Michigan joined the national anti-establishment chorus Tuesday as voters swept out incumbents and rewarded political outsiders.<\/p>\n
The headliner was GOP gubernatorial candidate Rick Snyder, a political neophyte and businessman in the Mitt Romney mold. In a wild, nasty, four-man race against conservative GOP veterans – U.S. Rep. Pete Hoekstra, state attorney general Mike Cox, and former U.S. Senate candidate Mick Bouchard – Snyder openly disavowed the party’s base, refused major endorsements, spent $6 million of his own money, and recruited moderate Democrats in the open primary while promising to “fix Michigan’s broken government.” His three competitors split the base and Snyder waltzed to a ten-point win.<\/p>\n
On the Democratic side, by contrast, Virg Bernero lashed himself to the party’s Big Labor dinosaur and destroyed his pro-business, labor-reformist opponent: Michigan house speaker Andy Dillon. Bernero’s narrow, far-left base appears to be no match for ex”Gateway Computer CEO Snyder’s hi-tech, organized juggernaut. . .<\/p>\n