Michigan has always been a state closely watched for national political trends, and Tuesday’s results are no different. Republican governor Rick Snyder’s reelection and Democratic senator Gary Peters win carry significant lessons for both parties — and the country.
Like Scott Walker in Wisconsin, Snyder’s solid victory over public-employee stooge Mark Schauer was confirmation that Republicans can take on powerful unions and survive. Snyder’s reform of state union contracts have been key to rescuing the state’s budget after Michigan’s “Lost Decade,” in which the team of ex-governor Jennifer Granholm and ex-Democratic senate minority leader Schauer had put the state on path for a pension-induced calamity not unlike what befell bankrupt Detroit.
Detroit holds lessons for Republicans as well. Snyder made Motor City fiscal rescue a priority despite the fact that the heavily black metropolis holds few GOP votes. But like Governor Kasich in Ohio, Snyder understands that minority issues have larger resonance. Snyder’s compassion for Detroit’s plight — and his firm hand in guiding it through a state-run bankruptcy — won him praise from independents and suburbanites across the state who believe that Motown’s fate is key to Michigan’s national image. Like Walker and Kasich, Snyder has made economic reforms — not divisive social policies — the centerpiece of his governorship.
Gary Peters’s resounding Senate victory (notable for his nasty, bare-knuckle attack on Obamacare victim and cancer victim Julie Boonstra as a liar — talk about your War on Women) against overmatched Republican Terri Lynn Land also reflects national Democratic trends.
Democratic power has been gradually devolving from blue-collar representatives of Midwestern, manufacturing states (Dingell, Gephardt) to the green-collar pols of coastal states (Waxman, Pelosi), and Peters’s lavishly funded campaign is a perfect reflection of that trend.
He was bought and paid for by San Francisco billionaire Tom Steyer, the radical, anti-carbon Pelosi ally who poured millions into this election cycle.
Targeted by Steyer as one of his Senate Seven to help retain Democratic control of the Senate, Peters received millions in Steyer support. His victory means that Michigan is now represented by two, far-left green senators – Debbie “I Can Feel Global Warming When I’m Flying” Stabenow is the other – in a state that is heavily dependent on carbon-heavy industries like autos, oil-sands refining, and coal. Sending Peters and Stabenow to the Senate, alas, isn’t going to get the state relief from Washington regulators anytime soon — maybe voters will come around on that eventually.
— Henry Payne is an auto critic for the Detroit News and a syndicated editorial cartoonist.