By Deadline Detroit Staff
If you had "14 years in the legislature and only three bills passed" in the Michigan gubernatorial debate drinking game, you probably were unconscious before its end.
Unless you had "nine lawsuits to repeal the Affordable Care Act," in which case you definitely shouldn't drive. But if your designated driver was the one who had "Jennifer Granholm," then you should both take an Uber tonight.
Which is to say, Bill Schuette and Gretchen Whitmer met on the debate battlefield at WOOD-TV in Grand Rapids early Friday evening, and the talking points and sound bites flew like shrapnel. But very little of substance was revealed. If you knew a little about both candidates going in, you didn't necessarily know any more coming out.
Republican Schuette and Democrat Whitmer stood at side-by-side podiums, but barely looked at one another. The questioning ranged over well-traveled ground -- Flint, Larry Nassar, jobs, education, health care, the damn roads -- and not much new was revealed in the process. These are topics that the candidates have been asked about before, and are the subject of many campaign ads. You already know Schuette backs a paycheck agenda and Whitmer wants to protect those with pre-existing conditions from health-care cutbacks.
You know Schuette is linking Whitmer to the grim Granholm years, while Whitmer links Schuette to President Trump. And you've probably already made up your mind which one you back. But if you've read this far, these are the only fresh nuggets we could spot:
- The embarrassing video, released earlier this week, of a 30-years-younger Schuette making smarmy remarks to an unseen woman behind the camera, was a "Planned Parenthood, Democrat hit job on me," and "drastically edited," Schuette said, before flipping the subject to Whitmer's running mate, Garlin Gilchrist II, and the dilapidated Detroit rental property he has failed to properly secure, first revealed in Deadline Detroit.
- Schuette would deal with Michigan's disgraceful scores in third-grade reading by appointing a literacy director to a cabinet-level position. Whitmer would add literacy coaches, encourage more young people to choose teaching, and make early-childhood education more available.
- Whitmer wants a high-level "drinking water ombudsman" to handle resident complaints about contaminants and other water issues.
- When asked, pointedly, to outline their road-infrastructure plans "with specifics," neither was very specific, although Schuette's zinger was that Whitmer woudl "raise your darn taxes," while Whitmer called the auto repairs many residents pay for bad-road damage "the GOP road tax."
- Whitmer countered Schuette's attacks on Gilchrist by pointing out his endorsements from Steve Bannon and Ted Nugent.
The hour passed quickly, as fireworks shows often do, with a lot of heat and only intermittent light. Election Day is Nov. 6.
