MI-GOV Megathread: 👵🏻 Gram died alone.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

What do y'all make of the GOP field that's left?

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

They're really making it easy on Whitmer.

https://twitter.com/tripgabriel/status/1542660575976734721

The same as in senate races. I feel like Republicans are way too overconfident that they win regardless instead of playing it safe as the Democrats did in 2018. They focused on bread and butter issues and nominated strong candidates fitting their districts/states.

That again tells you that one party and its base moved way to the extreme while the other party just slighty moved. Yet I hear the media often talk about how "Democrats moved far-left".

Democrats have moved far-left in the last 15 years. Notice how there are virtually no real blue dogs left?

Blue Dogs were essentially center-right, and the majority of the Democratic Party is center-left. Not even Bernie is "far left" by any serious definition, he's de facto a Social Democrat. Obviously cultural issues change over time and society generally becomes more liberal on some issues such as support for same-sex-marriage.

Of course, Republicans like to fearmonger and anything to the left of Joe Manchin is a socialist or communist in their books. But it's objectively not true, and voting records and positions of Republican officeholders have moved far more to the right than Democrats moved to the left:

https://twitter.com/pewresearch/status/1501997074266656772

"Blue Dogs were center right"

And are Republicans such as Phil Scott, Charlie Baker, and others not center-left? The GOP has a much larger ideological tent than the Democrats, who hate people such as Schrader and Cuellar who still vote with Biden 96% of the time while some Republicans vote with Biden nearly half the time.

Both parties are broadly moderate big-tent, and have been so for decades.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Also is it just me or does Dixon's whole personality often come across as very artificial?

How so? Please elaborate.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Also is it just me or does Dixon's whole personality often come across as very artificial?

How so? Please elaborate.

I was watching her on FOX News and she seems to answer all the questions word for word with some sort of default script inside her head with a monotone voice.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XxC7GAirK5g

Here's an example

It does feel robotic, but I wonder how much that actually matters. Repeating the same talking points over and over is a common thing in politics.
Gretchen Whitmer, of course, is using the "attack your opponent on your biggest weakness" approach, which makes its own sense.
I will assume police funding will not have any real importance until proven otherwise.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

I'm genuinely confident MI state senate is going to flip

Probably.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

This could actually help Dixon
https://twitter.com/approject/status/1569302195354337280?s=21&t=ofmLau3IHG1n...

The only people who could possibly fall for this are 20 year old "America First populists" (who agree with the same policies as Steve Forbes/Kochs/Musk) who spend their days watching Tim Pool-esque videos.

Seeing ads like this would likely only weird out voters and make it harder to make the case against her.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Thank you law enforcement!
#BlueLivesMatter

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

#Realignment

As Trump said, we love our law enforcement!

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

I could see Whitmer winning anywhere from 3% to 12% depends how independents vote. Most Republicans hate her. She come across as somewhat moderate and likeable though, Dixon is unknown and you only see ads attacking Whitmer now not really about Dixon herself, but Whitmer has been running ads attacking Dixon for months, abortion and tax cuts for rich people like Betsey DeVos who is funding Dixon.

Yeah, important to note that everything that I've seen from the few ads that RGA/DeVos are running (since Dixon can't afford any herself), are all anti-Whitmer. There doesn't appear to be anything actually propping up Dixon positively.

The fact Dixon can't afford ads herself is of course a strong sign that she is primed to be defined before she can define herself, which is the Obama 2012 playbook.