Ever since Michigan Lt. Governor John Cherry, the front-runner for the Democratic nomination, dropped out of the governor's race here a couple of days ago, the field has been wide open. In addition to the other existing primary candidates (State Rep. Alma Wheeler Smith and former MSU football coach (yes, that's his claim to fame) George Perles), numerous other names are being bandied about; some seriously, some not so much:
Potential beneficiaries of Cherry's decision include Rep. Alma Wheeler Smith of Salem Township and Sen. Hansen Clarke of Detroit, who have both announced they are running; House Speaker Andy Dillon of Redford Township, who said he hasn't decided whether to run; Lansing Mayor Virg Bernero, who moved closer to launching a campaign Tuesday; and Wayne County Executive Robert Ficano.
Now, Bernero seems like a pretty good choice, though I have no idea how good of a campaigner he is, and I have a personal bias in favor of Ficano doing well in life due to an incident from back in his Wayne County Sheriff days (his online child predator sting operation arrested a scumbag I had to work next to for years; I hated the guys' guts but didn't know he was actually a child predator as well, so yay for Sheriff Ficano!!).
However, there's another interesting name that's being mentioned: Denise Ilitch, daughter of Little Caeser's Pizza founder (and Detroit Tigers/Red Wings owner) Mike Ilitch.
Next, let's take a look at the Republican side. You have Attorney General and Philanderer Mike Cox (yep, that's his real name), best known (at least here in the Detroit area) for being embroiled in the infamous Kwame Kilpatrick/Manoogian Mansion scandal.
Then you have U.S. Congressman Pete Hoekstra, who's received more than a little face-time around here due to his idiocy when it comes to domain names, terror-based fundraising, revealing classified intelligence and being an all-around douchebag.
Other GOP candidates include Oakland County Sheriff Mike Bouchard (who had his ass handed to him by Sen. Debbie Stabenow a couple of years ago) and business mogul Rick Snyder (he ran Gateway Computers for awhile a few years back...before they went belly-up, of course).
And then there's David Brandon, CEO of another Michigan-based iconic food empire: Domino's Pizza. Brandon was touted throughout much of last year as a possible candidate.
Now, as it happens Brandon was just named the athletic director at U of M, taking him out of the running. But for purposes of this diary, I thought it would be fun to speculate about how the race would play out in the local and national media if both Ilitch and Brandon were to run for Governor. After all, new sports director or not, anything could happen...
I can see the news headlines and awful puns already...
Then again, it turns out that the Democratic primary is gonna be even more crowded than I thought:
After LT Governor John Cherry dropped out of yesterday's race for the Democratic nomination for the Governor of Michigan, a stunningly high number of people have decided to run for Governor. Some of the reports came early that several prominent Democratic politicians were tossing their hats in the race, such as Lansing Mayor Virg Bernero, State Senator Hansen Clarke, and possibly State House Speaker Andy Dillon. Yet by the end of the day, about four million Michigan residents have declared that they're running for governor.
(just kidding - h/t to fellow Kossack djtyg for the smile :)