The envelope please.
The winner in the Ticking Time Bomb category is: (Drum roll)
Virg Bernero.
Even the democratic candidate for governor concedes this is a
potential problem as he tries to move across the street from Lansing
City Hall to the office on the second floor of the state capitol.
The candidate with the hot rhetoric has conceded that his greatest
asset and liability is his mouth. Which is why some democrats are
worried that it is only a matter of time before that time bomb goes off
taking the Bernero candidacy along with it.
Think Howard Dean.
The former democratic candidate for governor single handedly
deep-sixed his own effort with the "He-must-be-crazy" speech he gave
the night he lost the Iowa presidential caucus. Surely your remember
the way he rattled off all those states he was going to win in the
future with his voice screeching higher and higher with each one.
Mr. Bernero remembers.
In fact he remembers it so much that in a closed door skull session
with 30 of his would-be supporters, he brought up the subject himself.
"I know there are those out there who believe I will have a Howard
Dean moment," he advised the group and then promised it would never
happen.
Promise made but a long way to go to keep it.
Part of Bernero's charm is that he sometimes opens his mouth before
he engages his brain. It makes for great copy, but can sometimes be
bad politics as inevitability someone will be offended. The trick is
to limit the number of "some ones" who are offended.
But Bernero says, this is me. He says he will be himself and will
be honest with folks and if some are put off, so be it.
He's done it before and survived but this time the stakes are even
higher. Now any slip of the lip will not be confined to the confines of
the capitol city. With the media monitoring his every word, if the
time bomb goes off now, the entire state will hear the ca-BOOM!
And Virg Dean…err Bernero knows it.