SOURCE:
"Michigan's Bureau of Elections is trying to use procedural grounds to remove from the ballot the top two Republicans running to replace the current Democrat governor, Gretchen Whitmer.
Considering that one of the candidates is African-American, it's to be hoped that Michigan's Black voters, including Democrats, are offended by this blatant systemic racism.
This is eerily reminiscent of how Obama got his start in Illinois politics: not by running an actual primary race that voters decided, but by using procedural devices and smears to knock out his opponents before the election began.
The Daily Wire sums up the story:
The Michigan gubernatorial election was thrown into chaos Monday night when the state Bureau of Elections recommended barring two top Republicans, including former Detroit Police Chief James Craig, from running to replace Democrat Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.
The bureau charged that neither Craig nor businessman Perry Johnson submitted enough valid petition signatures and thousands of signatures they and others submitted were invalid. Craig, an African American who supported Second Amendment rights while fighting crime as Detroit's top cop, is the GOP's best-known candidate. Johnson is its best-funded. If the board's ruling sticks, half of the 10 candidates seeking to run for governor wouldn't make the ballot, The Detroit News reported.
Image: Retired Police Chief James Craig. YouTube screen grab.
Neither Craig nor Johnson is taking the matter lying down. Again, from the Daily Wire:
"I'm a fighter, always been a fighter," Craig told Fox 2 after the report came out. "Michigan wants something different. I know, everyone else knows, I was the GOP candidate that would have upset the incumbent," Craig told FOX 2 following the report from the bureau.
[snip]
John Yob, a consultant for Johnson, told The Detroit News the bureau didn't have the right to unilaterally void every single signature obtained by the alleged forgers.
"We strongly believe they are refusing to count thousands of signatures from legitimate voters who signed the petitions and look forward to winning this fight before the board, and if necessary, in the courts," Yob said.
It's possible, of course, that this is a real problem. Time will tell, but, currently, it has the feel of an anti-democratic (small-"d" democratic) trick to disenfranchise voters.
Additionally, as noted above, this has the smell of Barack Obama politics all over it. In 1996, a
special election was held to fill the seat of U.S. Rep. Mel Reynolds
(D), who was convicted of sex crimes. Ultimately, there were five Democrat primary candidates, including Obama.
That's when Obama's team members went through every single signature on the nominating petitions for all the other Democrat candidates. They challenged signature after signature until every opponent was knocked off the ballot. Obama was the only Democrat left standing. What he did was legal but, again, has an un-democratic smell about it.
During the COVID years, Gov. Whitmer showed herself to be tyrannical, hypocritical, and hyper-partisan. Now that she's finally up for re-election, voters deserve a real choice.
To use a bureaucratic tactic to knock her most threatening candidates off the ballot has the same un-democratic smell as Obama's tactic in 1996. Moreover, given that retired police chief Craig is African-American, there's a strong systemic racism feel to the whole thing, too — for those looking for systemic racism..."
