Peas in a Primary Pod

May 21, 2010

At first blush, Andy Dillon and Rick Snyder have zilch in common.

Blush again.

They both emerged from the private business sector into politics. They are more cerebral than they are political animals, by a long shot. If given a chance, they would blow up all the TV cameras, microphones and notepads used by reporters.

They are both running a brilliant general election campaign; problem is, they should be running a primary strategy instead.

Both of these guys do have appeal to independent voters and have benefited from attacks from special interest groups, which makes them look more independent. For example, every time “Official Lansing” takes a swipe at Snyder, it plays right into his image as the non-politician running from the outside hoping to get inside.

The Ann Arbor business guy is taking some hits for not participating in the final two Republican Party-sponsored televised debates. Everybody that plays the game in this town knows that candidates have to debate.

Tell that to Team Snyder.

“If you look at all these comments, they are coming from the career political people,” Snyder observes, which just gives him another chance to tell the voters, “I’m a non-politician. I’m doing things a different way.”

Likewise with Mr. Dillon. One of his calling cards is that when it’s time to stand up to the special interest groups (read organized labor), he has the guts to do it even against the advice of his political brain trust.

Independent voters admire candidates who think for themselves and don’t go along to get along, so both gentlemen are onto something. But it’s the wrong something for a primary election, where those voters don’t decide the outcome.

In a general election the impact of unions, chambers of commerce and a wealth of other special interests is diluted because more unattached citizens vote to mute their power. But in a primary, special interests wield more influence.

Snyder, for example, refuses to fill out questionnaires from a host of special interest groups, even though some of them would give him a second look. He’s not even getting the first look, and while he may be cool with that, the special interests aren’t, and some think he is arrogant for not playing the game.

Snyder either doesn’t get it or he doesn’t care, but if he wins, these are the very groups he will have to influence to move his agenda. To stiff them now is either shortsighted or just plain ignorant.

Dillon faces the same challenge as he struggles with his perceived organized labor opposition. “I’m not the devil,” he likes to say, but it doesn’t matter what he says. The bulk of the labor guys are behind Virg Bernero, and that will count for something and trumps Dillon’s independent cache.

Being from the business sector, it should come as no shock that neither of these candidates is a whiz-bang with the media. Raised in a cloistered boardroom where the glare of TV lights and snoopy reporters are verboten, they were not trained to be 10-second soundbite wonders.

Snyder is more content hawking his 10-Point plan, which takes more than 10 seconds to digest. Dillon is more into thinking in his head than thinking on his feet to combat some snotty question from an equally snotty reporter.

Two peas in a pod? Maybe not, but they’re closer to that than you think.

Tim Skubick is Michigan’s Senior Capitol correspondent and has anchored the weekly public TV series “Off the Record” since 1972. He also covers the Capitol and politics for WLNS-TV6 in Lansing.

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Bleed Him Dry
GOP candidate for governor Mike Cox is on a mission. He wants to bleed all the money out of the Pete Hoekstra campaign before the August 3rd primary.

Now, you might ask, how can one candidate do that to another?

Simple. You run attack ads, which puts your opponent in a box with two options: sit on your money and don’t purchase any ads to counteract the attacks, or spend your money now to counter them. By exercising the latter choice, you run the risk of running out of moola the closer you get to the election, when more voters are paying attention.

Cox knows this and so do the Hoekstra people. So far, Hoekstra has made a modest effort to mute the Cox ads, which suggest the Michigan congressman is a big spender of your tax dollars in Washington.

Last week came the first ad, and the Hoekstra camp scrambled to assemble a tepid response that did not get a ton of exposure compared to the bigger ad purchase made by the Cox folks.

This week a new attack ad and, so far, no response from the Hoekstra camp. It’s unclear if their first commercial continues to air around the state.

The popular wisdom in town has Hoekstra struggling to convert his grassroots support in West Michigan into checks. So he is not overflowing with money, while the Cox campaign coffers are looking better.

The commercials are an act of “desperation” decries Hoekstra mouthpiece John Truscott. J.T. contends Cox is losing support in the polls and has to act now to salvage his candidacy by trying to slice into Hoekstra’s lead.

Team Hoekstra expects to take a hit as a result of these ads.

Over in the Cox shop, campaign manager Stu Sandler argues the ads “are a show of strength,” not desperation.

So in all likelihood, those attacks will continue and the Hoekstra folks will have to decide to shut up or cough up. Either way, it’s a roll of the dice for the congressman, and the smiles you see over there are from Mr. Cox and company as they monitor the blood flow out of the Hoekstra campaign.

New Guy Gets It Right
You know the drill: politician screws up; has to convene his inner circle; they commence a protracted and secret discussion to decide what to do about it; and, eventually — sometimes days, weeks or even months later — the admission of guilt comes.

Think Bill Clinton and Monica what’s-her-name.

Say hello to David Palmer, who just proved you can do this turnaround in a matter of hours. Smart guy this Mr. Palmer.

Palmer is on a mission to win the House seat soon to be vacated by Rep. Alma Wheeler Smith. As such, he found himself handing his card to a Capitol correspondent as the two got on the elevator just off the House floor.

It was not out of the ordinary. A picture of the bearded Mr. Palmer with an engaging smile on his mug and over there on the left, in bold print his name, David Palmer. Underneath it, in smaller print, “State Representative 54th District.”

The reporter thought for a second. The guy’s been in town for 18 months and this is the first time Rep. Palmer has appeared on the radar screen?

Something didn’t compute.

Finally, this exchange as the smarty-pants reporter finally figured it out. “This state representative thing is interesting,” in that you are not the state representative.

Palmer sort of chuckled as the elevator reached its appointed stop and off he went into the night.

About three hours later an unsolicited email arrived. “I’ve asked my graphic designer to add the word ‘for’ on my card so that it would now read ‘David Palmer for state representative.’”

Funny thing what one tiny little word can do.

Palmer “got it” even though he confesses a “fairly large and diverse group of supporters” looked at the thing and raised no objections. But upon quick reflection he concludes, “It could be misleading.

So into the recycling bin go 950 of the offending 1,000 calling cards.

Making a mistake, correcting the mistake, and not taking a lifetime to do it. Mr. Clinton and other more experienced pols, are you listening?