Indiana Libertarian Convention Invitation

The 2007 Indiana Libertarian is rapidly approaching, please register now!

The Indiana Libertarian Party will be electing an entire new slate of officers this year; we will have four new officers at the close of this Convention. Please plan on attending to help choose the officers that will lead the Indiana Libertarian Party for the next two years!

Three Libertarian Presidential Candidates will be attending our Convention and speaking to the attendees. This is your chance to preview three of the 2008 Presidential Candidates!

The Convention package includes food and beverages Friday night, access to the Convention and all speakers Saturday, a buffet meal on Saturday night, and Breakfast on Sunday with access to Sunday’s speakers.

The easiest way to register is to write a check to “The Indiana Libertarian Party” and to mail it to:

156 E. Market Street
Suite #405
Indianapolis, IN 46204

If you register by mail please write us a note and tell us which of the following events you will be attending:
Friday evening reception for Mark Rutherford
Saturday Convention
Saturday Supper
Sunday Breakfast and speakers

You may also register by credit card. This can be done from the LPIN website at:
http://www.lpin.org/index.php?q=node/93
If you register by credit card please send Todd Singer an email at: lpinhq@lpin.org and please let him know which events you will be attending.

If you register by May 14th your Convention Package will cost $130. You may purchase a Saturday meal for a guest for $40.

If you register after May 14th the cost rises to $150 and $45 respectively.

Libertarians from around the Country have already reserved fifteen rooms for both Friday and Saturday night. The Hilton still has rooms available; however, they are filling up for that weekend quickly. If you wish to reserve a room please contact the Fort Wayne Hilton at 260-420-1100.

Please contact Mike Sylvester if you have any questions at 260-338-0833 or by email at Mike.Sylvester@Verizon.net.

Mike Sylvester, Convention Chair

The agenda is below:

Friday May 18th:

A party will be held honoring Mark Rutherford and his seven years of outstanding service to the LPIN. The party will be held at 4205 North Washington Road at the house of Jack and Hillary Evans. Everyone who has paid to attend the 2007 Indiana Libertarian Convention can attend this party at absolutely no charge. A wide variety of food and beverages will be available all evening; the main courses include vegetarian lasagna, two pork roasts with dressing and gravy, and Hungarian goulash with sour cream and knoudles. The party will run from 6:30 PM until the “wee hours.” This party is being held about four miles from the Convention site. Please call 260-432-2091 or 260-760-7090 for directions to the house of Jack and Hillary Evans.

Saturday May 19th:

The Convention is being held at the Grand Wayne Center. The Grand Wayne Center is located at 120 West Jefferson in downtown Fort Wayne. The Grand Wayne Center is connected to the Fort Wayne Hilton.

Registration will occur in Calhoun Ballroom B from 8 AM – 9 AM.

9 – 9:15 Mike Sylvester will welcome everyone and discuss schedule for Convention in Calhoun Ballroom B.

9:15 – 10:00 Keynote speech from Mitch Harper in Calhoun Ballroom B. Mitch Harper will discuss the history of the LPIN and ballot access from his perspective as a Republican State Representative from 1978 – 1990.

10:00 – 10:15 Break

10:15 – 11:15 Andy Downs will give a presentation about Indiana Municipal Government in Calhoun Ballroom B.

11:15 – 11:30 Break

11:30 – 11:55 Andy Downs will do a session where he does nothing other then answer questions in Calhoun Ballroom B.

Mike Sylvester will give a presentation on “The impact of Public Meetings and how to influence them” in Calhoun C.

Rebecca Sink-Burris will give a presentation “Where do we grow from here” in Calhoun D.

11:55 – 12:00 Break

12:05 – 12:30 Rex Bell will give a presentation on “Rex Bell’s campaign for the Indiana Legislature” in Calhoun Ballroom B.

Mike Kole will give a report on running for Secretary of State in 2006 in Calhoun C.

Margarette Fette will give a presentation on "Getting LP Concerns in the Media" in Calhoun D.

People will be dismissed from each individual session and all will be provided with a map of local restaurants. We will eat on our own in small groups. There are a lot of choices.

12:30 – 13:30 Lunch on own.

13:30 – 15:30 Business meeting of Convention, Calhoun Ballroom B.

15:30 – 15:45 Break

15:45 – 16:10 Christine Smith, Libertarian candidate for President 2008 will speak, Calhoun Ballroom B.

16:10 – 16:35 Daniel Imperato, Libertarian candidate for President 2008 will speak, Calhoun Ballroom B.

16:35 – 17:00 Mike Jingozian, Libertarian candidate for President 2008 will speak, Calhoun Ballroom B.

17:15 – 18:00 1994 Society event in the private banquet room at the Park Place Grill. The Park Place Grill is located five blocks from The Grand Wayne Center. Guests at the Hilton can call for the Hilton shuttle to transport them to and from the Park Place Grill if they so choose. Dr. James Lark, Chairman of the Libertarian Party 2000 – 2002, will give a brief presentation. Appetizers will be served during the event and will include cheese, bread, vegetables, and fruit.

18:00 – 23:00 A buffet dinner will be provided in the private banquet room of The Park Place Grill. A plated salad will be served at 18:15. The buffet line will be open from 18:15 – 20:30. The buffet line will include: Roast Beef, Italian Stuffed Chicken, Mashed Potatoes and Gravy, Rice Pilaf, and Pasta Primavera. Desert will be Banana Fosters. A cash bar will be setup in the banquet room and will be staffed for the entire evening.

19:00 – 20:00 Central Committee Meeting at The Park Place Grill. A large corner table will be reserved for this meeting.

23:00 - ? We will go to the 412 bar owned by Byron Peters, a Fort Wayne Libertarian who is running for City Council. His establishment is within walking distance of both the hotel and the restaurant…

Sunday May 20th:

We will have the use of the Hamilton Hall at the Hilton. This room will serve about 40 for breakfast and has an adjacent meeting room that will seat about 40 people as well.

9:00 – 10:00 Either a plated breakfast or a breakfast buffet will be provided.

We will have events scheduled from 10 – 12. Speakers will include Dr James Lark former Libertarian National Chair from 2000 – 2002, Doug Horner, current Secretary of The Libertarian party of Allen County will discuss Public Access Television, and Byron Peters, a Fort Wayne bar owner who is running for City Council because the current members of The Fort Wayne City Council are trying to put him out of business with the new restrictive smoking ban that takes effect June 1st, 2007.

Mike Sylvester

Obama and Myspace.

Please read this story:
<http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D8OSE0FO0&show_article=1>

He has been trying very hard to portray himself as a caring person who is out for the "little guy." I am surprised that the Obama Campaign did not pay Anthony for helping the Campaign as much as he has. This is a mistake that will cost Obama a few votes.

Mike Sylvester

Gas

This morning my daughter and I were running errands on the north side of Fort Wayne before I dropped her off for Kindergarten. I had to fill up my Toyota Camry with gas.

I spent just over $47 to fill the tank with gas.

I wonder what some of the readers of this blog pay to fill up their vans and SUV's? If has got to be a large sum of money.

Mike Sylvester

Pat White and the Fort Wayne Mayor's race

I am a regular listener of the Pat White Show and I am a fairly regular caller.

Last week Pat interviewed three of the Republican Mayoral candidates. He interviewed Ivan Hood, Matt Kelty, and Nelson Peters.

Pat was very nice to Ivan Hood and took it pretty easy on Ivan.

Pat attacked Matt and asked Matt a lot of difficult questions. It was very apparent listening to Pat's interview that he does not care for Matt Kelty.

Pat was very nice to Nelson Peters and asked him fairly easy questions.

Several people in the "blogosphere" have stated that Pat White is not being fair... I do not understand that comment.

Pat White is a talk show host. Pat White does not have to be fair. After listening to the interviews it is obvious that Pat White is a Nelson Peters supporter and that Pat White did what he could on the radio to help Nelson Peters.

Such is life. Pat White can support whoever he wants to, he is a talk show host!

I was 99% sure that Pat White would support Nelson Peters. It turns out that I was right.

It is not a big deal, move on...

I think Matt Kelty is going to win the Primary on Tuesday by 3 points. I truly think he has run a much better campaign and that he has motivated a fair number of Republican Primary voters.

Mike Sylvester

A friendly wager

Sam Talarico and I have a friendly wager about the Republican "At-large" primary. Sam's thoughts are below:

Mike, somebody needs to go head to head with you on the predictions. I will bet you lunch on who is closest. This may be the hardest local race in years to predict.

Crawford 20%
Brown 17%
Morris 17%
Mildred 16%
Bender 15%
Gutman 15%

All very good candidates and most would have won the primary in past years.
Sam T.

I have an earlier post about this race. I am going to add percentages for each candidate so that my predictions are in the same format as Sam's

I predict:

Crawford 18%
Mildred 17%
Gutman 17%
Brown 17%
Morris 16%
Bender 15%

So we both predict Crawford will win. Sam thinks Brown and Morris will win and I think Mildred and Gutman will win...

Should be interesting.

The Republicans should be proud that they are able to field six qualified candidates in this race.

Lunch is going to be good, I think Sam will be buying...

What do you think?

Mike Sylvester

Property Taxes

Property taxes are going up 24% and lawmakers in both Parties acknowledged that this needs to be addressed...

So they passed a budget that will still allow property taxes to increase by 24%; however, they will send a rebate check in late 2007 or early 2008. This is expected to end up reducing the increase to an average of 10%.

What moron came up with this idea?

Why was this passed by the Democratic House on Party lines and then passed the Republican Senate overwhelmingly?

If you are a Hoosier I want to know what you think of this...

Consider the following:

If your property taxes increase 24% you still have to pay them; however, the State Government will issue you a rebate check. Our Government is going to have to determine how much each property owner should be paid and cut them a check. Does anyone think that is going to be easy for Indiana to accomplish?

What happens if your house is sold during this time?

Can you imagine how this is going to effect people's escrow accounts? Your escrow payments are going to go up significantly.

Mike Sylvester

Another problem with the US Tax Code

Please take the time to go read the below article:
<http://www.townhall.com/Columnists/PhyllisSchlafly/2007/04/30/easy_to_see_why_us_jobs_move_overseas>

This article helps explain one of the reasons why so many manufacturing jobs go overseas...

I look forward to your comments.

Mike Sylvester

Grilling

I bought a new grill on Friday. Our previous grill was bought on sale about 12 years ago. My wife and I bought the grill just before we got married in Omaha.

I had replaced the electronic starter on the previous grill four times and it broke again last fall. Rather then fix it again I decided to get rid of the old grill and purchase a new one.

One of the things that my wife and I are changing is that we are trying to buy items that are of "higher quality." In the past we tended to buy "cheap."

Manufacturing quality has diminished over the years. Nothing seems to last as long as similar items used to last.

I bought a Weber grill on Friday and I fired it up yesterday. It started on the first try and that is a good thing. I used to routinely manually light my old grill...

I grilled marinated pork chops for Karena and I and hotdogs for Karena and Graydon.

It was good...

There were not very many insect due to the late frost. It was a beautiful day to grill.

Mike Sylvester

Omnisource Property

Fort Wayne has an option that they can exercise to purchase the Omnisource property by 12/31/07. A task force has been created to explore possible uses of the site. The Omnisource property is near the river and just north of downtown.

The Harrison Square "Catalyst" Project has been approved and construction will start this Fall.

I have a feeling that Fort Wayne will decide to buy the Omnisource property and then turn around and spend taxpayer dollars to prepare the site for development and then give it to a private developer...

That is my prediction and I am sticking with it.

I have a feeling I know one of the projects that will be strongly considered; a Riverfront Municipal District. There are quite a few of these in Indiana and some have been successful and others have not been successful.

I tend to oppose a Riverfront District for several reasons:

1. The main reason is because I think Fort Wayne would decide to issue more liquor licenses to "encourage" bars to open in the new district. Fort Wayne is currently 65 liquor licenses above the number allowed for a City of our size. This is mainly due to annexation.

2. This would be "Economic Re-arrangement" at its finest. Only so many people go to bars and a new "District" would just ensure that many bars in other parts of the city go out of business.

3. These Districts often use special taxing districts which I oppose.

4. Local bar owners are already under assault from the City Council. The smoking ban will most likely cause many small bars to go out of business. There is legislation under consideration in Indianapolis that would further damage local bar owners...

5. Local bar owners have paid a lot of money for their liquor licenses. If more licenses are issued then the existing holders of liquor licenses are"harmed."

I think that Fort Wayne needs to concentrate on maintaining and improving our infrastructure as well as dealing with both the Combined Sewer Overflow problem and the Pension shortfall...

I tend to think we should let private developers buy and develop property on their own...

Mike Sylvester

Democratic race for 4th District City Council

Two Democrats are vying for the right to face Mitch Harper (R) in the November Election and to replace Councilman Tom Hayhurst (D).

The candidates are Charles Langley and Leslie Raymer.

Both are educators...

I think this race is fairly easy to predict and I think that Charles Langley will win easily. He has raised almost four times as much money and he seems to be energetic and he seems to be running a stronger campaign then his opponent.

Mike Sylvester

An interesting dinner in Fort Wayne

We went to "The Trolley Bar" with one of Karena's clients tonight.

Five couples from a variety of backgrounds went.

The food was good and so was the company...

Eventually someone (not me by the way) brought up Harrison Square. Guess what, all ten of us agreed on Harrison Square...

Imagine that...

Mike Sylvester

Fort Wayne Democratic "at-large" primary

Seven Democrats are vying for three positions on The Democratic Ballot May 8th.

This race did not require as much time to research. The Democratic race involves less money and will be determined almost entirely based on name recognition.

There are 7 candidates:
John Shoaff, Thomas Essex, Eddie Arrington, Melvin Billingsley, Richard Cline, Denise Porter-Ross, and Michael Reef.

I think the top two position in this race are easy to predict and the third position a little harder.

John Shoaff will easily receive the highest vote total in this race.

I think that Denise Porter-Ross will receive the second highest vote total.

I think that Thomas Essex will get the third highest vote total.

I am not voting in the Democratic Primary so I will not be voting for any of these candidates on May 8th.

If I were voting in this race I would definitely vote for John Shoaff. I am impressed with John Shoaff. I would also vote for Denise Porter-Ross. I think that she works hard for neighborhoods. I would also vote for Richard Cline. I think we need more blue collar "types" on our City Council.

Mike Sylvester

CPA

The Indiana Professional Licensing Agency approved my application to be a Certified Public Accountant last Friday, April 20th 2007.

I am glad that it is over and that I am now a CPA!

Mike Sylvester

Republicans running for the "at-large" seats

I have been quite interested in the Republican race for City Council at large.

I am voting in the Republican Primary this year since Libertarians do not have a primary and since I feel that I will be voting for a slight majority of Republicans in the general election.

The race includes one incumbent and five challengers. These six individuals are competing for three positions on the ballot.

This is going to be a very close race and it is a very difficult race to predict. It is difficult to predict because each of the candidates has their own base of support. I think that this race will be close and that only about 1500 votes will separate the top candidate from the bottom candidate in this race!

I would like to start by saying that each of the six candidates in this race brings a unique perspective and has a unique set of qualifications. I think that voters in The Republican Primary have a good set of choices; however, I am disappointed that the field features so many moderate Republicans and outright "big government" Republicans.

I will start with who I am currently planning on voting for and why.

I am definitely voting for Kurt Gutman. I think that Kurt's financial background is sorely needed by our City Council.

I am pretty sure that I will be voting for Adam Mildred. I like the fact that Adam is a Deputy Prosecutor. I would be solidly in Adam's corner; except, he tends to do an awful lot of "hedging" and I do not care for "hedging."

I am not sure if I will vote for a third candidate or not. If I do it will either be Rob Morris or Marty Bender. Rob Morris opposed Harrison Square and is a small business owner. Marty Bender opposes the smoking ban and is a Fort Wayne police officer. There are things I like about both candidates.

I have nothing against John Crawford or Liz Brown and I think that both are qualified; however:

I cannot vote for John Crawford due to his championing of the smoking ban and his support of the Harrison Square Project. These are two critical votes that Councilman Crawford cast with the big government types. People keep telling me that Councilman Crawford is a small government type; however, it is not apparent to me based on his voting record! In fact, he is voting as a big government Republican!

I cannot vote for Liz Brown since she supports both the smoking ban and Harrison Square. I have a feeling she is another big government Republican and I do not want to see any more big government Republicans elected. (I know Sam Talarico enjoys these comments about big government Republicans)

Once again, this is a very hard race to analyze. After looking at the Campaign finance reports and after talking to a large number of voters I think that this race will be very close and I feel that any of the three candidates could win. Based on what I have seen so far here is my prediction in order of votes from top to bottom:

1. I think Councilman Crawford will receive the most votes; however, he will not be number one by much. His Direct Mail piece "pokes smokers and bar owners in the eye again." He voted in favor of Harrison Square and I feel that the majority of the Republican base opposes the project. Crawford had over three times as much money as the other candidates and he has large signs all over the City. I think this will carry the day.

2. I think Adam Mildred will get the second most votes. Adam has been running a campaign for a long time and I think that he has run the strongest campaign. I think this will result in Adam getting the second highest vote total.

3. I think that the 3rd seat will be determined by as few as 100 votes. I think that Kurt Gutman will win a "squeeker." I think Kurt has raised the third highest amount of money and I think he has done a good job with his signs.

4. I think that Liz Brown will have the fourth highest vote total.

5. I think that Rob Morris will have the fifth highest vote total.

6. I think that Marty Bender will have the sixth highest vote total.

Believe it or not, I have listed the candidates in the exact order of their Fundraising in this race. I hate it; however, money talks in elections...

Please post your prediction in order from highest to lowest...

Mike Sylvester

Harrison Square passes City Council

If you are looking for links to the press coverage the best source of information is Downtown Fort Wayne Baseball, check out their post on last night's vote:
<http://downtownfortwaynebaseball.blogspot.com/>

I am certainly not surprised by last night's vote given the large number of big business owners who support the project. The vote came out exactly as I predicted on this blog back on March 8th. The City Council voted in favor of the proposal by a margin of 6 to 3.

Three Republicans and three Democrats voted in favor of the resolution. Two Republicans and one Democrat voted against it.

This project was passed by a bi-partisan majority at Council and had broad support from many elected officials in both the Republican and Democratic Parties.

On the Republican side Liz Brown, Bill Brown, and Linda Bloom spoke in favor of the project. On the Democratic side Kevin Knuth and Denise Porter-Ross spoke in favor of the project.

This project is supported by the "powers that be" in both the Republican and Democratic Parties.

There were two things that I thought were extremely interesting last night:

1. Tom Hayhurst made eight predictions about what would happen if the Harrison Square Project was approved. I cannot remember his exact words; however, he predicted that the wages in Fort Wayne would increase so that they are above the national average.

That is an interesting prediction and I wonder if anyone reading this blog agrees with Councilman Hayhurst?

I do NOT.

2. Councilman Crawford deferred his vote until the end of the roll call vote. I was fairly irritated when he deferred his vote. I thought he was waiting until the end so that he could vote "no" once he was sure the project had enough votes to pass.

Councilman Crawford surprised me by waiting until the end and then supporting the project...

Harrison Square will move forward from this point. It will be approved by our City Council when the final details are worked out.

At this point we have to hope that The Mayor's office negotiates the best possible deal and we have to hope that the project works.

I hope the project works, I really do; however, I am skeptical to say the least...

Mike Sylvester

Race of Republican City Council at large

I plan on posting my predictions in the next day or two.

My wife got the first direct mail we have seen in this campaign and it is from Dr. Crawford.

The entire piece was typical until the end:

"Most significantly, his efforts have broadened the smoking oedinance to be inclusive. While reasonable people may disagree on various aspects of this effort, the recent Surgeon General's report on the dangers of secondhand smoke to others overrides any concerns."

Mike Sylvester

Harrison Square Public Hearing

This may surprise some of you.

I am not planning on attending the Harrison Square Public Hearing tomorrow.

I am very discouraged in the lack of financial information provided by the Mayor's Office and I see no reason to go to the Hearing. This issue will be voted on without the public or the members of City Council having a chance to analyze the financial details...

Tim Pape and Sam Talarico pretty much summed it up at the last meeting by declaring that you either trust the Mayor's Office and the proposal or you do not.

You can put me in the latter category.

The Mayor's office has posted some basic summary financial information on the City's website; however, they have not provided much of the information that an accountant would need to analyze the data and projections independently.

I currently think that the City is portraying a fairly rosy picture and I do not think that is appropriate.

I have spent a great deal of time looking at the limited financial information the Mayor's office has provided and I have to admit that there is not enough real data for me to make any accurate projections about the project.

If I were to guess then I would guess that the project will involve about 45% private financing and about 55% public financing when it is all said and done.

If I were to guess I would say they they are projecting hotel occupancy rates that are far higher then they the hotel will actually experience unless Fort Wayne becomes an active tourist destination in the next few years.

If I had to guess I do not think the City has including any overhead in their calculations.

If I had to guess I would guess that the City will not make the retail sales numbers that they are projecting in the first stage retail portion.

I think the largest risk to the City in the project is that Hardball Capital will not finance stage two or stage three unless things go very well for stage one.

I encourage all members of City Council to vote against this project.

Mike Sylvester

Verizon FIOS update, final

Well they are done. FIOS is installed and everything is back to the condition it was prior to the Verizon installation that began last Friday.

They sent out their technician who understood networks.

I told him what I thought was wrong and he was not pleased with the other Verizon technicians who have been involved in the process; including the various people I talked to at their tech support center...

I was basically right and he was able to fix it fairly easy...

To make a long story short, they installed two routers and they had them selected to use the same IP address.

The technician today turned off the wireless portion of the new router and then changed the IP settings so that each Router had its own IP address.

He then "flushed" some setting (DHN or DHC) and that part did not make any sense to me...

My system works again and life is good.

They shut our business down for most of Friday, all weekend, and most of Monday.

I would like to thank AWB for offering to send over a technician to fix it. I was almost to that point.

Mike Sylvester

Fort Wayne Republican Mayoral Primary

I am going to breakdown the first primary that I have analyzed, the Republican Primary for Mayor.

Let me start by saying that I am rather biased about this race; I am a supporter of Matt Kelty, I am donating money to the Kelty campaign and I am a Precinct Captain for the Kelty Campaign.

3 I know that this surprises some of you.

There is no doubt that Matt Kelty and I do not agree on every issue. In my entire life I have NEVER met any person that I agree with 100%. I agree with Matt on 80% of the political issues that we have discussed and that is as close as I get to most candidates. On the local level I can only think of one person running for office that I am in more agreement with on issues then Matt...

I have discussed politics with many of Matt's supporters. I have to say that most of his supporters agree with me on more issues then they agree with the Big Government Republicans...

I disagree with Matt about SOB's and I disagree with Matt on some social issues. Matt is a social conservative and I am not. I agree 100% with Matt on the proper role of Government...

I spent today with a group of volunteers and we ended up walking two precincts for Matt today. I had a great time and I have to admit that my feet hurt because I am not used to walking as far as I walked today.

The other volunteers that I met today are some really great people. Most of them are Republicans; however, there was also an Independent (And one Libertarian of course). Most of them are small Government Republicans...

I predict that Matt Kelty will win the Republican Primary for Mayor.

I think it will be close since Nelson Peters has the support of the Republican establishment and most prominent local Republicans. I think it will be close because the establishment has thrown piles of money at Nelson Peters. I think Matt Kelty has the support of the "grass roots" of the local Republican Party and I think Matt Kelty has worked very, very hard.

My prediction is:
Matt Kelty 50%
Nelson Peters 47%
Ivan Hood 2%
Wilbert Brown and Teresa Licari 1% combined

What is your prediction for this primary?

I am looking forward to reading them.

Mike Sylvester

Republicans running for City Council

Last week I made a post about the 7 Democrats running for the "at-large" positions on City Council and their positions on Harrison Square. Basically five are opposed to it as it stands and only two are in favor.

This is not the case on the Republican side.

I will use this to illustrate that in my opinion the modern Republican Party often stands for big government...

Per today's JG:

John Crawford is on the fence
Bob Morris, against the project as proposed
Adam Mildred, cautiously optimistic, sounds like he would vote for it
Kurt Gutman, against the project as proposed
Elizabeth Brown supports the project as proposed
Marty Bender, said he would vote for the project

So lets summarize the Republican Responses:
On the fence = 1 (We will find out Tuesday)
Against project as proposed = 2
In favor of the project as proposed = 3

So the Democratic at-large candidates oppose Harrison Square by a healthy margin and the Republican at-large candidates support the project by a slim margin.

Wow...

This helps illustrate my point that The modern day Republican party is full of elected officials and candidates that support larger and larger government...

AWB, do you find this encouraging?

On another note I have pulled down the poll that Sam Talarico suggested. The poll was on the Republican at-large City Council race:

In order of votes, largest to smallest:

Adam Mildred, 88
Rob Morris, 66
Kurt Gutman, 64
Marty Bender, 61
Elizabeth Brown, 51
John Crawford, 46

These are surprising numbers. As always this is not a scientific poll it is just the opinion of some of the readers of this blog.

I have to agree with Sam Talarico, this is going to be a very close race and it will be difficult to predict who will win.

I will start posting predictions on Primary races soon... This is going to be one of the toughest ones to predict.

Mike Sylvester