It was a relatively quiet week as everyone not named Garrett Soldano and Michael Markey (yeah, really) are scrambling to get enough signatures to make the ballot by the 19th. Here’s the latest on “this rotten tomato of a governor’s race” crowded with 12 Republicans that continue to offer Michiganders “no road map to anywhere.”
Craig Gave a Clunky Defense of His Fixation on 2020, All But Previewed That He Wouldn’t Certify 2024 General Results if Elected
Chief “neophyte” James Craig – who bungled his own promise to get properly certified to make arrests and issue warrants for the final decade of his law enforcement career – once again displayed his total disregard for another type of certification that used to be a given in a functioning democracy.
While making sure his presence was known at the most recent gathering of election conspiracy theorists, the retiree said “I don’t know if I would say I would have certified” the results of the 2020 general election and said he “did not understand the facts” of the election that was decided by 154,000 votes and confirmed and audited more than 250 times across the state.
And proving that old habits die hard, the Detroit Dodger struggled to respond when confronted with basic facts about the 2020 election before making an evasive maneuver to flee from the reporter like it was a 2013 carjacking.
Rinke Casually Tossed Around a Racial Slur – Again
On Monday, Detroit Free Press released a long profile on out-of-touch millionaire Kevin Rinke. Naturally, he used the opportunity to put previous reports on his rampant use of sexist and racist comments to bed by *checks notes* …calling Asians “yellow.” The racial slur earned coverage of its own later in the week.
And in a plot point that would be struck from a script due to being overly predictable, the third-generation Toyota dealership inheritor railed against the concept of white privilege in the same breath, “profess[ing] a form of color blindness that is not uncommon among white people who have not been disadvantaged due to the color of their skin.”
As has been extensively reported, Rinke is no stranger to spewing language that should be disqualifying for anyone running to represent Michiganders from all backgrounds. He got sacked with various damning lawsuits due to the hostile work environment he created at his car dealerships that were rife with racist remarks and sexual harrasment, according to his former employees.
Rinke allegedly called a female employee at home and asked if she was receiving oral sex, said “women should not be allowed to work in public,” called Black staffers the n word, referred to a baby as “well hung,” and said that “I promise not to come in your mouth” was one of his favorite phrases. Classy.
Nothing Riled the Slate Up This Week Quite Like the Thought of Women Having Bodily Autonomy
This week, Governor Whitmer reaffirmed her commitment to maintain safe and legal abortion access for millions of Michigan women and familes. She took the historic action to exercise her executive authority to file a lawsuit that could prompt a swift rejection of the disastrous 1931 near-total abortion ban that will go back into effect should Roe v. Wade get overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court.
It’s impossible to overstate both how bad this dormant law is for reproductive rights and the extent by which Republicans like James Craig, Tudor Dixon, Kevin Rinke, and Garrett Soldano showed that they are hell-bent on taking Michigan to the darkest of alleys. All four spent the week speaking out against Whitmer’s major effort to put the right to reproductive privacy first.
MIGOP Leadership is Already Rigging Their Own Endorsement Convention in Broad Daylight
Fair to say shenanigans are afoot in the MIGOP, which already has the rank and file reeling after co-chair Meshawn Maddock made the “unusual, controversial” move to pick favorites in the Attorney General and Secretary of State races ahead of the party’s nomination convention later this month.
Not to be outdone, co-chair Ron Weiser got back to his kingmaking roots, brazenly asking one of the AG candidates not endorsed by Maddock to drop out and find some other seat to run in. If it sounds familiar, it’s because last cycle he struck a deal with Shelby Township clerk Stan Grot in which he was paid a total of $230,000 in monthly installments from MIGOP “so he would drop out of the race for secretary of state shortly before the 2018 convention.”
Evidently, Weiser wasn’t as willing to bust out the checkbook this time, probably because this “sleazy payoff” scheme ended up costing double what it was worth to avoid a full-blown campaign finance investigation once everything came to light last year.
The messes will no doubt continue through the rest of the month, but in the meantime happy Opening Day and go Tigers!
