The new mayor of Hillsdale, Michigan, is a man of the people, ready to listen to their every concern, but only until 6pm. Then he has to do his homework.
Sessions, who is too young to drink in his own town, won by just two votes after a recount. By 670 votes to 668, he beat the sitting mayor, who is 51 and had all the advantages of incumbency. And he won despite the fact that his name was not even on the ballot.
He was too young to stand by the spring deadline for registration, so after he turned 18 he entered as a write-in candidate -- meaning voters had to remember his name and add it to the ballot by hand in order to support him. The circumstances make his triumph all the more likely to be a model for future insurgent candidates.
PHOTO: AP
He started by winning the support of a powerful interest group, the Hillsdale firefighters' union, who had fallen out with the town council. The union has a membership of three, but in post-Sept. 11 US it wields symbolic clout. Before endorsing Sessions, its president, Kevin Pauken, called his teachers to check on his credentials.
"The guys were a little leery at first because of his age, but he really impressed us with his openness and his energy," Pauken told the Detroit News.
To help get his name known, Sessions raised US$700 selling toffee apples over the summer and spent it on posters and placards which were sprinkled around Hillsdale's lawns by election day. His month-long campaign involved going door to door, explaining his vision of the town's future in the kitchens of his initially sceptical neighbors.
"They'd look at me, and say `How old are you again? How much experience do you have?' And I say `I'm still in high school,'" he recalled.
He promised Hillsdale's voters he would revitalize the local economy and made his youthful energy his selling point.
"I was optimistic the whole time," he explained. At one point, five days before election day, that enthusiasm threatened to get the better of him. He spent so long out on the streets knocking on the doors, ignoring his mother's pleas for him to wear a coat, that he ended up in a hospital emergency room with bronchitis.
But by then his momentum had become unstoppable.
Sessions insists that his high school obligations will not get in the way of his mayoral duties, saying the US$3,000-a-year job is part-time.
"From 7:50am to 2:30pm, I'll be a student. From 3 to 6, I'll be the mayor of Hillsdale, working on mayor stuff," he said.
To help him do the "mayor stuff," he is assembling a transition team of trusted advisors, who will help him deal with the town council and the town manager, who run the town between them.
The ousted mayor, Douglas Ingles, conceded defeat graciously and prepared to return to running his business, a roller-skating rink.
"This is a very exciting time for our community. We need to find ways to generate enthusiasm, and I am 100 percent supportive of any change that makes that happen," he said.
‘GREAT OPPRTUNITY’: The Paraguayan president made the remarks following Donald Trump’s tapping of several figures with deep Latin America expertise for his Cabinet Paraguay President Santiago Pena called US president-elect Donald Trump’s incoming foreign policy team a “dream come true” as his nation stands to become more relevant in the next US administration. “It’s a great opportunity for us to advance very, very fast in the bilateral agenda on trade, security, rule of law and make Paraguay a much closer ally” to the US, Pena said in an interview in Washington ahead of Trump’s inauguration today. “One of the biggest challenges for Paraguay was that image of an island surrounded by land, a country that was isolated and not many people know about it,”
DIALOGUE: US president-elect Donald Trump on his Truth Social platform confirmed that he had spoken with Xi, saying ‘the call was a very good one’ for the US and China US president-elect Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) discussed Taiwan, trade, fentanyl and TikTok in a phone call on Friday, just days before Trump heads back to the White House with vows to impose tariffs and other measures on the US’ biggest rival. Despite that, Xi congratulated Trump on his second term and pushed for improved ties, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs said. The call came the same day that the US Supreme Court backed a law banning TikTok unless it is sold by its China-based parent company. “We both attach great importance to interaction, hope for
‘FIGHT TO THE END’: Attacking a court is ‘unprecedented’ in South Korea and those involved would likely face jail time, a South Korean political pundit said Supporters of impeached South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol yesterday stormed a Seoul court after a judge extended the impeached leader’s detention over his ill-fated attempt to impose martial law. Tens of thousands of people had gathered outside the Seoul Western District Court on Saturday in a show of support for Yoon, who became South Korea’s first sitting head of state to be arrested in a dawn raid last week. After the court extended his detention on Saturday, the president’s supporters smashed windows and doors as they rushed inside the building. Hundreds of police officers charged into the court, arresting dozens and denouncing an
CYBERSCAM: Anne, an interior decorator with mental health problems, spent a year and a half believing she was communicating with Brad Pitt and lost US$855,259 A French woman who revealed on TV how she had lost her life savings to scammers posing as Brad Pitt has faced a wave of online harassment and mockery, leading the interview to be withdrawn on Tuesday. The woman, named as Anne, told the Seven to Eight program on the TF1 channel how she had believed she was in a romantic relationship with the Hollywood star, leading her to divorce her husband and transfer 830,000 euros (US$855,259). The scammers used fake social media and WhatsApp accounts, as well as artificial intelligence image-creating technology to send Anne selfies and other messages
RSS