A strange thing happened on the way to Gov. Snyder’s re-election win.
In his (likely) final TV ad of the campaign, the Republican incumbent includes a shot of a young man who appears to be Ben Lazarus, a decidedly pro-tea party, anti-Snyder GOP activist.

Lazarus

It’s just a brief screen appearance, along with a few other young people, as Snyder narrates about his accomplishments in this 30-second spot titled “Forward.”
Of all the loyal Republicans in Michigan, it’s puzzling, to say the least, that a controversial figure like Lazarus would be chosen for a cameo in a Snyder commercial.

Lazarus, 24, is best known as a Snyder critic on social media and as the campaign manager for tea party congressional candidate Alan Arcand during this summer’s primary election season. In his bid for the U.P./northern Michigan 1st District seat, Arcand ran to the far right of incumbent GOP Congressman Dan Benishek, in part with the support of Republican National Committee member Dave Agema.
Agema, infamous for embracing homophobic and racist remarks on Facebook, took a lot of heat last week for an online rant in which he referred to Arabs as “camel jockeys.”
In July, Lazarus predicted a neck-and-neck finish to the contentious GOP primary but Arcand was crushed by a 70-30 percent margin on Election Day.

In Macomb County, Lazarus is best known as the Warren Consolidated Schools board member who successfully ran for office in 2012 by campaigning to block “outsiders” from the district’s schools — at the same time that he was 1,100 miles away in Florida.
At the time, Lazarus was attending Stetson University near Orlando. Yet, he was urging Warren suburbanites to reject “schools of choice” by electing a board member (himself) who would end enrollment by those without ties to the district.
He barely skirted the racial implications of his message — with kids coming to Warren Consolidated from Detroit — with this campaign robo-call: “When I found out that outsiders attend our schools for free, I was afraid for my kids … When it comes to my children, Ben Lazarus is the only candidate I trust.”

In another automated call, a woman said: “Detroit is a mess but some candidates want our schools to be more like Detroit. Our homes are being vandalized, broken into and destroyed by outside students. And they want our schools to be more like Detroit?”
Lazarus’ most recent project involves working for a slate of four Warren Consolidated candidates who are also taking the anti-outsiders tact as the Nov. 4 election approaches.
So, the question is: Is Lazarus the kind of “forward” thinking guy that the governor wants to display in his TV ads?