Welcome to the first 2022 edition of our weekly roundup breaking down what both NBC and ABC deemed a top race to watch for 2022. There are eight months to go until voters cast ballots in the Republican primary. Here’s what happened over the holidays and this week:
James Craig’s Campaign Has Had So Many Blunders
Panelists on last week’s installment of Tim Skubick’s Off the Record (Zoe Clark, Cheyna Roth, Bill Ballenger, and Jim Kiertzner) took turns pointing out that “the honeymoon is over”for Craig, who has struggled to break away from the pack of “3000 Republicans running for governor.” (exaggeration Zoe Clark’s, not ours. But we are also struggling to keep count.)
It’s not hard to see why. James Craig’s fishbowl fiasco made the cut as one of the top 2021 political blunders. Aides – feeling pressure from endless reported examples of Craig avoiding questions from reporters and voters alike – purposefully invited “journalists to an event which they could physically see but not hear” him as he sat in a glass room “to discuss items still not entirely known to this day.” We hope that Windex we sent was put to good use.
Also claiming dis-honorable mention; Craig’s disastrous campaign reboot week that kicked off with him fleeing Detroiters to a guarded rooftop. At the time, he attempted to spin the swift retreat as a “potential boon,” but Gongwer noted that “the campaign has not gained much because of it.”
Not So Fast on Rinke’s Bizarre Attack of Governor Whitmer
Things your average seven-year-old can claim responsibility for: not sharing their toys, maybe forgetting to say please and thank you, getting into scuffles with their siblings, creating the Michigan Catastrophic Claims Association. Oh, does that last one sound weird? Congratulations! You’re not Kevin Rinke.
This week, after MDP pointed out Rinke’s wild time math, MIRS fact-checked the out-of-touch millionaire on one of his ads blaming Whitmer for establishing the MCCA which was created in 1978 – 40 years before she was elected governor and 7 years after she was born.
Anything to double down on his out-of-touch attacks on the auto insurance reforms secured by Whitmer delivering Michiganders $400 refund checks for every auto-insured vehicle in the state by calling them a “mistake” and saying he would have vetoed it had he been governor instead. Campaigning against bipartisan reforms that put money back in Michiganders’ pockets is… a choice.
Rinke Pledges to Enforce Dangerous, Extreme Abortion Ban in Michigan
On a recent appearance on Steve Gruber’s radio show, Kevin Rinke made an out-of-touch commitment to enforce Michigan’s extreme ban on abortion. Rinke said that if Roe was overturned, a state law that “prohibits abortion” would go into effect, and pledged that “as governor, I’m going to enforce that law of the land.”
Soldano and Rinke Go Toe to Toe on Election Conspiracy Theories
As Cheyna Roth said on Off the Record last week, this entire crowded field of Republicans are “all giving very similar talking points…it’s hard to pick them out of a lineup.” Kevin Rinke and Garrett Soldano reinforced that take on the marquee issue of this primary – a long since concluded, certified, and audited general election that took place two years ago. Soldano penned an op-ed for The Washington Times to put some pre-spin on his potential loss by pitching his homemade conspiracy theory that Governor Whitmer is somehow “attempting to ‘fix’ the [2022] election in Michigan.”
Not to be outdone, Rinke was profiled in CNN for putting on his campaign website that the “2020 election was rife with administrative problems, leading to a tainted election” and citing unsubstantiated “voter fraud” as a problem plaguing Michiganders.
