Republicans put the whole mitten on their backs this week, delivering a historic investment in infrastructure, having Detroit host the 2024 NFL draft, and even manifesting last night’s upset Pistons win against Philly’s 76ers. *checks calendar* Nevermind. Here’s what actually happened this week for folks not named Gretchen Whitmer.
It Really Does Bear Repeating: James Craig is God-Awful at This.
For the (we lost count)th week in a row, chief “neophyte” James Craig racked up more brutal coverage on what has already been a spectacularly awful gubernatorial campaign for several months running. Crain’s Business Detroit was the latest to point it out, but the following list of hits indicate that the writing has been on Craig’s wall for a long time now. We’re only including the Detroit Dodger’s greatest blunders since January because ink is a finite resource:
- The same MIGOP insiders propping up his campaign have grown restless at the fact that it still “hasn’t moved out of first gear.”
- His campaign advisor, former Michigan State House Speaker Lee Chatfield, emerged and remains the subject of an extensive Michigan State Police sexual assault investigation that has since exposed the intricate and ever-expanding patchwork of corruption he’s woven through Lansing.
- Reporters openly wondered why he wasn’t ready to go with some sort of response to Governor Whitmer’s State of the State.
- Hillsdale County GOP warned their community that Craig and other “establishment” Republicans “are not patriots.”
- His fundraising report for the final quarter of 2021 revealed he raised less than half of what he did in the previous quarter and his “donations of $200 or less decreased 300% from July to October 2021.”
- He tried to fundraise off of calling MSP troopers a bunch of “weak-kneed…underlings” who “abandon[ed] their jobs” to operate as cronies – then lied about it and claimed “campaign sabotage.”
- He was the target of a “thinly veiled” swipe from Mayor Duggan who used his State of the City address to tout the decrease in crime in Detroit after Craig’s retirement, saying plainly, “The first five months of last year before we hired Chief White, it wasn’t good.”
- He lost his third campaign manager in a row and is now unusually splitting the role between two staffers that were already on payroll and presumably are only now qualified to manage because no one else wants to.
- He exploited a foreign humanitarian crisis to draw an “absurd comparison” between himself and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
Adding insult to injury, he closed out Women’s History Month with a “binders full of women”-esque video that was released at the very last minute. The only face featured? His own of course, as allies do.
And after previously pledging not to aim low even while getting repeatedly needled by his 11 opponents, Craig finally snapped this week on a certain unnamed guru: “You know, one of the GOP candidates stresses perfection, perfection, perfection. Let me just say this. There is no such thing as perfection. Only the Lord Jesus Christ is perfect.”
…Zing?
Between the MIGOP and Perry Johnson, There Were Plenty of Damn Lies to Go Around
As Governor Whitmer signed a $4.8 billion bipartisan infrastructure plan to make “long overdue upgrades to roads, water pipes, dams, and parks,” MIGOP spent the week launching yet another bogus “bad faith” attack ad to try to hide the fact that Governor Whitmer has been fixing the damn roads. The pushback from Michigan reporters was just as swift as our own.
Chad Livengood provided “indisputable facts,” and Tudor Dixon’s campaign adviser tried to justify the MIGOP’s revisionist history by arguing that 30 seconds is enough time for lies but not for facts, even though it took you less than that to read this section (we timed ourselves). Better luck next time!
Not to be outdone, odd-quality guru Perry Johnson continued to put his millions behind TV ads distracting from the Governor’s work to cut costs for Michigan families.
The Who’s Who of …Who?
The first cattle call of the gubernatorial primary took place Tuesday. We don’t blame you for missing it, as the forum was only attended by the kid’s table end of the Republican field: Ryan Kelley, Ralph Rebandt, Mike Markey, Bob Scott and Evan Space. Some highlights, per Gongwer:
- Rebandt wasted some poor cops’ time by getting a meeting with them to argue that “guns haven’t changed and haven’t become more deadly over time.” Six-shooters and muskets would like a word.
- Scott “donned a Stetson hat” and warned about a “one-world government,” which feels anti-… at least 5 things.
- Evan Space is in fact not a simulation and wants to take Michigan to the moon, baby!
