Ann Arbor radio talker Jay Mcnally reports that Gov. Rick Snyder’s office has admitted to putting pressure on local GOP groups to keep Dick Morris away from party regulars.
Morris, who is best known as a former Bill Clinton aide who used to hang around with prostitutes and displayed a foot fetish, has made a living off of bashing the Clintons ever since they parted company in the late 1990s.
But for the Snyder administration, the main concern is that Morris is a loose cannon who is willing to say anything.
The 11th Congressional District Committee buckled to Snyder’s pressure by canceling their Lincoln Dinner but the Oakland County GOP did not. As a result, attendance tripled at last week’s annual Lincoln Dinner as folks showed up to to hear Morris lay into Snyder.
Morris has been hired by the Ambassador Bridge Co. to lobby on behalf of its effort build a second span over the Detroit River — and to bash plans for a government-built bridge by a Michigan-Canadian partnership. The Detroit River International Crossing, as it was known until recently, is supported by Snyder, which just adds to the highly flammable situation.
Snyder spokeswomas Sara Wurfel said the other day that “there was just a strong concern that Dick Morris is a hired gun with a divisive agenda who clearly doesn’t have Michigan’s best interests in mind.”
But a lot of conservatives think Snyder’s has the “divisive agenda,” according to Mcnally, who said it doesn’t make much sense for any governor — particularly a Republican — to claim the state’s got money problems but is nevertheless prepared to spend billions on a bridge that will compete with the private sector.
“But the real problem for Snyder,” Mcnally wrote, “may be the two-word adjective that the Tea Parties have given to the dinner they are holding to replace the one Snyder canceled, on the same date, June 9, with Morris as keynote speaker … the Tea Party is calling it the first annual Hamilton/Madison dinner.
“Michigan Tea Parties have, for the most part, been able and willing to identify with the GOP, until now. If Snyder doesn’t see this as a problem, perhaps GOP state Chairman Bobby Schostak, who has been openly courting Tea Parties all along, can arrange a meeting between Snyder and anti-DRIC activists so they can read some tea leaves together.”
