New to the board: the
Ravensthal indictment lines are unchanged by the separation announcement, and Luke's wife is still quoted as roughly five times more likely to turn state's evidence than Luke's mom is. For betting purposes, the separation is a non-event.
Rev. "Ricky Loves Lukey" Burgess has all but nailed down the "Mayor's next BFF on Council" payoff with a series of obsequious moves, although Theresa Smith is still a longshot and Darlene Harris apparently will do anything if enough asphalt is involved.
Luke announced he (instead of his campaign fund) is paying Richard Sprague, but tickets should be held until someone explains how he could afford it.
Carrie Prejean paid off as the newest social conservative to fall from grace (sex tape), but after reloading the lines she is still a favorite to be revealed anew as a Bible-banging hypocrite.
The G20 fallout is far from finished, but anyone who bet that the "trophy photo" cops would be disciplined was right -- no thanks to anyone in Pittsburgh, of course, because the reprimands were issued in Chicago. A massive lawsuit by a team of big-time lawyers is rumored, so the amounts might change for the lines involving payouts to victims (and lawyers).
Wagers, comments on posted odds and suggestions concerning unlisted events are welcome.
4 comments:
I would bet against City Council passing the tuition tax. In fact, in a bid prove myself omniscient, I'm going to predict here that the Council will pass the tax 4-3 in its preliminary committee vote on Wednesday, but will never be passed finally in legislative session.
I would toss a couple pocorobas on Ricky Burgess to be Council President at those odds, only because 50-1 is way out of line. He has at least three votes plus the Mayor's active support, and if he has at least three (probably four) votes plus the Mayor's active support he's very much within striking distance. I wouldn't bet on him at even money, though.
Without a chance to gauge the current conditions on the ground in Pittsburgh until Wednesday at the earliest, it's difficult to gauge any change among council members' votes on the tax -- but it would be worthwhile to see it fail just to hear the mayor's attempt to save face.
Rev. Burgess' candidacy, on the other hand, smells like it is ready for Dr. Wecht's slab, even from 300 miles away.
With which of these voters -- Dowd, Harris, Kail-Smith, Kraus, Lavelle, Peduto, Rudiak, Shields --do you expect the Mayor's active support to be helpful to Rev. Burgess?
With which member(s) of this majority bloc -- Dowd, Kraus, Peduto, Rudiak, Shields -- do you expect the Mayor's active support to be anything but fatal to Rev. Burgess' candidacy?
Without surprising answers to those questions, the Infinonywatch indicates toe-tag time.
I imagine Burgess has Kail-Smith, Dowd and Harris available to him, roughly in that order. With those four he would only need one of Lavelle or Rudiak.
The mayor's active support includes both carrots and sticks. I imagine both will be liberally applied. It would not be impossible to talk one's way out of a vote for Burgess.
I'll put 100 cookies on Peduto.
The one piece of your analysis (from your comment) that I'm not so sure about is putting Dowd in the majority block. Have you seen him sucking up to the mayor lately? I would take Dowd out and put Lavelle in there.
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