Skubick

The sojourn up to T.C. to squeeze in some quality holiday family time began uneventfully on Thursday to avoid the holiday traffic. About forty minutes in, the cell went off. Having forgotten to take it out of the trouser pocket, and remembering that Smoky was ticketing those who drive and work the phone, the cell eventually stopped ringing. Then ten minutes later same thing. Ring. Ring. Something must be up?

Someone else answered in the car and put the phone to the driver’s ear.

“Duggan just dropped out of the race.”

“No…(Fill in the blank.)”

This was bigger than big news and lots of news folks would be tugging the driver’s arm to put something in the can for use on the evening TV broadcast “despite the fact that you are on vacation,” as the news director so graciously framed his request.

Long story short and two hours later, landing in TC and saying goodbye to everyone without even saying hello, the effort to piece this puppy together commenced. Suffice it to say thanks to a remote zoom from the kitchen of one of the kids, the beast was fed. Now it’s your turn to digest what happened and what the heck it all means for the governor’s race.

In a nutshell this changes everything and then some.

Let’s begin with the obvious place to begin, at the horse’s mouth.

Mike Duggan had a math problem he says he could not solve.

His numbers in the polls were moving but in the wrong direction. At one point he set this town on its ear when he tied the front runners from the two organized political parties who were running for the job he wanted.

His second math challenge. The numbers in his bank account was impressive for a guy who had never run for a statewide office yet he explains there were not not enough millionaires in Michigan to bankroll him to the second floor office in the state capitol. He reflects that his attempts at tapping into the lucrative and the decidedly overflowing national media coffers was met with interest in his unorthodox independent campaign but not interesting enough to see check books opened wide, so he says.

Plus he observes the war in the Middle East and the resulting gas pump mania have driven many Democrats back home who might have flirted with a Mr. D. effort.