Tim Skubick

At the end of the day, successfully playing the political game comes down to the “R” word.

It’s all about relationships.

Office seekers need to have one with the citizens to get elected.

Nothing gets done in the legislature until and unless there are relationships and hopefully across political lines. Political reporters are pretty much dead in the water if they can’t connect on a personal basis with the folks they cover.

Ditto fo consultants who need that relationship to assure the client they can be trusted.

And candidates need close relationships to form what they call the kitchen cabinet which advises him or her on what to do. Some call it the brain trust. No snide remarks please.

A striking example how this relationship thing works, surfaced a couple of weeks ago. Former Democratic Flint Mayor Karen Weaver took a phone call from Chris Swanson the Genesee county sheriff. He is out there slugging away at securing the Democratic nomination for governor. It’s sometimes a slog and sometimes filled with disappointments. His reaching out was in the latter category.

Remember this phone exchange was between two loyal Democrats who have worked the same Flint trenches for years.

He had just heard that she was endorsing Mike Duggan who is running as an independent for governor. Probably the unspoken thought was, “why not me?”

First of all she thanked him for making the call personally. That’s always a nice touch rather than some campaign flunky making the call.

Then she proceeds to explain that as Flint Mayor she and former Detroit Mayor Duggan had many opportunities to share notes on this crisis or that. And over time she discovered he was a great sounding board and was willing to take her phone calls and offer his guidance.

“I have a relationship with him. I’ve seen him in action. I appreciate what I saw and I appreciated him having my back, the people of Flint’s back. That’s how we got together.” she tells reporters.

Notice the fourth word in that statement.

So, as the story goes, when he called her to be “part of his team,” she never hesitated and said yes right on the spot.

Some might argue what she should have done was put the mayor on hold and make some courtesy calls lo Jocelyn Benson who is also running for the Democratic gov. nomination and Mr. Swanson to give them a chance to make their pitch to nail down her blessing.

Ms. Weaver reveals that Ms. Benson was never really in the running since she had “some problems” with the conduct of Ms. Benson as secretary of state.

The call ended with Mr. S. and Ms. Weaver, through a P.R.firm, asked for a seat on the Off the Record broadcast where she was quickly asked if other Democrats would be calling her a traitor?

“They might say that, but they shouldn’t be,” she protests while asserting, “I’m still a Democrat so I haven’t changed that.”

She and Mr. Duggan are singing from the same hymnal that voters are fed up with the antics of both political parties.

“We might be much further along because right now we’re in such a toxic environment that we form opinions when we see an R or a D (and) not listen to what is being said,” by either side. She observes he is putting people over politics and she likes that.

During her chat with reporters, it didn’t take long to get to the rest of the story.

If he called and offered her the second spot on the ticket would she say yes to running for lt. governor?”I would have a conversation with him about that,” she reveals and she would ask how she could help him win.

He wouldn’t offer her the post if he didn’t think she was a huge asset to begin with.

So what would her answer be to that?

“I don’t know yet” while she admits she could do the job but she quickly adds, “there are a lot of jobs you could do but don’t say yes to.”

As for Mr. Duggan’s take on all this?

Crickets.