Finally, here in the state of Michigan, it is time to get down to business.
What business is that you say?
That business would be working to remove the only governor who would dare to dream of trying to beat the horrible eight years that Jennifer Granholm spent as leader of the state. You do have to give Gretchen credit though for taking on such a formidable task and, in less than four years, doing almost as much damage as Granholm did in her eight-year run.
As I wrote here at RedState yesterday, the Michigan GOP finalized their ticket of Tudor Dixon and Shane Hernandez on Saturday at their state convention and are ready to roll. Michigan Republicans Pick Strong Conservative Shane Hernandez to Run as Lt. Governor.
From that article…
Thankfully, the Michigan GOP yesterday-after a bit of a rough start at the beginning of their meeting-did the right thing in affirming that a solid conservative should be running with Tudor Dixon against the mess that is the Whitmer administration. Hopefully, this marks the beginning of a campaign that will be challenging the failed policies of the past four years with a vigorous campaign about how we can do better for the next four.
With 70 days to go before the November 8th election, I’m not naive about how difficult this job will be. Generally speaking, defeating any incumbent politician with a war chest is hard to do, even one with an incredibly horrible record like Governor Gretchen Whitmer.
During just four short years, the current Governor has not fixed the damn roads as she promised but has blown up the state budget to historic spending levels. She handled the COVID crisis just about as badly as any Governor in the lower 48, including her buddy the former disgraced Guv from New York, Andrew Cuomo. Then there was that whole issue of flying around on private jets while telling people back home to shelter at home and not go out while demanding businesses close up.
Ahhh the memories.
So with all of this going on and watching some of the petty back and forth going on in the Michigan GOP, I recall a time ten years ago when people were not happy with how things were going in the country as a whole. President Barack Obama was running for a second term and the two leading candidates to oppose him on the GOP side were Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum.
I can still hear the sobbing or yawning of that race.
Yet the man who became the face of the Tea Party Movement all those years ago, Andrew Breitbart, delivered a speech at CPAC 2012 that has since been dubbed the Unity Speech and I think it is relevant for today’s Michigan GOP.
Breitbart was the perfect counterbalance to the overwhelmingly leftist slant that the mainstream media presented each and every day as honest reporting. He knew better than anyone at the time that the MSM was in the bag for Obama and if there was any chance for the eventual GOP nominee to beat him, the time to start coalescing was in February of that year during the largest gathering of conservatives.
The whole video of his speech is at the bottom of this post but directly below is the quote talking about the unity of the goal of defeating the Democratic candidate.
You want a unity speech I’ll give you a unity speech. I don’t care who our candidate is and I haven’t since the beginning of this. I haven’t. Ask not what the candidate can do for you, ask what you can do for the candidate and that’s what the tea party is. We are there to confront them on behalf of our candidate I will march behind whoever our candidate is because if we don’t we lose.
Nailed it.
Now, I will fully admit I have sat home during elections and not voted and I have also voted third party more times than I can count. I’m one of those great Independent voters that decide elections and since I’ve learned of my true superpower with this, I have never looked back.
However, I do understand that with this great power also comes great responsibility (Thanks, Uncle Ben) and that there is also knowing the time and place to use that power.
If Tudor Dixon and Gretchen Whitmer were both unknown candidates, then I could see people making an argument about sitting this election out or voting third party. I would not be making an argument against anyone taking that action because I might actually do it myself.
Yet Gretchen Whitmer is not an unknown candidate.
She is a known entity and she is really bad for the Great Lake State the same way Godzilla is bad for nuclear plants in Tokyo. If you do not already know this universal truth about Gretch then you might also believe that Godzilla actually has destroyed any part of Japan.
For those people in the state that are members of the Republican Party who have used some really interesting and lame excuses for not voting for the Republican ticket here, I need to tell you this. I have been there I understand your frustration but this is not the time the pull your punches and your votes.
We have a similar situation today in the state just as we did 10 years ago on the national level. A known Democrat who had done a lot of damage was on the ballot and the opportunity to unite behind the Republican ticket to defeat the opponent and work for the best outcome afterward was presented.
Andrew Breitbart was spot-on 10 years ago in his speech to CPAC-2012 about being united behind whoever the GOP ticket ended up being later that year. His words ring just as true today in the State of Michigan with getting behind the GOP ticket that can stop the damage of Big Gretch.
Do the right thing and you will feel better about yourself and the State of Michigan for the next four years.
Now if you disagree you can check out my RedState BIO right HERE and I will entertain your thoughts and might even post them if they are witty regardless if you rip me or praise me.
Unity speech part at 12:25 of Andrew’s last CPAC speech in 2012.