Filing for municipal elections started yesterday. No one noticed.
Perhaps RD will notice.
One of the people that Travis Mateer over at RD has been harping about for nearly a year is Spider McKnight and his consulting firm, Six Pony Hitch.
The communications specialists for his firm, Jennifer Savage, filed to run for City Council the very first day that filing started, right out of Ward 1.
Is she still working there? If you go to what I believe to be her LinkedIn page, you’ll see that she now works for J. Savage Communications and has been for nearly a year. Before that it’s a lot of other jobs, but none with Six Pony Hitch.
Yeah...boring. No one cares about these races; no one notices.
I remember during the two times I ran for city council, I always thought it was important to do so on the first day.
No one else did.
But by golly, by doing so I could get my name in the paper!
A name no one read, or if they did, certainly didn’t care about.
It was my ego talking, and for the 12 people that filed yesterday, that’s about all it was - their ego talking.
We’ve got two months to go before filing ends, and a lot of people will jump into the ring before then.
Trust me, no one’s gonna notice...no one’s gonna care.
I mean, these are city elections we’re talking about - what the hell is there to get excited about?
These eager-beaver, early-candidates are gonna find out the hard way that, yes...no one cares. Oh, they want them to care...but getting them to is like pulling teeth - they’ll avoid it at all costs.
Despite that, 12 people did in fact file...and it cost ‘em a pretty penny:
- $1,009.19 for judge
- $953.37 for mayor
- $160.22 for city council
Yep, we’ve got three judges on the ballot this year, all open seats. It’s gonna be real interesting who slides in, and without Missoula Dem support.
Mayoral race is gonna take all the air out of the room. I know Engen wants you to think Elder isn’t going to be a problem, but that’s simply not true in this woke age of systemic racism and defund the police. In that environment, Engen is not just part of the problem, he is the problem. But Jacob doesn’t have a campaign manager, and even if he did, that individual wouldn’t quite understand the dynamics at play.
But I suppose a statement like that is just as demeaning as Engen’s kick-off-speech statement about outsiders.
I think the 3 judges that are going to be elected this fall will have a much greater influence on local affairs over the next decade than anyone running for mayor or city council could, but that’s just me.
Will the media feel the same way? Of course not! These races will get the least air time!
And that’s why I plan to pay attention to them most. If you read this site, then Jennifer Steano, Thorin Geist, and Ethan Lerman are going to become household names.
As are the people that file to run against them for those open seats - there’ll be quite a few, especially when the out-of-state monied interests get wind of the situation.
Some wildcards for the die-hards are twofold: the September 4 primary (meaning ballots will be mailed August 18...just 60 days after filing ends) and, before that, the July 16 SoS mail-ballot deadline.
The latter has the prospect of being exciting because the Secretary of State has to approve a county’s request to do a mail-ballot election.
Will Jacobsen consent to that, considering the headaches the county has given her so far this year? And what would it mean for either party if it wasn’t mail-in-only? Remember, the GOP had their best turnout ever last year under that system (though the hicks in the legislature...er, rural representatives...want to get rid of that law).
Aside from that, Ward 6 is the only open seat after filing day, but hey - we’ve got two months to go. And Jesse Ramos is going the way of Adam Hertz and Harlan Wells before him, bowing out of Missoula politics, leaving Ward 4 wide open for an elite liberal to take that conservative's place...as well as leaving the Missoula GOP hopping for somone to make them popular again...because trust me (from someone that knocked on 1,200 doors last municipal election in his ward...Jesse was damn popular, and it's gonna leave a void).
An incredible amount is going to happen during this time, with the 5 month of May falling in the 5 year of 2021, and the 8 year in the 5 month of August proving a pivotal time politically.
This is going to be a fun year!
