After further review the call on the field stands

After further review from the replay officials in the booth and re-listening to the debate on WHMI in the harsh light of morning the ruling on the field stands. Mike McGonegal is still the clear winner of the debate Monday night sponsored by the Livingston County League of Women Voters and the Daily Press & Argus.

Perhaps one of the most amazing aspects of both this campaign and from last night’s debate was the accusation that we are running a dirty, attack campaign. I’m utterly amazed that simply pointing out an incumbent’s record and conduct while in office can possibly be called attacks. I challenge anyone to show where we have ever made a personal attack on Mr. Ward. If we are simply making these baseless attacks that Mr. Ward and his supporters allege then it should be simple enough to debunk them with a few simple facts, but that has not happened yet. We also challenged you to disprove anything we have posted, and that also has not yet happened.

We hear all about this mistrust of politicians, but then we are supposed to believe whatever Mr. Ward says with no skepticism, suspicion or even a deeper glance into what he says. That’s ridiculous. All we have ever done here is take a look behind the curtain, and because he doesn’t want anyone to take a close look at him, Mr. Ward says we are playing dirty politics, personally attacking him and falsely accusing us of calling him a racist. Of course he does not want voters to examine his record too closely because it’s a record of catering to special interests and wealthy contributors. How hard is it to get legislation passed when your party controls the House and Senate and you personally control what goes before the full House. Yet almost all of the bills he passed just served to keep him in power and does not benefit the residents of Michigan.

But back to the debate. Mike’s opening statement clearly laid out why a businessman of almost 30 years decided to take on an uphill battle and run for public office. Mr. Ward, a career politician who has never worked in the private sector since he was appointed as a township clerk, gave an opening statement that said absolutely nothing. He chose the tack that he has taken throughout the campaign, which is do nothing and play the voters of the 66th District as stupid who will simply return him to Lansing by voting straight party ticket despite his spotty record. His record is one of simply looking for the next more powerful political job.

For the first time Mr. Ward was asked what essential services will have to be cut from the state budget because of the cowardly and premature killing of the Single Business Tax and the $2 billon in lost revenue. This is an issue the Legislature has avoided talking about like the plague until after the Nov. 7 election, and Mr. Ward continued that trend by ducking the question. He did say, falsely, that the SBT is a “job-killer” despite nonpartisan studies that say otherwise. Mike talked about the real job killer, the high cost of health care. Companies are looking at locating to places where they have help with health care costs, such as GM’s recent decision to build the new Camero in Canada instead of here.

The closing arguments were also very telling. Mike pointed out Mr. Ward’s record of an attempted land giveaway to a big contributor, an attempt to bastardize the Downtown Development Authority Act to pay for road improvements for a developer by the taxpayers, an attempt to give his major contributor exclusive rights to distribute wine and a recent all-expenses paid trip when he says he’s trying to ban travel paid for by lobbyists.

Mr. Ward’s defense was flimsily, and at this point if there was any doubt who won the debate it was over by then. He pointed out a Detroit News poll that says people don’t like negative campaigning. But how can it be negative campaigning to point out an incumbent’s record? He made that ethically challenged record, and now he has to live with it. He defends his vacation trip by claiming some Democratic House members also do it, as well as the governor. The response to that is simple; Mike has never taken such a trip and he never will, and the governor brought jobs backs from her trips abroad. What did Mr. Ward bring back? A t-shirt?

His final parting shot was really telling. He said he has changed the way Lansing does business, and unfortunately that’s one of the few true things he did say all night. He has poisoned the atmosphere so much in Lansing that there is no compromise or cooperation between the two parties, and in a country founded and based on compromise to get the best possible product that’s not a good thing.

You can listen to the debate on the newspapers site at http://www.livingstondaily.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061010/NEWS01/610100310. Or at the radio station at http://www.whmi.com/mp3archives.php.