There's no shortage of stunts at the Detroit Regional Chamber's annual policy conference on Mackinac Island, where dozens of print, broadcast and online journalists provide an ideal audience for spectacles.
A Lansing group gives out these air fresheners at the Mackinac conference.
Members of Progress Michigan, a liberal advocacy group based in Lansing, began their shtick Wednesday morning at the ferry dock in Mackinaw City with someone in a skunk suit holding hands with a colleague wearing an oversize papier mache Rick Snyder head. The pretend governor later greeted the real one when he got off a different ferry.
To assure the symbolism isn't lost, allies pass out sheets headlined "Secret Selloffs Stink."
The progressive group, which describes its mission as holding "public officials and government accountable," seizes an irresistible symbol provided by advisers to the governor who set up a self-described "skunk works" to explore education reforms. Progress Michigan sees that and legislative support for private prisons as "troublesome examples of outsourcing deals, often dreamed up under clandestine circumstances." it dubs the costumed animal "Pepe Le Voucher."
The handout adds:
Something stinks about the way Michigan is being governed. Secret committees are making recommendations to privatize public assets. These selloffs benefit corporate interests, not the citizens of Michigan.
One unamused conference attendee, public affairs consultant Dennis Lennox of Midland, tweets:
@ProgressMich That's the best you could do? If you're going to do lefty propaganda, at least do it well.
-- Alan Stamm
