Tim Skubick

To say that Mike Duggan is riding high these days is an understatement, as his once thought to be mission impossible independent road to the governor’s office has morphed into mission possible. He’s secured bipartisan endorsements coupled with checks. He’s taking advantage of the fumbling legislative process unable, to date, to give birth to a new state budget, not to mention the political brick bats being used by both sides to blame the other guy all, he says, to prove his point that the current system allegedly does not work.

And while that is a fascinating story line and tons of ink has been used to cover that angle, it seems at this early stage, there’s not been a lot of chatter regarding the issues. So let’s use up a little bit of that ink to give you some first-hand guidance on the question: Where does Mike Duggan stand on the issues?

Item: Repealing the state property tax which may be on the statewide ballot in 2026. He’s a no vote. “I think we have to address the property tax problem but I’m not in favor of laying off all the police and firefighters in the state” which he argues could happen if the voters disagree with his stance.

Item: Michigan voters will decide Proposal One in 2026 on whether to call a state constitutional convention to rewrite the constitution we now have. “There is an enormous opportunity for mischief. I’ll be voting no on it. The problem is not the constitution,” he concludes.

Item: If President Trump called and said he was ordering the National Guard into the mayor’s city, how would he react? He would say no as he feels, “it’s a bad strategy. To mix troops with police officers is not a good law enforcement strategy.”

Item: Would you abolish the beleaguered Michigan Economic Development Commission charged with helping to create jobs? Mr. Duggan would not but pledges, if elected, “I’d make the MEDC functional. It hasn’t been functional for years.”

Item: Related to job creation, would he act like some previous governors and write a check up front to lure companies to either stay in the state or come here? He would chuck the “check first” strategy and instead “do what we’ve done in Detroit.” Once he has a nibble, he would offer tax incentives and other goodies after companies actually do what they say they want to do. He notes that GM recently cobbled up a “check first” from the current governor for two new plants in the state and months later backed out of the Lansing plant and sold it to another company.

Item: He favors giving parents a choice on where to send their kids to school but he does not embrace a “voucher” system whereby the state sends the school aid money to parents and they can use it for a private, religious, public or charter school. “Vouchers only make a bad system worse,” he tells the DeVos family and other voucher advocates.

Item: Will he endorse candidates running for the Michigan House and Senate in a general election so as to tip the legislative composition in his favor? Answer? “No. I don’t want to create enemies coming in.”

On this last item, here’s one that requires a little back and forth on practicing practical politics.

Mr. Duggan learned mucho about Michigan politics at the knee of Ed McNamara, an influential Democrat who once ran for mayor of Livonia, which at the time was crawling with Republicans. Mr. Duggan asked his mentor, how did he win the race? Mr. McNamara must have given one of his huge Irish laughs while explaining he never told the voters about his deep Democratic roots.

On another time-honored traditional in our town, the mayor was probably asked for the first time if he would be a horse trader if elected governor?

Horse what?

He was asked, if he was governor and he needed one more yes vote to pass his road fix plan and one lawmaker was willing to cough up an affirmative vote in return for some state largess for a project in his home district, would you make that deal? The would-be governor was asked.

At first he starts in about how all the pork barrel spending is out of hand in Lansing but he’s quickly pulled back to the essence of the question on the table.

Would you horse trade?

“I won’t tell you it’s impossible to do the deal,” he tip-toed up to the delicate issue while adding, “I won’t tell you it will never happen…”

Finally he acknowledges what all the insiders know, he’s not a dummy when it comes to the art of getting stuff done if you need votes to do it.

“I’ve been in the business for forty years and I would never horse trade (former Gov. Rick Snyder hated the term) for something I thought was wrong, but if I thought there was a meritorious project that got moved up the priority list, those are the kinds of agreements you make everyday to build coalitions,” he finally confesses.

To be sure, he has not been quizzed on a ton of other issues but consider this at least a down payment with more goodies to come.