Plenty of news times three in our town this week.

So welcome to a correspondent's edition of OTR.

Sit in with us as we get the inside out.

Off the Record.

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And now this edition of Off the Record, with Tim Skubick.

Busy busy week.

Right, guys and ladies.

Listen, the Democratic convention obviously made a lot of news.

Here's my opening question.

Yay or nay?

Did the party help or hur its image with this convention?

Help.

Hurt.

Hurt?

Hurt.

Why are you pausing on hurt?

I don't know.

I'm not exactly sure, but the yes or no questions are hard for me.

I think any time that you can get yourself in the media news show camera shots of hundreds and thousands of people enthusiastically in support of your ticket, I think that's a good thing.

So what was the lead out of the convention, then?

Speak to Mr.

Mellin.

Yeah.

The reason I say hur is because some of the leaders have come out afterwards saying, listen, like the fact that we booed folks on stage was not really in the spirit of what we do.

So they're already doing some sort of damage, damage control in that sense.

But like Kyle said, I mean, it is kind of a mixed bag because they had record turnout there.

So they're 7000 people.

It was definitely.

On a Sunday.

And the sun was shining.

So people definitely were motivated.

I mean, that that reflects a really motivated base for for what's happening.

But at the same time, you ge that many people in a room, too.

And, it got a little contentious.

Yeah.

I think the reason I on the sid of hurt is just so much dirty.

Laundry was aired publicly for the whole state to see, and obviously there's a little bit of, separation from the Democratic activists who typically show up to the conventions and to the average voter who shows up to the primary and general cycle.

But, it's it was probably a lot for people who were probably just on the fence like, oh, I'll see what happens, see what the candidates.

And then to see all of that public arguing might have been a little different.

I think over the past 4 or 5 years, we might have become a little bit used to a status quo where the Democrats sort of had all their disagreements an infighting behind closed doors, and that it was the Michigan Republican Party that was offering sort of public displays of disunity.

But we've seen sort of a role reversal over the past few weeks where they sort of, you know, had consensus candidates on the Republican sid or considerably more palatable than what you seen in 2022 to a broad electorate.

And then meanwhile, there's consternation on the Democratic side that they're moving in the opposite direction, that there might be that sort of progressives are winning the day and that that's going to har their electability in November.

That's the hand-wringing.

And we've got a set up piece on this.

Let's take a look at what it looked like down in Detroit last Sunday.

A party record of over 7200 Democrats who attended the Detroit convention.

But a glitch in the party credentialing process delayed the final vote count for six hour after it was supposed to begin.

The state Republican Party chair, Jim Runestead pounced on the delay, in essenc suggesting if the DS can't run a convention, how can they run state government?

Obviously the Democrats think otherwise.

Meanwhile, on who got elected for the nominations, Lieutenant Governor Garlin Gilchrist put together a coalition of AFL-CIO union members and two progressive caucuse in the party to defeat his two female opponents for secretary of state.

Ingham County Clerk Barb Byrum and former state Lottery Commissioner Suzanne Shkreli.

If elected, Mr.

Gilchrist says, job one will be this.

First thing we have to do is make sure we can get prepared legally, but it's also going to come a Michigan Election 2027 and 2028.

In the attorney General contest.

Oakland County Prosecutor Karen McDonald was the front runner with backing from the UAW, the AFL-CIO and the female PAC, Emily's List.

However, she lost to Washtenaw County Prosecutor Eli Savit, who won the progressive support from the party and defeated the unions in the process.

And some of the work that I've done as prosecutor really is work that the attorney general's office does including our economic justice.

You know, it focuses o consumer and worker protection.

But beyond that, it's not like I've been the prosecutor for my entire career.

I've done public interest work.

I've done civil rights work.

I've stood up to corporate polluters.

In the MSU Board of Trustees race, Democratic state Senator Sylvia Santana failed in her bid to defeat the two female in the race, who are incumbents, including Brianna Scott and Kelly Tebay Zemke.

To do a really good job that I've done over the last year when I've been on the board, I believe my leadership has been transformational.

I'm working my butt off, and I think my record speaks for itself.

By the voting, it was clear the Democratic Party was not in unity and it was divide on which candidate should win.

But Democratic Chair Curtis Hertel says he is proud of giving the delegates choices as opposed to the Republicans, who he allege are subservient to Donald Trump.

But the critical political question remains what about unity in the November election in the Democratic Party?

All the progressives are going to come on board.

All of the moderates are goin to come on board, and it's one that has athletes family.

If you give people a fair process, I think the answer is yes.

And obviously the Republicans hope the answer is no.

So there were a lot of controversy at this convention.

Okay.

and the people say, well, that's what the democracy looks like.

The good news was the lead story out of Detroit on Sunday was what Pistons lose the first game and the basketball thing?

You know what I'm saying?

I know what you're saying.

You kno if you were at that convention and you were sitting around for six hours and agitated that your vote didn't count.

I mean, yeah you walked away and you're like, I don't know if I really want to do that again.

But the fact is, is that you were willing to sit there for six hours to vote because you were passionate enough about your slate or the people you cared about, tha you were willing to withstand.

The six hour of standing around doing nothing and watching some speeches.

So I say, that's why I say this was a positive.

The enthusiasm, the excitement, the the motivation to get out the fight.

And I know that there was the booing was mentioned, but the fact that you were that motivated to come out and do that, I think is still such a huge story.

I think if there's a silver lining for Democrats in this is that, when we when you look back to 2024 and some of the, despondency that you saw from folks in southeast Michigan about, you know, Kamala Harris's stance on the war in Gaza, the the nomination of Amir Makled and his stance on what's gone on in the encampment in the University of Michigan has sort of thrown a bone to some of these progressives who otherwise might feel like there's not a spac in the Democratic Party for me.

Well, the progressives prove that they can beat the unions.

That's something.

Well.

And I don't think it's the first time.

I mean, I was thinking during that convention of the 2018 primary when, progressive candidate Attorney General candidate Dana Nessel beat the establishment candidate, who also had the union endorsement.

So it's not complete.

That was a different time, different situation.

But it's not completely unhear of within the Democratic Party.

But don't you think the R's are going to exploit what happened in Detroit?

I think potentially.

Sure.

there's a lot of interesting I know that they were not on the, convention ballot, but a lot of the conversation and chatter afterwards was about what happened with the US Senate candidates who came and spoke.

Haley Stevens got booed.

The progressives really showed up and showed out for Abdul El Sayed.

And, I think Mike Rogers is sitting there like, well, you know, this is good for Mike Rogers.

Bring it.

Bring it.

He's probably he's probably waiting to see if it gets even more contentious before the August primary, at which point whoeve comes out of that very contested race is going to have to make the case to unify all of these Democrats.

So if you know, if Abdul Sama doesn't prevail in this primary, I think you might have a harder time convincing those progressives who are very excited about his candidac to go for one of the other two.

Well, therein lies the key issue.

What happens no if my guy or lady does not win?

Do I sit it out or do I suck it in and show up and vote?

Well, I think on the Senate side, certainly Mallory McMorrow has tried to position herself in a middle ground as sort of more of a consensus candidate.

but I think at the same time, while the Senate candidates can certainly make hay of some of the disunity that we saw at the convention, these are races that, like in the last two cycles, we've seen more than $200 million spent.

But when you loo at the attorney general's race and the secretary of state, I think those last couple of election, especially 2022, has been marked by how under-resourced the candidates on the Republican side are.

They're going to need to make sure that they can actually raise the money to sort of make this an issue and actually bring to the public eye and that kind of remains to be seen.

But here was the bes opportunity for the Democrats.

This convention normally would have been about what's going on in Washington at the gas pump.

with all due respect to the issue of the Middle East War.

And I don't mean to minimize it at all.

It's not what the governor refers to as a tabletop or kitchen table issue.

am I right or wrong?

No, you're exactly right.

And actually, that that issu also is probably the downside, because it did create a rift among the traditional Jewish funders of the party and the where's my party?

Yeah.

See, that's the one negative, I think.

And it's a big negative because at worst they go ahead and they just close their pocketbook and go away at or at bes that's the situation at worst.

They look at Republicans who they might be funding because if let's say Abdul Al Sadd is the nominee, they may wonder, gosh, do I really want my money to go there?

or do I even want him to win?

I mean, do I cut a check now to Mike Rogers, you know, so that that is a concern.

How could you have a Democratic convention without the mention of Donald Trump?

Think about it.

Ther were mentions of Donald Trump.

I mean, I believe there were it definitely wasn't the prevailing issue.

But but yeah.

And and I think too, you know, I always think.

Probably a good thing though too, don't you think?

Yeah.

I mean that they have issues that, that they're more focused o than just, you know, what what occurred in 2024, which was this just anti-Trump message of, totally dwelling on that instead of the economy.

I also think, too, like, this was a huge primary.

You know, this was a huge nominating convention.

There were a lot of people there.

It showed a lot of enthusiasm.

But I also think, like, we need to remember this is a subset of those who who vote in primaries, who vote in the general election.

So while it's good to see enthusiasm within the base, I don't think it's like a determiner of what occurs in in August or November.

I also think not mentioning Donald Trump is a calculated strategy by a lot of Democrats.

Right.

Donald Trump is speaking for himself.

He's entering, you know, conflict in the Middle East.

Gas prices are going up.

The economic issues are, are continuing to be a pressure point for a lot of these Republicans and very contested seats.

And I think Democrats, as Beth mentioned, tried the anti-Trump message.

They tried it.

It didn't wor very well for them in Michigan.

So they're trying something else now.

Well, you got to give people a reason to vote for me if I'm the candidate, not because of the guy over there.

that's the bottom line.

Mr.

Hall, has a budget speaker of the House, let's take a look.

House Republicans want to spend $100 billion a year for the next five years to fix the roads.

They would add $65 million to local revenu sharing for local governments.

And in order to fight crime, they would pump $10 million into the so-called Public Safety Trust Fund.

In addition, they would increase state aid to public schools by $250 per student for a total of $10,300 for every pupil.

The House Republican speaker applauded the quick action on a new budget last year.

They waited until late summer to do this.

Very happy with the work of our members working as a team.

We got this over the line before the Democrats.

And house Democrats refused to support this plan in the public school, groups are not happy, claiming that the funding increas that the Republicans are touting is actually a cut.

The funding increases our schools have received have fallen below the rate of inflation.

That means that while the numbe on paper gets a little bigger, the real purchasing power or what schools can actually provide with that money goes down.

Energy costs have risen, health insurance premiums have gone up, transportation costs hav gone up and supplies cost more.

The funding increase doesn't cover any of that.

That's not a record investment.

It's a functional cut for our schools.

The speaker's critics contend that MSU was cut by $199 million in the U of M by 222 million.

What this all means is the House Republican budget is now in competition with what the governor and the Senate Democratic leader, when he brings want.

The speaker is ready to make a deal.

Now, we're going to start working to make a deal and get something that makes the government smaller again.

For the second year in a row.

So this is a big news?

I mean, I think the news is, is that they got it done so early, right.

Like it's, I think a positive sign that they're actually going to get this budget done.

And the Senate is going to do theirs next week.

Yeah.

So maybe we'll have a functional government this year.

All you naysayers around this table who said July 1st wasn't going to be no.

I mean, you go back on the tape, I said they'll get this done in June.

And this is very clear that they're going to get this done in June.

Then they might get it done for Mackinac because I don't I don't necessarily believe that the issues that separate the Republicans and Democrats are all that catastrophic.

I think it's really coming down to how much of the of the rainy day fund are we going to use?

And that's probably about yeah, they've agreed that they're not going to raise taxes.

The sticky wicket is wait a minute.

The sticky wicket in this budget is is putting property tax relief in this budget, which is did I hear the speaker correctly say that?

We haven't seen it in the budget though it wasn't in.

Well he yeah.

No, he wants to include it with you or is it a sidebar issue.

But if it wasn't included in this budget work, you know, like this.

He doesnt have it yet.

Well.

Hes working on it.

This was his chance.

I mean, this is the Republican budget.

Got a lot of chances.

It's a statement of what they want, and it's not in there.

So that's where I don't think it's going to be in the final one, because.

I think if two things pretend really well for these negotiations it's one is Kyle mentioned that raising taxes as Governor Gretchen Whitmer wanted on online ads.

Nicotine prod.

Everybody is off.

Yeah.

Both the Senate and House have agreed that that's not going to happen in their own budgets.

And then similarly, as Beth mentioned, that, property tax relief is Rep Hall one, and it's not going to be on the table either because it's not in this budget.

I'd have to agree with you on that point as well.

I think a lot of, a lot of schools, local governments probably breathing a sigh of relief that the conversation are at least starting right now.

That was a huge sticking point in the last budget cycle that we blew past that summer deadline, Almost.

Almost.

Almost missed the, almost missed the October one, too.

But, I think I think what really is going to be interesting is, yeah, how quickly this takes.

Can it get done?

I think it probably can at this point.

And I think a lot of that is because a lot of these representatives have to go back to their districts when competitive elections.

It doesn't do anyone any good to notice if the schools want the budget done by June 1st, because they see they need a month to get that done by July 1st.

So split the difference the middle of June.

Yeah.

It's possible.

I mean, they could get it done before Mackinaw, I mean before the Detroit Mackinac Conference.

And then they could have the whole month of June to do other things if they wanted to.

I mean, look, I mean, what are they going to fight about, whether private schools are going to get get free lunch and breakfast money?

I mean, that's such a small issue compared to like, the entire budget.

That's the camel's nose under the tent.

I know, but look.

Well yeah.

It's something you can iron out really, really fast.

And you know what you could say?

Yeah.

Okay.

We're just going to give them a little money.

And, the Democrats you guys can have a little more for our kids.

And Matt Wholesale.

Just shut up for now on that.

I mean, it's just they are so close compared to where they were, last year at this time, that they couldn't they could get this don by June 1st if they wanted to.

Do you believe that?

Yeah, I believe there.

I think Republicans said what they wanted to say with this budget.

And no it's time to get to the table.

And I think, you know like the cuts to U of M and MSU, that was kind of them just yelling at the clouds about the universities.

And now they'll get to the table and negotiate a real budget.

So something that I foun particularly fascinating is how, Matt described their approac to this budget and effectively said that, you know we're not looking at what they what the funding state departments received last year, but that we're looking at how much money they actually spend.

And then we're setting those as the limits, what that's called a zero based budgeting.

And that's also a tentpole of a number of gubernatorial campaigns.

Perry Johnson, who said he's going to find $10 to $20 million in savings in the state budget by doing implementing an audit and zero based budgeting.

House Republicans, includin making cuts that people strongly disagreed with at universities around $2 billion.

So it sort of undermines, I think, some of these, campaign talking points and no tax increases.

That's dead right?

No tax increases.

I think that was, again, it's an election year.

Tax increase during an election year would be a tough sell.

I think they get this thing done early.

I really do.

Yeah.

They got nothing better to do.

Yeah.

All right.

Let's talk about Tom Leonard.

What happened to poor Tom?

Well a few things.

You know, I think that, his, his campaign was a lot about putting out policy statements and being very thoughtful.

It was kind of like an old school, campaign where I don't know if you remember this, where the candidates came out with like, books of policy positions.

White papers.

White papers.

Rick Snyder had white papers coming out of his ears.

Granholm had white papers.

Mike Cox in 2010, like had 133 point plan.

Well, that was Tom Leonard And you know what?

Nobody cares.

Nobody cares at all.

In the year 2026, you can have all the policies you want, but if you don't have an internet following, if you don't have charisma, if you don't have money, especially a lot of money, you're dead in the water.

And that's what happened to Tom Leonard.

Yeah.

I mean, I think I think he read the writing on the wall to right with that with his withdrawal from the race.

And, and I think he's getting out at a point where it's starting to get pretty contentious within the Republican primary.

And, and why if you don't have a chance, why stick around for mudslinging like that?

And he mentioned in his statement announcing his withdrawal that he saw the saw that the direction he would have had to go is not the campaign that he wanted to run.

So he wasn't interested i changing to fit, you know that.

But I think also true, probably saw that the fundraising just wasn't there.

I think it's also important to note that the withdrawal deadline is today at 4 p.m., and so the race could again further change by the time that this goes to air.

But again, yeah, he was missing the millions of dollars that we've seen.

You know, Perry Johnson spent more than $10 million.

John James has a superPAC backing him that has raised millions and millions of dollars and is on the air.

Mike Cox has put millions of dollars of his own fortune into the race.

And Tom Leonard didn't have those resources to bring to bear.

So he was trying to do this very substantive, policy focused argument.

Meanwhile, Perry Johnson is running on essentially a single issue, which is sort of eliminating the income tax.

And then with a little side of property tax reform, and he's essentially refusing to talk about anything else.

But he was on to something.

Okay.

When I met him and talked to him at the convention, you said you remember what Rick Snyder did?

Five person race won it with 37% of the vote.

As a conservative he said, I can win this thing.

I can get, if I get 250,000 to 300,000 votes and, you know, get 30 of the vote, I can win this now.

And he I thought he was right.

No he needed $6 million.

That's what Rick Snyder had.

Rick Snyde had $6 million of his own money who was willing to put on the table.

And Tom Leonard is just not a millionaire, that's all.

There is to it.

But the theory that you don't need 50% to win was valid.

Well, that part's valid.

Sure, that's how Perry Johnson could win this thing, but that's the comparison.

Perry Johnson, in comparing Perry Johnson to Rick Snyder, is very valid because they're both coming from wealth and they're both, kind of running similar type campaigns, even though they're very, very different people.

So does somebody else drop out today guys?

We'll have to wait and see.

I don't know.

Karla Wagner is, What do we hear from her?

Oh, she's running independent.

Yeah, she's an independent candidat now, so she doesn't have to file signatures until July like Mike Duggan.

All right, so, Perry Johnson suing John James, why?

He is taking issue with a logo that John James has for his governor's race, where it is, kind of like an image of a helicopter.

And then it says John James, governor.

And it doesn't have a very significant preposition in there.

It's missing a for governor.

And so he's saying that he's misrepresenting himself as the governor already.

From a design perspective, it would be a little hard to fit the four in there, I guess, from the way that they design the logo.

But you know, it is a valid point.

Tell the judge that.

I know.

I mean, I was analyzing it when this lawsuit came out.

I was curious, where would you put the four?

but, well, he is talking about gettin in the weeds, way to go Gibbons.

I know.

But anyway, it's it's an interesting argument.

Interesting that it's already getting very testy.

They're taking it to the courts in addition to the campaign ads, and it's just, I think, indicative of how this Republican primary might go.

I mean, it's certainly I'd say a step down in terms of the willingnes of these Republicans to invite, because Gretchen Whitmer's name it is exceedingly high.

How many Michigan Republican primary voters are going to think that John James is the current governor, as opposed to Whitmer when they've talked about her?

She's run he's run two other statewide races.

He's run for Congress before.

He has millions of dollars saying that he wants to be elected governor.

and I think also, it's important to not that the counsel he's retained is former attorne general candidate Matt Deperno, who's really, I think, made a reputation for himself, for his dilatory tactics in court, that he can draw out a lawsuit for just about anything until the opposing counse gets so frustrated, they settle.

How about the theory that this is really not about the lawsuit but it's about Perry Johnson's strateg to just bring John James down?

Oh, 100%.

This this type of suit has been coming out every election cycle.

There's somebody who's suing over an election sign and claimin there's something they're not.

You know, he didn't put Governor John James, he put John James, Governor.

I mean, it's it's just it's silly and it's all about just getting your name out there and creating the fight, creating the tension.

Flustering John James, which I would say Perry Johnson is doing a very good job of doing of completely flustering in the guy.

In that regard, it's working.

I think the story here is that the two are actively engaged right now, and Perry Johnson is taking the fight actively to John James.

And the Democrats are going?

What do you mean?

Well they love this, do they not?

Yeah, of course, of course they.

I mean any infighting within a primary the same way that Republicans were rejoicing over the Democratic convention last weekend?

they they like to see this this fight in and but Johnson, I, you know, he's not just going after James yesterday.

He was going pretty targeted against Benson as well during a gubernatorial forum.

So he I think he's got his this out.

The one thing I would want to mention on this, though, is that the difference between those two candidates isn't very great.

I mean, this isn't like one wing of the party against another wing of the party.

This isn't one factio that's just going to flat out, no, I'm not going to show up because my guy didn't win.

I don't think the loyalty to either candidate really goes all that deep.

So the fact that they're fighting, I think, is actually helpful to the Republicans to try and get people engaged and excited in the campaign and maybe getting people to to sign up for one of them and just to get things going.

Because honestly I don't think that the passion be on between either of the or really any of the candidates is as deep as what you would see in the US Senate race.

On the Democratic side, where I think there is a lot of passion, a lot of excitement.

I agree, but okay, these comments that are made between candidates that are running for office, those negative comment show up in the opposing party's commercials somewhere along the line, John James said Perr Johnson was a fill in the blank.

So you're handing the other side ammunition and stuff like that.

And this this could get ugly.

I mean, do you think that, do you think that that's going to end up in a campaign ad like this logo fight?

I feel like the logo fight.

No, no, not that one.

No, but it was missing a preposition.

No, James, but John Jame never showed up, I mean, that.

Ther you go.

That that one resonates.

You do you have to show up, you know.

Do people care if you don't show up in a debate?

But you know that for James, that's self-inflicted.

I mean, you know, he has the opportunity to show up for these debates.

He has the opportunity to show up for these events, and he's not doing it any any Republican who doesn't take advantage of that is not doing their job in a in a race.

And that's where it seems like Johnson is really trying to you know, dig in because he has gotten.

James, excuse me, he has gotten some pushback from people for not showing up, for not being presen and going to all these things.

And Johnson is saying, okay, well, let's make people more mad about that issue.

Well do you all think people at home are going, boy that John James.

He just needs to get out there at those debates?

I think that it's a huge advantage, for Johnson in the sense that Johnso has been running a primary race.

But the voters I'm asking about the vote.

Do they give a hoot?

Well, probably not very much, but the delegates do.

Yeah, the grassroots care a lot.

And the grassroots have friends and they have family.

And those are the people wh tell their friends and family, you know what?

You should look at this guy.

Yes.

And Johnson has been James has been under the assumption he can run a general electio right this entire way through.

And Johnson is saying you have to stay right here in the primary with me.

Thank you all for showing up.

Appreciate it Everybody.

Have a nice weekend.

See more Off the Record right here, next week.

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