DETROIT (Talk Radio 1270) President Barack Obama doesn’t need to “pay back” Detroit for his re-election victory — as Councilwoman JoAnn Watson claimed — because the city played no role in his win, according to political consultant Steve Hood. “It reveals an inconvenient and unfortunate truth,” Hood said about the election numbers. “President Obama didn’t need Detroit to win the state. Let me explain it to you, Mr. Obama got 2,564,569 votes, Mitt Romney got 2,115,256 votes.
“Detroit’s vote was about 285,000 — if you subtract that from Mr. Obama’s total statewide, it’s 167, 931 (he would have won by) — So if all of Detroit had stayed home, Mr. Obama would have still won the state,” Hood said.
Obama won Michigan’s 16 electoral votes, along with crucial states including Ohio, Illinois, California and Florida, adding up to his 332 electoral votes; Mitt Romney carried 206 electoral votes with states including Texas, West Virginia and North Carolina.
Detroit Councilwoman Watson made headlines around the country when she announced during nail-biting budget discussions for deep-in-debt Detroit that President Barack Obama should re-pay Detroiters for voting for him with a federal bailout.
“Our people in an overwhelming way supported the re-election of this president and there ought to be a quid pro quo, and you ought to exercise leadership on that,” Watson said. “Of course, not just that, but why not?”
She added: ”After the election of Jimmy Carter, the honorable Coleman Alexander Young, he went to Washington, D.C. He came home with some bacon,” said Watson. “That’s what you do.”
In tony Oakland County — the wealthiest county in the state with a majority white population — Obama garnered 349,002 votes and Mitt Romney got 296,513.
Hood said that means Oakland County Executive L. Brooks Patterson should tell Obama Oakland County elected him, so “don’t tax my rich people, we put you in office.”
“If you bail out Detroit you’ve got to cascade west, you’ve got to bail out Chicago, it you bail out Chicago, you’ve got to bail out L.A — you can’t do it,” Hood said.
