Michigan Politics

There seems to be some back room workings going on as Zandstra and Butler position themselves for next year's primary. According to Politics[Michigan] (getting a good rap today), the National Journal is reporting that Oakland County Sheriff Mike Bouchard might be looking at entering the race for Senate. While I would normally just pass this off as utter silliness, George Weeks column a few days back makes me reconsider. If it were not for Butler's institutional and money advantage, this race would be done, but the way things stand now, it could get real interesting real fast. Divide and conquer is the strategy.

Think back to the 2002 Democratic gubernatorial primary. Granholm didn't break %50. She ran against Blanchard and Bonior. Check out this article about how the race was looking after the 2000 election. Granholm beats Bonior %42-%29 two years out. That's much to close for her liking, primaries are supposed to be easy things. From what I remember, there was quite a bit of surprise when Blanchard entered the race. All he did was cannibalize support from Bonior, he never had a chance of winning.

Was anybody surprised when Granholm selected Rick Wiener (Blanchard's Chief of Staff) to hold the same position in her own administration? When you divide and conquer, the players are on your side, and sometimes you have to pay them to be there. If the sheriff does indeed enter the race, I think he'll draw the most votes from Butler, but not nearly enough to win outright. I wouldn't be surprised if there are some in the party that aren't very happy with Butler and are pushing to "diversify" the field.