Friends of Mr. Fortunato (Continued)

It is Monday, the primary being tomorrow between the ghostly trio (Hammond, Roach, and Fortunato). The local news creates some interesting notes in this contest:

- While Roach is painted as a the darling of the developers in Heavey's ads, she is being stiffed by the Master Builder's Association. The MBA is doing this at the request of the Repub party, because The GOP Heads have endorsed Hammond (This is reported out in the open in the local papers, by the way - Hammond is "our boy").

- Despite this, Roach is out-fundraising Hammond 43k to his 39k to date, with Fortunato with 11k. Roach is also retaliating for Hammond's people challenging her residency by having HER people file complaints with the State Public Disclosure Commission. The Commission will not be able to report until after the election, but it is a nice going-away present from one campaign to another, regardless of the outcome.

- There are about 78,000 voters in the 9th, but only about 17,000 of them will vote tomorrow (which means the Republicans are spending about 5 bucks a vote).

- Both Fortunato and Roach state that Hammond will come in third in the race.

- All GOP candidates were declaring that they have been ringing doorbells all weekend. We never saw any of them, but they may either have written the Panther Lake area off as a pro-Democrat stronghold that is going to be absorbed by Kent eventually, or the temple bell and dragon in the front yard scared them off.

So here comes the handicapping - I'm going to go with Hammond as the GOP choice to go after Heavey, and do a pretty good job. Roach will be a strong second, and Fortunato, alas, a distant third. Hammond has the party backing, the mantle of his predecessor, and the developer money, and the reputation of be easier for the council to deal with. Roach has sheer cussedness.

Of course, Phil Fortunato gets the last word, scoffing in an interview at "this notion that all council members have to like each other."

More later,