Gretchen Whitmer’s interest in temporarily taking over the Ingham County prosecutor post has been met with a near-universal sigh of relief.
The Democratic former state Senate minority leader is seen as a healing figure who can restore honor and order to the office tarnished by current Democratic Prosecutor Stuart Dunnings III. He’s on medical leave until he resigns on July 2, as he’s facing 15 prostitution-related criminal charges.
State Rep. Sam Singh (D-East Lansing) isn’t in Congress. He’s not a superdelegate. But that hasn’t stopped Bernie Sanders supporters from posting on his Facebook page that he should “support the will of the people.”
At least the Sanders activists have U.S. Rep. Brenda Lawrence (D-Southfield) pegged correctly. The congresswoman does back Hillary Clinton, just as more than 60 percent of her 14th District did in the March 8 primary (yes, even taking into account that Wayne County combined absentee ballots in two districts).
Bernie Sanders says he’s not going anywhere. And why should he?
It’s true that his most significant victory arguably remains Michigan’s March 8 primary, which was a month ago. That wasn’t because of the size of his win –– he actually only walked away with four more pledged delegates than Hillary Clinton.
Sanders has actually scored much bigger margins of victory in the New Hampshire primary and a spate of caucus states, like Washington, Kansas and Hawaii.
But Michigan’s significance is that it’s the biggest state Sanders has won –– and he wasn’t supposed to. The polls and pundits (including me) predicted a Clinton rout. So it’s a huge moral victory for supporters, who took to using the #StillSanders hashtag even after Clinton swept the series of big March 15 primaries.
What is it about primaries that drive people crazy?
Sure, there’s the theory that “politics makes us stupid,” as Vox’s Ezra Klein put it -- i.e. the more information partisans receive on an issue, the more that ends up reinforcing their previous position.
But I would suggest that presidential primaries are the death of humor. If you don’t believe me, you may have made the wise choice to stay off social media for the last 18 months.
There’s always going to be that one “friend” who responds to any post -- photos of your kids, the death of a relative -- with a monologue about their favored candidate, typically ending with #FeeltheBern or #MakeAmericaGreatAgain.
You should probably unfriend that person immediately.
Bernie Sanders managed to steal the spotlight from Donald Trump last week -- and not just in “Saturday Night Live” skits.
Sanders began drawing screaming crowds last year, not unlike Trump (though without the violence), but his rallies have barely been a blip in TV coverage. In contrast, Trump’s events have been regularly carried live on cable news, which already awarded him wildly disproportionate coverage for his stunts of the week (insulting Fox News host Megyn Kelly, refusing to debate, savaging “Little Marco” Rubio, etc.).
But Michigan changed all that -- at least for a night. Sanders’ stunning, poll-defying win in the Democratic primary grabbed all the headlines on March 8, handing Trump the unfamiliar status of second billing.
The presidential circus has finally packed up and left Michigan for greener, vote-rich pastures like Ohio and Florida. So what did we really get out of two debates, dozens of candidate events and endless TV ads?
Well, for one thing, big, contested elections are a nice –– albeit short-lived –– shot in the arm to certain sectors of Michigan’s economy. That’s something I’m conscious of as a business owner. I know most people don’t care, however, as they’re tired of enduring traffic jams from candidate rallies and annoying commercials.
Bernie Sanders' victory in Michigan was the biggest electoral surprise so far of the 2016 election season. It's the kind of unbelievable, conventional-wisdom-defying upset that makes covering elections so much fun.
And I called it wrong.
I know Michigan well. The polls were clear. Five Thirty Eight, the highly influential election analysis site, put Clinton's chances at greater than 99 percent. Most Democratic voters I talked to felt Sanders' vision was too pie-in-the-sky and Hillary Clinton was the strongest general election candidate.
I was wrong. As I said on the radio this morning, "I'm here to fall on my sword."
Why isn’t Bernie Sanders doing better in Michigan?
His economic message should be a slam dunk in our Rust Belt state. Sanders inveighs until he’s hoarse against free trade agreements like NAFTA, Wall Street robber barons and the growing gap between rich and poor.
Sanders is playing to folks who have suffered through a decade-long recession and watched helplessly as thousands of good-paying manufacturing jobs were shipped overseas.
As a Michigan pundit, I’m supposed to tell you that our presidential primary next week is going to change everything. I’m supposed to tell you it’s going to be a nail-biter.
Just like I was supposed to tell you last year that Gov. Rick Snyder was totally going to run for president (and win!).
There’s a often a bit of home-team cheerleading in political analysis and journalism, just as there is in sports reporting. That’s because we know the players and the game –– and tend to overestimate their significance. And, if we’re being honest, a lot of journalists love the idea of playing “expert” on national TV. (I’ve done it plenty of times, and yes, it can be fun).
f you were to poll Lansing insiders, most would probably say that Gretchen Whitmer will be the Democrats’ next nominee for governor.
In 2010, she made history as the first woman elected to lead a state Senate caucus. Whitmer took on the unenviable role as leader of the loyal opposition in a government completely controlled by Republicans. Her fiery floor speeches blasting Right to Work as “sexist” and railing against “Vaginagate,” when two female lawmakers were barred from speaking on an abortion bill, earned her coverage from cable news.
In total, Whitmer served 14 years in the Legislature (all in the minority), so she’s a known quantity with the Capitol press corps. Her roots in Lansing go back much further, even though she spent some of her childhood in Grand Rapids. Whitmer’s late mother, Sherry, served as an assistant attorney general under Frank Kelley, and her father, Dick, was a Commerce Department director under Gov. William Milliken.
