Rick Snyder, currently running a TV ad in heavy rotation that places Kwame Kilpatrick's picture back-to-back with Mike Cox as he lambastes "career politicians", is beside himself that robocalls and radio spots are calling attention to his outsourcing jobs while at Gateway. The nerve!
Snyder griped on Detroit talk radio Tuesday: "They're making up stuff. That's the dirty, crummy politics."
You tell 'em Rick. Even though it walks like Mike Cox is behind this, and talks like Mike Cox is behind this, Mike Cox denies he is behind this, as he says, "Politics is a tough business" and refuses to ask who is financing this horrible campaign. That didn't stop Snyder's people from sending a sternly worded letter to the Attorney General though, telling him to "knock it off. Just knock it off." Yeah, ya big bully.
Snyder sent yet another letter out to WOOD Radio in Grand Rapids, asking them to pull the ad because it's "lowering the level of discourse for the sole purpose of attacking candidates with baseless accusations", and directing listeners to a website for more of the same. WOOD declined and told them to
Snyder should count himself lucky that it's only about shady business practices. Poor Mike Bouchard is getting hit with the smut card, featuring a billboard that directs you to a website that brings up a sexual harassment complaint, amongst other allegations. Instead of being dirty, crummy politics, that's gutter politics!
"Whoever put this up is willfully trying to mislead anyone who goes to the Web site or sees the billboard," (Campaign manager Ted) Prill said. "It's this kind of gutter politics that has taken the state where it is now. It's still gutter politics."
It wasn't the collapse of the auto industry that took us to where we are now, it was gutter politics! Wow, glad that's cleared up. The Bouchard campaign should know all about that, seeing as how they have hired the seeming bastard child of Lee Atwater and Karl Rove, a dude who heads a media firm by the name of Scott Howell and Company, to do media consulting for them. And he better get to using them soon, as he is trailing behind all the serious front-runners already. Start bowling, Mike, but stay out of the gutter!
While the east-side Goopers are tearing each other's hearts out and drawing the condemnation of the professional Republican smear editorialists at the Detroit News, no one knows just who is attacking Twitter Pete Hoekstra over here on the west side. Eagle Strategies out of Delaware popped up out of nowhere to talk about Hoekstra's voting record in Congress, and apparently that is hurting Pete's feelings because he got right on the letter bandwagon to Mike Cox as well, wanting to question the legality of such a heinous thing.
A Hoekstra campaign attorney says in a letter to Cox that "shadowy attacks from secretive organizations" shouldn't have a place in Michigan elections.
Anyone adding up how much this is costing the taxpayers, using the time of Mike Cox and pulling him away from important duties such as filing numerous lawsuits against illegal immigrant fish that the Kenyan born socialist Obama wants to let invade our country? We have the pure and innocent members of the Tea Party to think about here!
Hoekstra, who vows not to take part in such a strategy, argues that the negative campaigning will backfire.
"You go to the tea parties, and the folks are coming into the process ... exactly because they hate this kind of politics," he said.
That much is evident when you attend their rallies. You never see any nasty, misleading signs or political attacks on others when they get together!
Hoekstra must have grown more sensitive during his time as a Bush Republican. Back when Dick Posthumus was flinging some serious mud against Granholm in '02, trying to tie her to reparations and Kwame Kilpatrick and basically calling her a liar, a now-archived quote from Pete Hoekstra reveals that he shrugged his shoulders and said that Republicans shouldn't apologize, because "Political races are tough, and they should be. We shouldn't be afraid of tough campaigns". But now, It's Not OK If You're A Republican attacking another Republican! That must be illegal, right?
For the ultimate proof on the severity of all this mud-slinging, just ask former DeVos campaign spokeman John Truscott, who was forced to defend stuff like this all during the DeVos campaign. If it's worse than what the Master of the Disaster laid down back then, it's gotta be real bad!
"I've never seen anything like this in Michigan," said John Truscott, a spokesman for Hoekstra and a veteran of many political campaigns. "The overall tenor is absolutely disgusting. The people of Michigan deserve better."
Yes, they certainly do. It's too bad that Mike Bishop has forced us to cut all the whambulances out of the budget, because it looks like we have a whole mess of dirty, crummy, shadowy, gutter-based attacks coming from the tragically wounded egos on the GOP side of the aisle, and we need remove them from the political scene before someone gets really hurt.
After all, like John says, we deserve better.