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Tudor Dixon is wrong for Michigan [1]

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Date: 2022-08-23

Probably not what we meant by "defund the police"

The Michigan Republican primary was three weeks ago and I was a bit relieved that Kevin Rinke lost. The “conservative businessman outsider” (yawn) promised to crack down on voter fraud (you know what that actually means) and eliminate the state’s income tax (yikes).

Trouble is, pretty much all Michigan Republicans are awful. And the fact that the Republican nominee, Tudor Dixon, is a woman, worries me in that misogynist voters might decide that between two women — the other being Governor Gretchen Whitmer (D-Michigan), the incumbent — they might as well vote for the Republican challenger.

On the other hand, Republicans’ obsession with policing gender has led Dixon to make a ridiculous claim that maybe, just maybe, could backfire on her. Henry J. Gomez reporting for NBC News:

"This is going to be an epic battle between a conservative businesswoman and mother and a far-left birthing parent and career politician," Dixon said in her victory speech last week after she secured the Republican nomination to face Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. Dixon, who has a background in right-wing media, emphasized issues such as gender identity during the primary. And her message in the early days of the general election signals to her supporters — a list that includes former ... Donald Trump — an eagerness to aggressively draw Whitmer into a debate that she [Whitmer] has largely avoided.

Ah yes, Tudor Dixon has the much-coveted Trump endorsement. The one where he says your first name excitedly then somehow loses enthusiasm before saying your last name: “TUDOR! Dixon...” That’s if the addled idiot can even remember what your name is. Anyway...

“It’s time to elect a real woman in Michigan,” Dixon tweeted hours after her primary win. “What is a woman?” she added a minute later, tagging Whitmer’s Twitter handle in response to a statement from the communications director of the governor’s re-election campaign.

So Whitmer is a “birthing parent”? I guess that is technically true, even if she has never referred to herself as such. But on her campaign literature, Whitmer describes herself as “a mom, former legislator, prosecutor and Governor.” When asked by reporters about Dixon’s ridiculous claim, Whitmer replied “I am going to stay focused on delivering for the people of Michigan.”

That is word for word exactly the correct response. To properly assess Dixon’s suitability for governor, the voters should compare what she’d do as governor to what Whitmer has already done, and not get distracted with culture war nonsense, nor how one thinks the two candidates would do in a hypothetical beauty pageant they would never actually compete in.

“There are clear contrasts in this race on the issues that actually impact Michiganders’ lives,” said Maeve Coyle, a spokesperson for Whitmer’s campaign. “Gov. Whitmer is moving Michigan forward by lowering costs for families, making record investments in education and fighting like hell to protect the right to choose, while Tudor Dixon has committed to criminalizing abortion without exceptions and gutting public schools.”

There’s a political ad emphasizing just how extreme Dixon is on abortion. Asked about a hypothetical scenario in which a man rapes and impregnates his 14-year-old niece, Dixon would not allow the unfortunate young victim to get an abortion. Sadly, this particular hypothetical is very likely to actually occur.

Dixon is a breast cancer survivor and mother to four girls, but this apparently hasn’t given her any empathy for women faced with the prospect of a difficult delivery.

Understandably the issue of abortion seems hypothetical to some voters, like the ones who already have their 2.5 kids and don’t care about those who are trying to start their own families. Such voters might be more concerned about crime, which is supposedly rampant in “Democrat-run cities.”

The data doesn’t support such assertions, nor does a visit to those cities. Still, let’s just for a minute buy into that premise. If crime is running high, we need more police, right? Except Tudor Dixon would cut $500 million from the Michigan State Police budget, according to an ad from the Democratic Governors Association (DGA).

Those cuts would most likely come out of police officers’ salaries and pensions. The police would still have more military hardware than they ought to have.

To be fair, the claim in the DGA ad is misleading, according to FactCheck.org. Dixon has promised to phase out the state income tax. Just like Rinke, Dixon has not explained how she would balance the budget to compensate for the reduced revenue.

It’s easy to promise to cut taxes without detailing commensurate spending cuts or other revenue increases. Given that nearly every state, including Michigan, requires a balanced budget, opponents of candidates who propose tax cuts often fill in the blanks. They warn voters of cuts to popular programs that might result from proposed tax cuts — even though the candidate proposing the tax cuts may or may not support those specific cuts.

Somehow that doesn’t make me feel better about Dixon. She’s not gonna cut the police budget, she promised. But who knows what else she’ll cut instead of the police?

Incumbent inertia won’t be enough for Governor Whitmer to be re-elected. We need to remind people of some of her accomplishments so far. Whitmer

collaborated with Republicans and Democrats to sign more than 900 bills, including four balanced budgets,

invested $4 billion on Michigan’s water infrastructure,

negotiated with Ford, GM and Stellantis to create thousands of new Michigan jobs and retain existing jobs,

turned a projected $3 billion deficit into an actual $7 billion surplus, without increasing taxes,

brought the state’s rainy day fund to an all time high of $1.6 billion, etc.

However, Whitmer has failed to close down the extremely dangerous Line 5 run by the secretive and irresponsible Enbridge, Inc. It is an astonishing miracle that Line 5 has not destroyed the Great Lakes, given that newer Enbridge lines have already broken under land and caused a lot of damage.

When Whitmer promised back in 2018 that she would shut down Line 5 on her first day in office, I was skeptical. It seemed to me that Enbridge would do everything they could think of to protect their short-term profits.

If Enbridge stock pays almost a dollar per share in dividends today, investors don’t care if the Great Lakes are destroyed tomorrow.

Even though I doubted Whitmer’s ability to shut down Line 5 on Day One, I didn’t trust the Republican nominee back then to do anything about Line 5, and I sure as hell don’t expect Tudor Dixon to continue the fight to neutralize this particular threat to the Great Lakes.

Maybe Dixon would even give tax breaks to Enbridge and compensate by cutting mental health initiatives (and then send thoughts and prayers after the next mass shooting in this state). That’s premised of course on the idea that Gov. Engler (R-Michigan, 1991 — 2003) left anything more to cut from mental health.

To donate to Whitmer’s campaign, go to her campaign website.

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/8/23/2115398/-Tudor-Dixon-is-wrong-for-Michigan

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