Tim Skubick

Sometimes in politics what you don’t say can come back to bite you in the you-know-what.

Re-introduce yourself to Tom Leonard, the latest GOP candidate who thinks he has the magic sauce to become Michigan’s next governor. Problem is he’s got three opponents who are brewing the same sauce.

But first things first regarding a slight yet revealing omission in his first I-Wanna-be-Your-Governor two-minute video featuring his bride and three kids. It worked just fine until it got to the Trump blurb embedded in the message.

Unless you just moved her from Outer Mongolia you’re well aware that any R who wants to run for anything in this state would love to have the embrace of King-maker Donald Trump. Now, to be fair, sometimes the magic works and the endorsement carries a candidate across the finish line. Think Tudor Dixon for governor who rode the Trump pony past a large field of other candidates who could only shake their heads in defeat. Sometimes the Trump magic fizzled, but either way, most candidates still want the embrace.

The consummate political player Mr. Leonard knows all this and plunked into the ad a picture of an article trumpeting the fact that Mr. Trump once nominated Mr. Leonard to be the U.S. Attorney for West Michigan. It didn’t matter he never got the job. The point is he wanted voters to savor that President Trump not only knew one Tom Leonard, he actually embraced him for a pretty darn important job.

And frankly he got that point across quite nicely. If you were a true Trumper, you sat up and took notice and perhaps even pondered that this Leonard guy, although many Trumpers don’t know squat about him, might actually make a good governor if he knew the Donald and vice versa.

But here’s the rub.

He left something out. In fact he omitted a mucho importante bit of history in the spot.

Back in 2022, the former GOP Speaker Mr. Leonard was back in the elective saddle running for state attorney general again. During his first bid he lost by a mere three points to the Democratic winner Dana Nessel.

Given the squeaky near miss margin, he probably thought he deserved another bite of the apple. But there was a new factor in the contest who thought differently.

Donald Trump was not endorsing Mr. Leonard. Not by a long shot.

Mr. Trump blessed lawyer Matt DePerno who stood with the president when he claimed the the election he lost was rigged. Turns out Mr. Leonard never said that.

Oh my!

And just so all the Trumpers in Michigan knew that, Mr. Trump fired off a letter in which he took his former nominee and ran him threw the political ringer accusing him of not joining in the chorus of fraud and he said that Mr. Leonard “represents the loser mentality of all the RINO’s” or Republicans in Name Only.

Ouch.

But wait. There’s more.

Mr. Trump also dredged up the allegation that Mr. Leonard was “mired in controversy and scandal” in a perfect guilt by association charge. You see Mr. Leonard, the former speaker knew the current GOP speaker Lee Chatfield who was under investigation for misusing his campaign funds. A charge that the ex-speaker and his wife are facing this summer.

Note that Mr. Leonard was never implicated in any of the alleged wrongdoing but Mr. Trump left that out of his letter.

Now Mr. Leonard was leaving out of his campaign commercial the not-so-friendly fact that Mr. Trump dumped on him which could have created a completely different impression with those Trump backers as they ponder his new bid to be governor.

You could argue that maybe there wasn’t enough time in the video to put this in or you could argue maybe he just forgot about it.

You could argue that, but will you?