Originally Posted by
EastsideAl
Ahh, well, Okdie is different. We interviewed him in our neighborhood forum and he was indeed pretty impressive. He has some deep roots in the community, a number of good relationships with folks across the city, an endorsement from Rev. Holley, and a history with Mel Ravitz, John Conyers, Jennifer Granholm, etc. Having come in near the bottom of the nominated candidates in the primary he really had no realistic shot to be elected this time around, but he did more than triple his primary vote total and move past a couple of people to end up 15th.
As I understand it, this was his first political campaign, and he didn't have a lot of money behind him, so this finish was actually reasonably impressive. Obviously, there are a certain number of voters who will be unwilling to vote for an Arabic man named Mohamed, but then there were a lot of people who wouldn't vote for Barack Obama either. If he builds up his name recognition, and keeps building relationships and raising funds, he should do a lot better the next time around. Particularly now that there are probably going to be district elections. I'm not sure where he lives, but I got the impression that it was somewhere in the central city. And I also took it that his roots are on the southwest side down near Dix. I would think if he could run in either of those areas he'd have a real shot.