A week ago, Jack Lessenberry of the Metro Times said U. S. Rep. Dan Kildee (D-Michigan) told him it was too early to decide whether to run for governor of Michigan. Lessenberry complained about the 90-second news cycle that forces reporters to worry about elections as far off in the future as 2020.
Well, it seems that in the past week Kildee has gotten tired of reporters asking, so he announced he’s not running, Kathleen Gray reported in the Detroit Free Press. Lessenberry wrote that Kildee’s seat in Congress is safely blue, and Democrats in the House have been doing nothing other than be a voice of reason in the face of Republican insanity, e.g., the so-called “American Health Care Act”:
I voted no on Trumpcare because it forces families to pay higher costs for worse health care. ...
I have always said that I will work with anyone, Democrat or Republican, to improve health care in America. But kicking millions off their current coverage, raising health care premiums for families, stealing from Medicare and taxing older Americans is the wrong way to change our health care system.
That’s from Kildee’s statement after the majority of the House Republicans voted for that awful bill anyway. Clearly he feels he can do some good in Congress, and has indicated he plans to stay in Congress for the foreseeable future.
Though now reporters might start bugging him about running for president in 2020. After all James A. Garfield (R) was a congressman from Ohio, but no Michigan governor has ever been elected president. So the House seems like a better springboard for the presidency.
Although there are six candidates who have filed for the Michigan gubernatorial race so far, pundits are content to declare Gretchen Whitmer the winner already (except of course for Lessenberry, who is annoyed by the frequency of Whitmer’s fundraising appeals).
I think that former Xerox VP Bill Cobbs needs to be taken seriously. That he would be Michigan’s first black governor if elected should be neither overplayed nor downplayed. Kentiel White is also black, but more importantly, he’s young, too young and inexperienced, in my opinion.
Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, M.D. is also young (not old enough to run for president), but his experience is more convincing than White’s. I’ve heard Dr. El-Sayed speak in public in person, and found him to be an eloquent and convincing orator.
I barely know anything about Justin Giroux other than that he’s running as a Democrat, so I won’t say anything else about him for now.
On the other side of the aisle, the Republicans can afford to wait a little bit more. Gov. Rick Snyder (R) is term-limited, but even if he could run again, he would be well advised not to, given his negligent, perhaps criminal, handling of the Flint water crisis.
Still, there is uncertainty. Snyder probably won’t step down, he will probably finish out his term. But there is also the possibility that he might go to jail, catapulting Lt. Gov. Brian Calley to instant name recognition.
Maybe that’s just a dream. Even so, it’s enough to give Attorney General Bill Schuette (R) pause. The homophobic lawyer finds himself in a tricky position: the voters would appreciate it if he does everything he can to throw Snyder in the slammer, but then Calley becomes governor, and the incumbent (in feeling if not legal definition).
But if Schuette does not put Snyder away, voters can more easily remember how hard he’s fought against gay rights and straight ticket voting. And also how he filed separately from the Trump campaign to stop the Michigan recount instigated by Dr. Jill Stein (Green).
Speaking only for myself, Schuette may have had my vote in the past, but he will never get my vote ever again.