He had a chance to say he would not privatize the Mackinac
Bridge, but GOP candidate for governor Rick Snyder did not, which
opened the door for Virg Bernero to walk through and, of course, he did
with both feet.
Bernero flew up to Mackinac City, stood with the bridge behind
him and proceeded to poke Snyder in the eye for not killing the issue
when he had a chance to do it.
The story began with a Snyder roundtable meeting in which he
called in the "experts" on how to erase $1.6 billion in red ink.
Ironically some of the "experts" were the very ones who contributed to
the mess years ago, but then who is keeping score?
Selling off some of the state's assets was discussed.
Over the years there has been chatter about not only selling the
bridge, but the lottery and the freeway system.
So when Mr. Snyder showed up on WJR the other day, he was asked
about privatizing the bridge and he said, "We need to put everything on
the table." He did indicate that before he got to that, he had to have
a financial statement on where the state was. That's pretty much his
standard answer to just about everything.
He had the chance to say, "I would not sell the bridge." He did
not and Mr. Bernero was listening.
Within a week he was criticizing Snyder for fix'in to unload
the bridge to maybe McDonalds and then they could call it, the Big Mac
Bridge. It was Bernero at his best, or worst depending on your
political persuasion.
Caught with its flank unprotected, the Snyder spin machine went
into over drive and did what the candidate should have done in the
first place..take the darn bridge off the table.
If he didn't want to unload the bridge he should have said so.
Instead it said it was on the table. No matter how thin you slice it,
it was a flip-flop.
Score on this one? Bernero 1 and Snyder zippo.