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Sen. Mike Green, left, Gov. Rick Snyder and Sen. John Moolenaar, right, are all smiles after bills on veterans' gun licensing were approved last year. GREEN MACHINE: Bay County Came Through for Big Spending Senator
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Money and the power of the incumbency trumps all.
Usually.
Mike Green overcame a primary challenge from well-connected Lapeer County farmer Kevin Daley by focusing laser-like on Bay County.
And John Moolenaar of Midland clobbered challenger Paul Mitchell, of Saginaw Township, who spent $5 million of his own money, disproving the concept that money always "talks."
Attacks by Mitchell against Moolenaar for "voting to spend millions" to fund Medicaid expansion and Obamacare exchanges fell on deaf ears. Perhaps those issues are fading as issues on which Republicans can hang their election hopes. Michigan, especially, has bucked the GOP trend under Gov. Rick Snyder who is on board with Obamacare and has set up a successful state exchange.
Moolenaar now turns to face Democrat Dr. Jeff Holmes of Alma in November to decide who will fill the shoes of retiring U.S. Rep. Dave Camp of Midland.
However, Moolenaar had somewhat of a claim to incumbency, being the sitting senator in a large chunk of the 4th Congressional District.
Green avoided the Tea Party pitfall that has sunk many GOP incumbents, notably U.S. Eric Cantor of Virginia who lost his seat to a no-name college professor, by tapping the largest source of growing Republicanism -- Bay County.
Green took Bay by 4,496 to 1,785 for Daley and 411 for Phillips; He topped daley in Tuscola 3,490 to Daley's 1,395 and 195 for Phillips; and in Lapeer, Daley's home county, he whomped Green 6,576 to 2,423 while Philips got 341.
Accordion playing campaigner "Mindy" was dubbed by the state's top pundit Bill Ballenger as a "sacrificial lamb" awaiting the slaughter by the winner of the Green-Daley standoff.
In a scenario reminiscent of his upset of popular former Democratic state representative Jeff Mayes in 2010, Green threw scads of political action committee and party money at his opponent. In the 2010 vote Green even edged out Mayes in Bay County, both getting more than 19,000 votes here.
Green's largest donors in this cycle were the Michigan Association of Realtors, $7,000, and the DeVos Family of Grand Rapids Amway fame, $3,000.
He capped his survival strategy by bringing Rich Studley, state Chamber of Commerce president to a busy political watering hole, Old City Hall, just days before the voting began.
It probably didn't hurt Green's campaign that former Bay City industrialist Scott Holman is Studley's boss as chairman of the state chamber.
However, had Daley garnered the 947 votes that went to Caro education activist Jeff Phillips, he would have snatched a narrow victory from Green. Woulda, coulda, shoulda.
His vote last year against the historic Right-to-Work bill did not seem to bother conservatives who perhaps were wowed by his sponsorship of legal gun-toting legislative initiatives.
(NOTE: This has become a district where bringing an AK-47 automatic rifle as an accessory to fatigues and a protest sign has become acceptable -- see Vassar and Bay City re immigrant children).
Green's bills waiving application and licensing fees for veterans were approved last year and his plan to eliminate county gun boards has passed the legislature.
Thus the stage is set for a bigtime showdown, mano a mano, Green vs. Mindy, in November. In the higher turnout gubernatorial race all bets are off. Even sacrificial lambs can have sharp teeth in that setting.
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