Skubick

Are you up to speed on the political term, “the popular wisdom is” and then you fill in the blank?

Here’s how it works. A story, let’s say what is the governor going to do after leaving office? is out there. Everyone is trying to predict what is going to happen and then some wise guy (this is now a gender neutral term) comes up with a theory. Other reporters look at it and wish they had thought of that, and most everybody deems it a good angle and uses the theory in their stories. Wa-la, popular wisdom is born and it weasels its way into every story until, heaven forbid, somebody proves it wrong.

Say hello to John James and President Donald Trump.

The two were pals when Mr. James decided to give up his bid for reelection to congress from his highly competitive and critical Macomb county district in order to run for the GOP nomination for governor.

The White House took note. Everybody knows that the GOP control of the U.S. House hangs by a thread. This is not popular wisdom. It is fact. On any given day a handful of GOP members could bolt to vote with the Democrats and legislation that the president wanted would go poof. Hence every GOP seat needs to be preserved for next yea.

Hence Mr. Trump needed Mr. James to chuck his bid for governor and run for his seat with a pretty good chance that he would win, and the president would lose less sleep over the thin margin in the house. Mr.Trump was not bashful about telegraphing his wishes, (some would say demand) that Mr. James do a major back-off on the gov stuff.

He did not.

Enter the popular wisdom. Not sure who started it but it took hold like a Dick the Bruiser choke hold on an unsuspecting wrestler. The unconfirmed notion was there was no way the president would endorse Mr. James for governor given the fact that Mr. Trump is known for getting even with those who dared to cross him. That’s what gave the P.W. such gravitas with reporters. And for months, it was written that somebody else would get the president’s endorsement and even that was subject to speculation. Some were pitching the guess he would sit this one out.

On June 22, the sky fell in and the popular wisdom with it.

News flash on the president’s political web sight: “It is my great honor to endorse America First Congressman John James…He has my Complete and Total Endorsement to be the next governor of Michigan. HE WILL NOT LET YOU DOWN” he pokes the final pin into the theory that was now dead wrong.

Ouch. No double ouch.

How the heck could everybody miss this?

For one thing when you foolishly believe the unconfirmed wisdom is the truth, you stop searching for the truth.

Secondly, there was a signal out there, but nobody saw.

Without Mr. James running for congress, Mike Bouchard, son of the Oakland County sheriff Mike senior, was running and apparently making some headway. Mr. Trump watches stuff like that and the new popular wisdom is, he saw that Mr. Bouchard was doing quite well and was likely to win. Therefore having Mr. James out of the contest, the White House may have concluded, was no longer a dire situation which opened the door to this surprise blessing for would-be Gov. James.

Now the story line is, while the President’s endorsement is what every candidate wanted, it is not automatic that Mr. James wins the primary.

Money bags Perry Johnson, with the open white shirt collar and blue jeans sitting on the porch steps TV commercial, is telling voters he’s got a plan and he’s spent almost a quarter of a million smackers to sell it to them. You can’t count him out.

With fewer personal bucks to shell out, former state attorney general and one time defeated GOP candidate for governor Mike Cox should not be counted out either. “Donald Trump doesn’t know me. I’m not in Washington. I get it,” he reflected on the day of the Trump decision as he pledged he was in the hunt all the way “to the finish line.” And he thinks he’s got some issues that he will pop on Mr. James including the alleged outsourcing American jobs to China and the Mr. James run in with a tax break one of his companies subsidiaries got from the state. In order words stay tuned on the attacked ad front. Mr. Cox knows how to do that if he has the money to get his message out.

But if Mr. James emerges with the nomination, here we go again.

The popular wisdom is, when independent voters, many of whom currently are not fond of the sitting president, get done voting in November they will ignored Mr. Trump’s endorsement and pick a Democrat to be governor and send John James looking for work.

That happened when the president endorsed Tudor Dixon for governor who promptly lost by ten points to Gov. Gretchen Whitmer making the Trump endorsement not worth the paper it was written on. That “he can’t win in the fall” wisdom is now making the rounds, but embrace it at your own risk.