Mike Nofs and the MRP: Too Heavy on the Rovian Tactics for the Jackson Cit-Pat

Thought this was an interesting endorsement. The Jackson Citizen-Patriot endorsed Marty Griffin yesterday, and, besides Griffin getting the nod for simply being the "local" guy here, the subtle message throughout the endorsement seems to indicate that they did it over Mike Nofs negative and misleading advertising. The first example comes early in the column:

Local voters who have seen Griffin in action know that the Democrat is no knee-jerk liberal. In contrast to the advertising against him, Griffin has always projected an image of predictable (if sometimes prickly) moderation.

They go on to compare the two on the issues, noting that their positions on taxes are nearly the same, and that both have bucked their party on standard ideology. When it comes to Nofs, though, the candidate admits that Republicans in our legislature are driven to deny the governor or the Democrats any "victories", regardless of whether the legislation/policy would be good for Michigan, and the Cit-Pat concludes both he and the MRP have spent too much time in this campaign on negative attacks.

Marshaling support for the energy bill was like pushing a boulder up a steep slope. Many in his own Republican Party voted against it because, as Nofs suggests, they did not want to make a Democratic governor look good. Or they had ideological concerns about government mandating renewable energy. Either way, the bill was a challenging policy triumph.

Disappointingly, we have heard too little of the Nofs record in this Senate campaign. Nofs and the state Republican Party have wasted too much time attacking Griffin.

Not only have the Republicans ignored the issues for these negative attack ads, the ads themselves are labeled - surprise! - "misleading".

The lines of reasoning in the anti-Griffin advertising are that he is a tax-and-spend liberal, a supporter of a lavish state police headquarters and a sugar daddy for Detroit. These claims are misleading.

...

Nofs has taken to criticizing Griffin for supporting a regional authority to run Detroit's Cobo Center. Nofs suggests this is a taxpayer bailout of a corrupt city, yet it is nothing of the sort.

They wrap it up by saying again that Griffin should get the nod because of his ties to Jackson, but the message sent by the rest of the endorsement is clear: People are tired of "politics as usual", and they should be presented with the facts, not the attacks.

So, stay classy, Republicans. It bodes well for 2010 to know that you are sticking to your "Bush-league" strategy.