Sorry, Democrats. Gov. Rick Snyder and his Republican elves in the legislature are leaving no presents under your tree this Christmas.

Lansing Mayor Virg Bernero reaffirmed to me last week he's running for a third term next year, hoping to become the fifth chief executive in the city's history to serve more than 10 years.

Organized labor took it on the chin on Election Day, and now it's getting ready for a legislative haymaker that could send the movement back in Michigan to the 1930s.

The rise of Tim Greimel, who is expected to be named the Democrats' new leader in the state House of Representatives, has been nothing less than fascinating. Greimel, of Pontiac, a former Oakland County commissioner who only joined the legislature in March, sealed the deal behind the scenes Saturday.

Lansing's four major television networks are seeing more than $5 million in revenue this campaign season. But it's not as much as the stations hoped — and not as much as it could have been.

During Paul Ryan’s Rochester visit Monday, Republican U.S. Senate candidate Pete Hoekstra took the microphone to plead for money. He's got a new television commercial and not a lot of money to buy up the shrinking TV ad time. Folks like his opponent, U.S. Sen. Debbie Stabenow, cherry-picked the good time blocks weeks ago.

No campaign season is truly complete without the biennial "voter suppression/secure vote" scrum that Democrats and Republicans can't help but roll around, particularly when they smell a close election. This year's version features Republican Secretary of State Ruth Johnson's unenforceable mandate that election workers ask every voter to fill out a special pre-ballot question about whether he or she is a U.S. citizen.

Medical marijuana advocates are tired of the Republican-led Legislature and Attorney General Bill Schuette chipping away at the 2008 voter-initiated law. Today they're planning on letting them know.

This presents a real problem for Michigan Republicans because a loss of Romney enthusiasm in 2012 could be catastrophic. Proposal 2, the collective bargaining constitutional guarantee that would throw in limbo every government reform Snyder and the Republicans have managed in the last 20 months, passes with a low GOP turnout.

The sleepy 67th state House District is in slumber no more. Democrat House candidate Tom Cochran wound up and swung at Republican Jeff Oesterle where it hurt during the "City Pulse Newsmakers" program this week, by tying his opponent to the intriguing investigation into the Republican House speaker and the shady filing day switch-a-roo in Grand Rapids.