Susan J. Demas: Trump Shows True Colors after Detroit Speech

PORT CAMPBELL, Australia –– It was midnight Australian Eastern Standard Time, but my body still thought it was 10 a.m. back in Michigan.

So instead of sleeping, I was watching Australia’s fascinating coverage of our presidential election. A Chinese factory worker kept gushing about Donald Trump to the interviewer (of course, his company was manufacturing Trump tchotchkes). But I was struck when he was asked about the GOP nominee’s vow to end trade agreements and force manufacturing jobs back from overseas.

The worker said everyone knew Trump was joking –– and flashed a giant grin.

For the rest of my 11-day trip through Tasmania, Melbourne and the Great Barrier Reef, I’d struggle to find anyone with anything pleasant (or printable) to say about Trump. “Universal horror” would be the best way to describe Aussies’ reaction.

But I thought about the Australian TV interview as I listened to Republicans and business leaders tie themselves into knots to find positive things to say about Trump’s speech on Monday to the Detroit Economic Club.

It’s true that he gave a mainline Republican economic speech –– dump the estate tax (which would allow his family to pocket millions) and institute U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan’s tax rates, which would primarily benefit the wealthy.

Not surprisingly, the conservative Detroit News editorial board, which has taken repeated shots at Trump (mainly for being unelectable), was impressed by the plan. That’s a fair barometer for the DEC crowd of fiscally conservative business leaders, many of whom will hold their nose and vote for Trump for economic reasons.

“I just hope he’ll hire good people,” one anonymous Republican dejectedly told the Detroit Free Press’ Nancy Kaffer before Trump took the stage.

The Republican nominee was avidly courting this audience in both tone and substance. He didn’t promise to compel Ford to bring auto jobs back from Mexico or to block Muslims from entering the country, as he did during Michigan’s primary.

He knew this wasn’t one of his frenzied crowds where people would shout, “Build a wall!” or “Lock her up!” –– Hillary Clinton, that is. Trump repeatedly bit his tongue as 14 protesters interrupted, which was taken as a sign that he had really, truly changed this time.

Trump’s charm offensive to Michigan’s political and business class seemed to work, as he received positive reviews from attendees –– for a few hours.

National conservatives also swooned at the speech, with Steve Forbes writing Trump an overly optimistic love letter in his publication, titled, “Watch Out, Hillary: After His Speech In Detroit, Donald Trump Is Back.”

But then the Donald Trump everyone knows (and a majority of voters loathe) was back. The one who attacked a Gold Star family, John McCain’s military service and Fox News host Megyn Kelly for having “blood coming out of her eyes, blood coming out of her wherever.”

He warmed up by tweeting later that day the blatantly false claim that Clinton’s emails caused an Iranian scientist to be executed.

And then on Tuesday, Trump unleashed this tirade about Clinton at a Wilmington, Del., rally: “If she gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do, folks. Although the Second Amendment people –– maybe there is, I don’t know.”

There are only two interpretations of that statement. Either Trump was inciting violence against Clinton or Supreme Court nominees. Both prospects are extremely disturbing. Later, Trump spokeswoman Katrina Pierson attempted to clean up the mess by saying a Clinton assassination “could” happen –– not that it “should” happen.

That’s comforting.

By now, Trump defenders are used to defending the indefensible, and acted accordingly. I’m not one to blanch easily at rough rhetoric –– politics ain’t beanbag –– but calls for violence from candidates with a huge national and international megaphone deeply concern me.

This isn’t the world I want for my children, and it can’t become the norm.

At this point, if you’re a fiscal conservative who’s boarded the Trump train just for the tax break, I imagine you just turn off the news whenever his orangey visage appears.

It’s safer that way.

Susan J. Demas is Publisher and Editor of Inside Michigan Politics, a nationally acclaimed, biweekly political newsletter. Her political columns can be found at SusanJDemas.com. Follow her on Twitter here.

Susan J. Demas: Two Mavericks, Two Different Choices: Why John McCain Is No Joe Schwarz

Dave Tumpie/Dome Magazine

“Make up your mind, listen to your conscience, use your experience and never pander.” –– Former Congressman Joe Schwarz, 2006

John McCain is on the verge of losing the U.S. Senate seat he’s had custody over for three decades.

If the former Republican presidential nominee is defeated, it will ironically be after he’s sold out the last shred of his maverick brand by embracing Donald Trump.

McCain ran an outsider Republican presidential campaign in 2000, scoring a surprise win in Michigan, thanks to his friend and fellow Vietnam veteran Joe Schwarz. After his defeat, the senator solidified his reputation for heterodoxy by pushing campaign finance reform and opposing President George W. Bush’s tax cuts for the rich.

One of the dirty little secrets of political reporting is that journalists, myself included, love maverick politicians who flirt with bipartisanship. It’s not your imagination. We give them disproportionate coverage.

Why? It’s boring covering legislators who always rattle off caucus-approved talking points and vote the party line. Mavericks talk off the cuff and sometimes vote their own conscience (OK, sometimes, they’re just settling personal scores). But their prickliness itself is entertaining.

And these pols hearken back to a time when speeches could change votes, deals could be cut and people would reach across the aisle. Sure, the past always seems more idealized than it was. But jaundiced reporters will tell you politics was definitely more fun to cover before the days of ideological purity tests and term limits (at the state level).

On top of his bluntness, McCain also is a bona fide war hero. The man survived torture at the Hanoi Hilton for five long years. Naturally, reporters, myself included, like talking to him.

So it was disheartening to see him jettison so much of what made him great during his 2008 presidential campaign. In Michigan, he shunted Schwarz aside for Republican rabble-rouser (and sometimes political consultant) John Yob, who helped McCain lose by a jaw-dropping 16 points.

McCain started lashing out at the media and keeping them at arm’s length. And then he picked the queen of the Know Nothings, Sarah Palin, as his running mate. At least he had the decency to defend his opponent, Barack Obama, against attacks that he was a secret Muslim (even while Palin was fanning the racist flames).

Now it’s 2016 and McCain is fighting for his political life. He’s been mercilessly scorned by Trump as a “dummy,” and even had his war record spat upon. “I like people who weren’t captured,” Trump shrugged.

Pundits were convinced that draft-dodging Trump would be finished after taking on McCain, but they were wrong. The GOP base ate it up. And after Trump survived that flap while smugly refusing to apologize, it helped insulate him from future controversies, like retweeting neo-Nazis and calling for a ban on Muslims.

To add insult to injury, Palin endorsed Trump early on. She’d probably be judging pigs at the Alaska State Fair today if McCain hasn’t plucked her out of obscurity, but loyalty is for suckers. Not even Fox News wanted to keep a has-been like Palin on air (especially with so many nubile twentysomething talking heads out there), so joining Team Trump at least helps keep her money train going.

Meanwhile, McCain is trying to stave off a tough GOP primary challenge from Tea Partier Kelli Ward, a physician and former state senator.

He faced a similar situation in 2010 from U.S. Rep. J.D. Hayworth (D-Ariz.). McCain veered right on immigration to win, leaving behind a famous TV ad in which he bellowed, “Complete that danged fence!”

This year, McCain has made the calculation that endorsing Trump is the way to keep his job.

“You have to listen to people that have chosen the nominee of our Republican Party,” he explained lamely. “I think it would be foolish to ignore them.”

McCain may well survive the primary, thanks to three other candidates in the field. But he’s facing his toughest general election matchup ever from U.S. Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick (D-Ariz.), who’s looking to exploit McCain’s rightward turn in a browning state where Trump isn’t a lock.

McCain has made the choice that he wants to stay in office at any cost. We’ll see if it works.

But if you’d like to see the counterpoint, you have to go back a decade to when his compatriot Joe Schwarz was trying to hang onto his congressional seat. The $3 million GOP primary was a harbinger for the Tea Party and eventually Trump.

Tim Walberg, a slick preacher (who actually compared himself to Elmer Gantry), ran hard to Schwarz’s right on abortion, guns and immigration. He found some powerful benefactors in Minutemen leaders and the anti-tax group Club for Growth.

Schwarz’s impressive legislative record was lampooned as “embarrassingly liberal” in a series of TV ads. The congressman could have taken easy votes against gay marriage and embryonic stem cell research. That may have been enough to save his bacon.

That’s not who Joe Schwarz is, though. This is a man who volunteered as a medical student to serve in Vietnam –– and later traversed Southeast Asia as a spy for the CIA (delivering a baby or two in the jungle along the way). This is a man who taught Indonesian leader Suharto how to speak English. This is a man who trained at Harvard but decided to set up his medical practice in his sleepy hometown of Battle Creek.

So, no, he wasn’t going to take votes he didn’t believe in –– even if the price was the seat in Congress he’d waited decades to win.

Joe Schwarz did, indeed, lose. But his integrity remained intact. Instead of being hailed as a statesman, however, he’s considered a cautionary tale for ambitious Republicans. Most politicians can’t bear the thought of relinquishing power –– even if it means they’ll never accomplish what they set out to do.

That’s the straightjacket John McCain finds himself in today. I wish he’d give Schwarz a call, but he’s made his choice. And we all have to live with it.

Susan J. Demas is Publisher and Editor of Inside Michigan Politics, a nationally acclaimed, biweekly political newsletter. Her political columns can be found at SusanJDemas.com. Follow her on Twitter here.

Susan J. Demas: Where is Bernie Sanders’ Revolution in Michigan?

This column ran in Dome Magazine.

Hillary Clinton is now the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, something that’s devastating to at least a sizable minority of Bernie Sanders supporters.

For months, the Sanders campaign and some of his overzealous voters have used faulty numbers and logic to claim that the former independent was, indeed, winning. Some of them doxxed or harassed superdelegates, like U.S. Rep. Brenda Lawrence (D-Southfield).

These are Tea Party tactics, befitting for folks who have peddled in conspiracy theories. (For years, Tea Partiers have insisted chemtrails are poisonous, Clinton planned the Benghazi attack and more).

As someone who believes the scientific research that vaccines, genetically modified food and fluoride in the water are not just safe, but have helped millions of people, I’m not terribly sympathetic.

But there’s been talk of Sanders sparking a Tea Party on the left. Of course, we all heard that Occupy Wall Street was going to fill that role, and that fizzled fast.

I felt sick to my stomach watching Tea Partiers shout down and threaten then-87-year-old U.S. Rep. John Dingell, a veteran and a patriot, back at a 2009 town hall on Obamacare. That’s not a style of politics I think the left should embrace.

One test will be the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia next month. Several pro-Sanders protests are scheduled. Will they be peaceful? Will most Sanders voters come home and vote Democratic, especially with race-baiting authoritarian Donald Trump as the GOP nominee? We’ll see.

But what I’ve been looking for, and have seen absolutely no sign of, is Sanders’ revolution in Michigan.

This was a huge state for him. Now that the primary season is almost over, his shocking March 8 victory here still remains his most impressive. He did it with zero institutional support, albeit with a hefty advertising campaign.

Sanders inspired thousands at rallies at Eastern Michigan University, Michigan State University and more.

Where are those diehard Sanderistas now? I don’t see too many running for the Legislature or Congress. Are they seeking local office below the radar? That’s a logical place to start if you want a revolution. Most people’s lives are far more impacted by local government than presidential platforms.

There’s so much to be done in Michigan, even if you don’t want to put your name on a ballot, however.

You could work on a campaign for much-needed redistricting reform so that Democrats don’t end up taking roughly 49 percent of the statewide vote, but only 11 of 38 state Senate seats, as they did in 2014. People dismiss this as inside baseball. They’re wrong. This is the real game in town.

You could work to ensure that LGBT people can’t get fired at work –– yes, it’s still legal in Michigan –– or that transgender children can use the bathroom of their choice without Republicans weirdly policing them.

You could work to make it easier for women to exercise their right to choose. In the last five years, laws have been enacted closing clinics and barring insurance companies from covering abortion unless it’s via a special rider (i.e. rape insurance).

And there are dozens, even hundreds, of other worthy causes to start working on if you want fundamental progressive change. It starts at home.

Sanders only raised about $1.7 million in Michigan, which is pocket change for ballot initiatives that typically require a $10 to $20 million investment. But he’s banked over $200 million overall, mostly from small donors. Imagine harnessing some of that small-donor financial potential for ballot initiatives in the Mitten State and across the nation.

It’s easy to get fired up for a single, inspiring politician. It’s also almost impossible for one person, however charismatic, to make real change in this country. (And it’s remarkably easy to be let down by that leader, who, in the end, is flawed like everyone else).

It’s fun to cheer at rallies and post memes on Facebook. But that’s being a fan, not making social change.

The real work of politics is hard. It’s knocking on doors and calling donors. It’s making compromise after compromise to try and win something that will make people’s lives better, like Obamacare, even if it’s not ideal.

It’s grinding and demoralizing, but completely necessary.

Is that the kind of work Sanders supporters are willing to do? I don’t know. Some will use the excuse that Clinton is so distasteful that they’re through with politics, (although they were never going to stick around anyway if their kindly grandpa hero didn’t win). Some will find the incrementalism of social change too hard to bear.

I sympathize.

But that’s our system. And I’ll take that kind of order over a radical like Trump, who’s threatened to mess with the First Amendment and the principle of an independent judiciary. Revolutions aren’t all they’re cracked up to be.

Sanders’ millions of supporters hold tremendous power right now. Do they want to use it smartly by running for office and helming grassroots campaigns? Or do they want to squander it with ineffectual DNC protests and checking out of the political process?

I’m pretty sure I know which path a young, idealistic Bernie Sanders would have encouraged.

Susan J. Demas is Publisher and Editor of Inside Michigan Politics, a nationally acclaimed, biweekly political newsletter. Her political columns can be found at SusanJDemas.com. Follow her on Twitter here.

Susan J. Demas: Why I cried when Hillary Clinton clinched the nomination

When Hillary Clinton clinched the Democratic presidential nomination on Tuesday, I cried. I’m not afraid to admit that.

Eight years ago, I cried when Barack Obama did the same thing (yes, by defeating Clinton). It’s nothing short of remarkable that an African-American could be the Democrats’ standard-bearer after this country was founded on slavery, on blacks being legally being three-fifths of a person in the Constitution. And not that many decades have passed since Jim Crow and KKK lynchings.

And it’s pretty damn important that a woman will now be the nominee for a major political party in America. Women haven’t even had the right to vote for 100 years. For centuries, most of us couldn’t own property or go to school. This final barrier must be broken.

I say this as a mother of a teenage girl who couldn’t fathom why there were no presidents who looked like her on her old placemat. I say this as a mother of a tween boy who has never asked if a woman is up to the job of running the free world. He knows we are.

But I realized that I was crying mainly as a soon-to-be 40-year-old woman. I’ve been raped and abused. As a journalist and businesswoman, I’ve been stalked, sexually harassed and constantly belittled (one of my favorites is the legislator who suggested I shouldn’t cover abortion legislation as I was a “Vagina-American.”)

One of the advantages of being middle-aged and self-employed is that you’re far better equipped to deal with crass chauvinism and lame attempts to hurt your bottom line. No one’s gotten me to shut up yet, and I wouldn’t hold my breath, boys.

But I thought back to when I was roughly my daughter’s age during Bill Clinton’s first presidential bid in 1992. I remember being annoyed that Hillary wasn’t running then. Sure, he had the charisma, but she was so damn smart. Why do so many women wait their turn? Why did she have to backtrack from her crack that she could have stayed home and “baked cookies and had teas” instead of being a badass children’s rights lawyer? Why couldn’t she have declared, “That’s me, take it or leave it”?

That’s the kind of woman I wanted to be. That’s the kind of woman my friends wanted to be. We didn’t want to be married to men running the world. We wanted to run it.

Hillary made a political calculation to wait, though. It was probably the right one. She was coming up in a world that frowned upon her keeping her own name, even though she’d accomplished so much as Hillary Rodham. She faced blowback after promising the American people they’d be getting “two for the price of one” in the White House, even though Eleanor Roosevelt, Nancy Reagan and Edith Wilson all filled that role behind the scenes.

The conventional wisdom was always that the first female president would be a Republican, our own Margaret Thatcher –– tough on national defense, with the uniquely American twist of an unwavering devotion to God to soften her edges in all the right ways.

Clinton decided to become the Iron Lady herself, first in her outward persona in the face of her husband’s infidelity and impeachment and then in her carefully crafted defense hawk stance and moderate U.S. Senate platform. And finally, she rose above petty partisanship when Obama appointed her Secretary of State, giving her a powerful voice on the world stage.

But she almost derailed herself along the way, emotionally lashing out at the media over her marriage. Her failed 2008 presidential campaign was marred by entitlement and fits of race-baiting by surrogates. Clinton had waited so long and was furious that her chance was being thwarted by an upstart. It showed.

It was a turnoff to me and millions of women. Obama was inspiring and stubbornly immune to tawdry controversies which have plagued the Clintons since their days in Arkansas. My anti-Clinton columns in 2008 (I once declared that she failed feminism) still get me dirty looks from some liberal women to this day.

So what changed for me? The first was covering her on the stump for Obama after their bitter primary. Clinton was utterly gracious and never made it about her, however personally devastated she almost certainly still was. Then there was her partnership with the president for four years. His “Team of Rivals” play worked and she was a far better asset in his cabinet than in the Senate.

And a lot has happened to me from ages 31 to 39. I’m now the mother of a boy.  I’ve seen firsthand how insidious sexism can be, from casual remarks about who should do the dishes to rape jokes he hears in school. I worked my way up as a reporter only to hit the glass ceiling and get fired. I run two businesses now and still encounter men trying to put me in my place –– and even allegedly feminist women who still insist I must have a male partner running the show (I don’t).

I have learned that if you are a woman who values herself, who wants to be heard, who wants to change the world, you need to take ownership of something. You can’t settle for being your boss’ work wife –– he’ll almost certainly take you for granted. You’ll be in the office working late so he can enjoy his daughter’s softball game. You’ll think you’re building something together, but in the end, it’s not your company. And you are always disposable.

You need to be the boss. And that’s something Clinton realized, too.

The truth is that it is exhausting being a woman. You are always judged differently, from your tone to your relationships to your shoes. And you can see that all over Hillary Clinton’s face. Few people have taken as many blows as she has. And yet, she’s still here. She’s still fighting.

That’s all any of us can do.

But the real game-changer for me was this revelation. When I was a teenager in 1992, the political climate was better for women than it is for my daughter today.

It was far easier to obtain an abortion than it is now with an explosion of anti-choice laws across the states. Equal pay was a bipartisan issue, with many Republicans as the (no-brainer) issue’s biggest champions. Even birth control –– something 90 percent of Americans support –– is under attack from Congress.

What the hell? The promise of America is progress. And women today are being left behind.

Electing a woman president isn’t a panacea. We have a record 20 women in the U.S. Senate right now and women’s rights are still being rolled back.

But it’s a strong message –– the strongest one possible –– that our rights matter and we deserve a seat at the table. What better way to convey that than having a woman –– and an immensely tough and qualified one at that –– behind the desk in the Oval Office?

It’s about damned time.

Susan J. Demas is Publisher and Editor of Inside Michigan Politics, a nationally acclaimed, biweekly political newsletter. Her political columns can be found at SusanJDemas.com. Follow her on Twitter here.

Susan J. Demas: The GOP devil’s bargain: Endorse Trump or risk your political future

This column ran in Dome Magazine.

“With such extremists rising to positions of leadership in the Republican Party, we cannot recapture the respect of the nation and lead it to its necessary spiritual, moral, and political rebirth if we hide our heads in the sand and decline to even recognize in our platform that the nation is again beset by modern ‘know nothings.’” –– Michigan Gov. George Romney, 1964

More than a half-century ago, Michigan Gov. George Romney famously refused to back the GOP’s far-right presidential nominee.

The former American Motors CEO believed that libertarian-leaning Barry Goldwater would destroy the Republican Party as he knew it. So Romney tried valiantly to persuade his GOP brethren to reject Goldwater in 1964.

They didn’t –– and Republicans lost by a landslide.

Today, the presumptive GOP nominee isn’t an Ayn Rand disciple (the man named in the Empress of Objectivism’s honor, U.S. Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), dropped out early on). And ironically, another Rand fan, U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), has been floated as a third-party alternative.

That’s because Goldwater’s “extremism” looks quaint in today’s GOP. You could make a compelling case that even the “moderate” Republican presidential hopeful, John Kasich, lands further right than Goldwater, especially on social issues.

For decades, the Republican base has been egged on, first by talk radio, and later by FOX News and online players like The Daily Caller and Breitbart. They sell a rage-infused cocktail of racial resentment and jingoistic militarism. In their world, enemies are all around us: African-American criminals, illegal immigrant drug dealers, uppity feminists, gays using our bathrooms, snooty left-wing professors and more.

Why, it’s enough to make you paranoid.

And so, it’s not terribly surprising that Republicans have picked a presidential nominee who promises to “Make America Great Again.” But Donald Trump’s seemingly cheery Reaganesque slogan sells much darker policies, from banning Muslims from entering the country to building a wall to shield us from murderous immigrants.

Trump’s need to constantly belittle women (they’re “pigs” and “dogs”) and sexualize them (he even called his then-teenage daughter “hot”) tears a page from Men’s Rights Activist playbook. And he’s oddly fond of retweeting neo-Nazis.

He’s made no bones about his contempt for the Constitution and democratic process, with promises to gut the First Amendment. And he wants to meddle in private business, like ordering companies like Ford not to build plants overseas.

It’s nothing short of amazing that one of our major political parties is on the brink of nominating a man who seeks to rule as a thuggish dictator.

Not all Republicans have fallen in line, of course. The last GOP presidential nominee, Mitt Romney –– George Romney’s son –– refuses to vote for Trump. Both Presidents Bush have said the same, after watching the bombastic businessman beat up on fellow contender Jeb Bush for the better part of a year.

And there are the #NeverTrump forces, which launched a laughably ineffective campaign long after the alleged billionaire started racking up victories.

You can hear echoes of George Romney’s warnings of a Goldwater-era bloodbath in their plaintive anti-Trump pleas.

Of course, the most powerful way for sane Republicans to torpedo Trump is to endorse the likely Democratic nominee. Some would have held their nose and done so if it wasn’t Hillary Clinton, who conservative media has demonized as a feminist shrew for decades. Old habits die hard –– and she’s just too fun to hate (just ask far-left Bernie Sanders supporters).

In the end, almost all Republicans who are on a ballot this year –– or yearn to be in the future –– will make the same calculation as Richard Nixon did with Goldwater in ‘64. They’ll endorse Trump, just as Lt. Gov. Brian Calley did in a resigned late-night tweet this week.

Some will stump for Trump with the manufactured gusto that Nixon did for Goldwater, like New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie.

But many Republicans will do their best to deflect questions about Trump’s racist policies and sexist remarks. They’ll stay on message that it’s important to support the Republican nominee (apparently, no matter who it shall be). And they’ll continue to pray that Trump doesn’t wipe the party out down-ballot.

You can see this crass calculation even within the Romney clan. Mitt will probably never run for anything again, so he can take a principled anti-Trump stance. His niece, Ronna Romney McDaniel, however, is a highly ambitious former GOP national committeewoman and the current chair of the Michigan Republican Party.

And so, even before Trump wrapped up the nomination, McDaniel announced she would serve as one of his delegates. Her grandfather went to the GOP convention in 1964 on a long-shot crusade to save the party from an extreme nominee. Now she’ll be in Cleveland to cheer on another.

But if McDaniel eventually becomes the first Republican to hold a Michigan U.S. Senate seat since 2000, it will all be worth it.

Susan J. Demas is Publisher and Editor of Inside Michigan Politics, a nationally acclaimed, biweekly political newsletter. Her political columns can be found at SusanJDemas.com. Follow her on Twitter here.

Susan J. Demas: What Rick Snyder Could Learn from Obama on Flint

This column appeared in Dome Magazine.

Gov. Snyder has lost the people of Flint, and there’s no getting them back.

He’s pointedly avoided public events in the city since acknowledging the water crisis roughly eight months ago, choosing instead to hold tightly controlled news conferences.

If Snyder was hoping Flint residents’ anger would dissipate with time, he was proved dead wrong last week during President Obama’s visit.

The governor did what he should have done back in September 2015. He apologized to the people of Flint –– in Flint.

“You didn’t create this problem ––” Snyder started to tell the crowd of 1,000 at Northwestern High School.

But students cut him off, shouting, “You did!”

No one in the gym heard the second part of Snyder’s sentence: “Government failed you.”

It was all too little, too late. Snyder didn’t bother speaking much longer. No one was listening.

When Obama took the stage to cheers and applause, he acknowledged the governor, as he should have. But the crowd booed again and the president threw him a lifeline, asking people not to.

Obama then announced Democratic officials in attendance: U.S. Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Lansing) and U.S. Reps. Sandy Levin (D-Royal Oak), John Conyers (D-Detroit), Debbie Dingell (D-Ann Arbor), Dan Kildee (D-Flint) and Brenda Lawrence (D-Southfield). None of them were jeered.

And there you have it –– the credibility gap on the Flint water crisis in action.

Republicans, led by Michigan GOP Chair Ronna Romney McDaniel, have valiantly tried to pin the issue on the Environmental Protection Agency, and thus Obama.

Of course, the facts say otherwise. The EPA failed, for sure, but the Flint water crisis was a state-created problem. Even the governor’s special task force found in its 116-page report that state-appointed emergency managers made the crucial decision to switch to the corrosive Flint River. The move was made to save money, which led to lead and legionella poisoning.

While Snyder and Republicans have been spinning and obfuscating about what they knew, Democrats like Kildee and Senate Minority Leader Jim Ananich (D-Flint) have kept their doors open to Flint residents. And they’ve pushed for answers and aid.

Even Democratic presidential hopefuls Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders came to Flint, which prompted a round of “Democrats are politicizing the crisis” stories fed by Republicans.

But while that criticism had cachet with a cynical press corps, few people in Flint cared. They just wanted help. They just wanted people to listen. And if politicians had their own agenda, well, that’s what politicians do.

It beat the response from the governor, who’s still blaming “career bureaucrats” and hasn’t met with Flint families clamoring for his attention.

It’s not hard to see why Obama is more trusted, even though he certainly could have come to Flint sooner. From the early days of his presidency, he was mercilessly mocked by conservatives for stressing the value of empathy and its role in public service.

But people in that gym believed that the president cares. They clearly don’t think that of our CPA governor, who’s chosen balance sheets over people, time and time again.

Snyder’s allies fervently believe he’s gotten a raw deal and is being scapegoated. And partisans will always think that.

But consider how Snyder handled the president’s visit. It was a public relations disaster for the governor, from start to finish. And he’s had eight months to come up with a decent strategy. Although Snyder has cycled through key staff and high-priced PR firms, he’s still blowing it.

Last month, Snyder pledged to drink Flint water for 30 days to prove it was safe. A few days into the stunt, he announced he was heading to Europe on a trade mission and suspending his water pledge. What a fantastic PR move: The governor ditches Flint water for Perrier.

Then Obama announced he would be coming to Flint, crediting a heartfelt letter from 8-year-old Mari Copley, known as “Little Miss Flint” (because that’s how you do a PR stunt right).

Snyder was overseas and was like, “Oh, man, I’m really busy right now. Don’t think I can make it.”

When that went over like a lead balloon, the governor arrogantly demanded a meeting with the president in Flint –– as if the protocol is that governors get to call the shots with presidents. And Snyder went even further, challenging Obama to drink Flint water to deflect from his failures.

Of course, Obama has had seven years of dealing with petulant Republicans, like U.S. Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.) shouting, “You lie!” in the middle of his first State of the Union. So the president indulged Snyder on both counts and the governor said he’d come to the public event.

Perhaps Snyder’s media consultants were high-fiving one another over their apparent PR coup.

But when Snyder walked on stage, nothing could save him from the raw anger of the people of Flint. The president showed an incredible amount of empathy that he would even try after Snyder’s crass one-upmanship.

And therein lies the difference between the two men.

Susan J. Demas is Publisher and Editor of Inside Michigan Politics, a nationally acclaimed, biweekly political newsletter. Her political columns can be found at SusanJDemas.com. Follow her on Twitter here.

Susan J. Demas: House GOP’s Detroit Public Schools Scheme Could Give Us Gov. Mike Duggan

Hey, Republicans. Would you like to get Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan to run for governor in two years?

Then by all means, keep pushing the punitive state House version of Detroit Public Schools “reform” –– which almost certainly won’t do anything to fix the mold, rats and terrifying safety issues plaguing the state’s largest school district.

Duggan, a pro-business Democrat credited with turning around Michigan’s biggest city, has repeatedly said he doesn’t want to be Michigan’s next CEO.

It’s not hard to see why. The former Detroit Medical Center chief relishes in getting things done –– and he’s been able to make a real impact in his city. As Gov. Rick Snyder knows all too well, change often comes at a glacial pace in state government.

But many Democrats are still begging him to run in 2018. Duggan is well-known where the votes are in Southeast Michigan, he’s a strong fundraiser and he’s assembled a solid field operation. No wonder he led the Democratic field in the latest gubernatorial poll, completed by Inside Michigan Politics and Target Insyght.

And Republicans really, really don’t want to run against Duggan, who has enviable crossover appeal. That’s why conservative Detroit News editorial page Editor Nolan Finley whacks Duggan whenever he can. The man’s a threat.

Now the mayor just a hit a big roadblock in Detroit’s comeback story, courtesy of House Republicans playing politics.

DPS schools have been a mess for decades. Unfortunately, being under state control for the last seven years hasn’t helped, as Snyder says the district needs $715 million to escape fiscal insolvency.

Duggan has been a fierce advocate for a bipartisan DPS turnaround package that passed the Senate before spring break. Snyder was on board, as were staunch conservative Senate Majority Leader Arlan Meekhof (R-West Olive) and stakeholders in Detroit.

The Senate plan would shore up DPS’ finances and get $1,100 more per student into the classroom –– which is where it’s needed most. The package also created a Detroit Education Commission that could regulate charter schools, a boon industry in the city. While Duggan and others support education choice, they refuse to turn a blind eye to the myriad abuses and failures that have rocked some schools.

In other words, it’s perfectly reasonable compromise legislation –– which is why radical House Republicans rejected it. Their package passed in the wee hours this morning is partisan politics at its worst.

The bills didn’t even bother to come up with all the money needed to save DPS from the fiscal abyss. House GOP leadership decided it was more important to reward a special interest group near and dear to their hearts, the education choice lobby. So they scrapped the quality-control education commission.

And they took the hatchet to a big political enemy: teachers’ unions. Under the plan, educators would be made to reapply for their jobs, uncertified teachers could take teaching jobs, unions couldn’t negotiate the school calendar, and unions and teachers would face heavy fines for strikes.

This all amounts to exacting revenge on teachers, who have had the nerve to organize sickouts in recent months to protest schools’ deplorable conditions and the real possibility that they wouldn’t get paid.

Trust me, no legislator or Lansing lobbyist would ever put up with any of that.

Moreover, there’s something deeply disturbing about demonizing teachers, which we’ve seen time and time again under total Republican rule. There are few tougher jobs than trying to inspire the love of learning in young people. It’s a noble calling and should be treated as such.

In Detroit, teachers are on the front lines of an educational apocalypse. So many are trying to advocate for students struggling with crippling poverty, violent crime and severe health problems due to lax environmental standards.

But too many Republicans just see them as union stooges, not people dedicated to making a difference in children’s lives.

Teachers may sadly be an easy political target in Michigan, but Republicans should probably think twice before tangling with Duggan. He’s been around a lot longer than House Speaker Kevin Cotter (R-Mt. Pleasant) and his posse. He knows how to broker deals and deal with his enemies.

And he knows Detroit will never fully recover without a functional school district where residents want to send their kids.

If House Republicans insist on standing in the way of his city’s progress, Duggan won’t forget it.

And he may just decide that the only way to really get things done is from the governor’s chair.

Susan J. Demas is Publisher and Editor of Inside Michigan Politics, a nationally acclaimed, biweekly political newsletter. Her political columns can be found at SusanJDemas.com. Follow her on Twitter here.

Susan J. Demas: Will Michigan's hated pension tax survive Rick Snyder?

Susan J. Demas

This column ran in Dome Magazine.

Gov. Rick Snyder’s ultimate legacy will be the Flint water crisis. But as our CPA governor, he likely views his greatest accomplishment as his 2011 tax overhaul.

But you have to wonder how much of it will survive Snyder, who’s termed out of office in less than 20 months. After all, many parts of his plan, especially the “pension tax,” are unpopular.

The governor announced his tax reform shortly after taking office, to great fanfare. It was vastly complicated, as Michigan has to balance its budget every year (unlike the feds). To get there, Republicans jammed through big cuts to universities, K-12 schools and social safety net programs.

As far as Snyder’s hodgepodge tax plan went, Republicans swooned over the $1.7 billion tax cut for businesses. Actually, many people (especially accountants) favored the simpler, flat 6-percent corporate income tax over the inscrutable Michigan Business Tax –– which was living proof that bipartisan compromise isn’t an inherent good, but sometimes produces incoherent messes.

Luckily for Snyder, he didn’t have to worry about playing nice with Democrats. He was blessed with strong GOP majorities in both chambers who stood ready to help the governor –– even though he asked them for (gasp!) huge tax increases on individual ratepayers.

Yes, it was a sight to behold. Many Republican lawmakers, who had rode the ‘10 tea party wave to victory, were suddenly sounding like Democrats as they defended $1.4 billion* in annual tax hikes. That came through increasing the income tax rate; cutting the homestead property exemption and Earned Income Tax Credit; and axing big tax deductions for children, charity and college tuition.

And Democrats got their turn to finger-wag about sky-high taxes.

But the bitterest pill to swallow was getting rid of the exemption on pension income, i.e. the pension tax. Snyder initially proposed taxing everyone’s pension, making the case that it was about fairness, especially for younger workers.

While Snyder’s argument was fiscally defensible, he badly misread the politics. That was just a bridge too far for GOP lawmakers, who depend heavily on senior citizen votes.

“The governor’s probably right on the fairness issue, but I just don’t want to tax seniors, period,” Sen. Joe Hune (R-Hamburg) summed it up in February 2011.

So the compromise undercut Snyder’s fairness doctrine completely by instituting three tiers of taxation: None for those born before 1946; a partial exemption for those born between 1946 and 1952; and a much smaller exemption for those born after 1952.

In other words, those about 64 and younger got a raw deal, as usual.

The pension tax brings in $300 million each year, but it still carries an outsized, potent political kick. Democrats have been running on the issue for years. While it’s never proved decisive, the reviled “senior tax hike” does box Republicans in.

That’s why Republicans like freshman Rep. Tom Barrett of Potterville, who never had to vote on the tax, ran campaigns opposing it.

And that’s why one of the House’s newest members, Rep. Gary Howell (R-North Branch) –– just elected in February to replace disgraced ex-Rep. Todd Courser –– just introduced legislation taking aim at the hated tax. Howell’s bill would hand Baby Boomers --- who coincidentally are a big GOP constituency –– a bigger tax break.

It seems unlikely the governor would sign such legislation, but we’ve already seen some chinks in his 2011 tax reform armor. The 2015 roads plan included an income tax rollback, although it’s not clear that the state will hit the trigger in the future.

So it’s an open question if the pension tax will outlive Snyder’s tenure. Most of the leading candidates for governor (Lt. Gov. Brian Calley excluded) would probably be open to scrapping it. Democrats like former Sen. Gretchen Whitmer and U.S. Rep. Dan Kildee (D-Flint) would surely see it as a political plus. And GOP Attorney General Bill Schuette, who fought for pensioners’ rights in Detroit bankruptcy, knows a political liability when he sees one.

Of course, it all comes down to money. And while $300 million isn’t a huge chunk of the state’s $10 billion general fund, it isn’t chump change, either. And with big liabilities looming over the Flint water crisis and Detroit Public Schools’ near-insolvency, it just might not be fiscally possible for the next governor to kill the pension tax.

The bigger question, really, is if Flint, DPS and other crises mean Michigan returns to the bad old days of huge budget cuts throughout the year and government shutdowns.

If that happens, it will be the complete obliteration of our current CPA governor’s fiscal legacy. And that would truly be something.

* Corrected, 10:11 a.m.

Susan J. Demas is Publisher and Editor of Inside Michigan Politics, a nationally acclaimed, biweekly political newsletter. Her political columns can be found at SusanJDemas.com. Follow her on Twitter here.