There is nothing new about this but this election season it
has reached epidemic proportions. The practice of candidates latching
on to items in the news is a sure fire way to get your mug on the tube
and your name in print and Pete Hoekstra started all this way back last
May.
At that time President Obama was making noises about finding a
new "home" for all those dastardly terrorists at GITMO and somehow
Michigan ended up on the list and the West Michigan Republican ended up
all over the media when he challenged that suggestion.
His jealous opponents, who frankly wish they had been that
smart, decried the effort with, "Hey, that's a national issue and has
nothing to do with the race for governor here."
Silly opponents.
Hoekstra gobbled up more free ink that anybody else and smiled
all the way to the free-media bank. He got his name out there and that
was the objective and if he did it on the back of a national story, so
be it.
In recent days Attorney General Mike Cox has demonstrated his
prowess as well.
Asian carp in Lake Michigan? There was Mike Cox filing more
appeals than Perry Mason.
Congress passes health care? There was Mikey joining 14 other,
mostly GOP A.G.'s, firing off a legal challenge and pounding his chest
about how bad it was to provide insurance to those who don't have it.
Imagine such an awful thing.
Toyota selling inferior products? Well after Lansing Mayor Virg
Bernero got his pound of free media out of that, Cox got into the act
as well trying to force the company to release self incriminating
evidence.
On the downside, however, not all of the Cox media meandering
has bee positive as he would give his right arm to stop all the
Cox-Kwame Kilpatrick stuff that often fills the airwaves and news holes.
Bernero is a master at this game. Maybe you heard he got a lot
of face time on the talking head cable shows when the domestic auto
industry was melting down. In fact that's one of the reasons he snared
the UAW endorsement for governor.
So far you have to give this contest to Benero, Hoekstra and
Cox as Mike Bouchard, Rick Snyder, Andy Dillon, Alma Wheeler Smith, and
Tom George have pretty much been missing in action.
Maybe they don't read the paper or watch TV...or aren't as
sneaky at media manipulation as the other three?