondent is ecstatic that noted bigot Gary Glenn will not hold an elected office come the end of this year. The local guy takes this one, as Kevin Daley wins by about 5,000 votes. It was always going to be a hard sell for Glenn, though, especially with the amount of money Consumers Energy spent against him. But you'll basically have two Republicans to pick from in November, as Cynthia Luczak won by a long shot on the Democratic side. (My favored candidate, Joni Batterbee, finished a distant third.)
  
• Library Millage. Truth be told, this is a disappointment. But there's a quote I came across on the topic that put things into perspective: "People need to think of it as a negotiation. The library board swung for the fences, as they should have, and proposed a dream scenario, the Taj Mahal of libraries. Voters called them out on it. Now they can come back with something else and we can reconsider." Of course you're going to shoot for the moon the first time out, but that makes it more likely that voters would accept something less extravagant down the road. The fact that they only came up about 1500 votes short of getting their best-case scenario suggests to me they could come back with a more pared-down version and get the votes needed. to pass it.
  
  Or maybe I'm giving people too much credit.