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If you are a leading Democrat in perhaps the nation's most Democratic city, and you are preparing to run for office this year, you absolutely do not want to miss the annual Democratic love-in, pep rally and fund-raiser that is the Jefferson-Jackson Dinner in Detroit.
The dinner took place Saturday night at Cobo Center. More than 1,500 people showed up, including Vice President Joe Biden, who delivered the keynote speech.
Conspicuous by his absence was Mayor Dave Bing.
Why was Bing a no-show?
"Scheduling conflict," a person in his office said.
It is unknown what the mayor was doing that was more important than schmoozing with his fellow Democrats and listening to Biden, who has an outside chance to be the next president of the United States, if Hillary Clinton, Andrew Cuomo, Martin O'Malley and three or four other people are unable to run.
Bing's lack of urgency about acting like a Democratic politician appears to be one more piece of evidence that he will not file to run for re-election by the May 14 deadline, which is only three weeks off.
Bing's poll numbers have been strikingly low for an incumbent with a well-known name, and he has become such a non-factor that the most recent poll, by Main Street Strategies of Lansing, did not even include his name in the list of candidates presented to survey participants.
The mayor will be 70 in November and he experienced health problems last year. Gov. Rick Snyder's appointment of an emergency manager does not do a lot to sell Bing's value to voters, though the problems that brought on the state intervention were in the making long before Bing decided to become a politician.
Then again, maybe Bing is not a Democrat.
