Snyder feels election going 'in right direction'
Portage — Gov. Rick Snyder expressed optimism Saturday that he would prevail in Tuesday's election over Democratic challenger Mark Schauer during the first day of a three-day statewide bus tour aimed at energizing Republican voters.
"Things are going in the right direction," Snyder said. "We're going to stay focused on this through Tuesday."
Snyder is nearing the end of just his second political campaign after winning the governor's office in 2010 as a political novice. Snyder did not step up his re-election bid until after Labor Day after remaining primarily focused on governing all year.
By contrast, Schauer quit his job as a labor union business representative and has crisscrossed the state campaigning full-time for more than a year, placing an emphasis on retail politics by greeting voters at restaurants, senior centers and union halls.
Snyder's presence on the campaign trail this fall has mostly centered on 10 town hall meetings he held across the state with mostly friendly Republican audiences his staff screened to weed out Democratic operatives.
On Saturday, the governor brushed off criticism some Republicans have expressed privately that he hasn't spent enough time connecting with voters.
"Everyone's going to give you advice and the main thing is you stay focused on what the right thing is and I just plan on a strong finish here," Snyder told reporters. "I'm proud of my record, proud of how we brought Michigan back. Let's keep it going."
Speaking to Republican Party activists at campaign stop in Portage, Snyder resurrected his "comeback state" campaign slogan that he has not regularly repeated lately at public events.
Snyder has spent most of the fall saying the Great Lakes State is on a "road to recovery," toning down his usually positive rhetoric about the status of Michigan's economy.
"We are the comeback state, but now is not the time to stop," Snyder told dozens of Republican activists packed in a shopping center GOP field office in Portage, a suburb of Kalamazoo. "The decision we have coming up next week is do we want to go back to that broken decade, that lost decade?"
Michigan's statewide Republican candidates on Saturday began a 17-city three-day bus tour ahead of Tuesday's election.
Snyder is in a closer-than-expected race against Schauer in Tuesday's general election in his bid for a second term. He is emphasizing the economy is better today than it was four years ago following a prolonged economic recession during former Democratic Gov. Jennifer Granholm's eight years in office.
With no wave election predicted for one party or the other, the Michigan Republican and Democratic parties and allied groups are stressing voter turnout to gain an advantage at the ballot box Tuesday. Both major parties have deployed bus tours with candidates, a barrage of television and radio advertising and thousands of volunteers knocking on doors and making phone calls to likely voters or some 250,000 voters with absentee ballots still in circulation as of Friday.
"In order to get a great Tuesday, there needs to be a great Saturday and a great Sunday and a great Monday to carry us across the finish line," said Attorney General Bill Schuette, who also is in a close race against Democrat Mark Totten of Kalamazoo. "Our successes on Tuesday really depend on what you do each day between now and Tuesday."
Standing alongside other statewide Republican candidates, Snyder thanked GOP volunteers from across southwest Michigan and implored them to get out this weekend and spread positive news about the state's economy.
"We're all ambassadors for Michigan," Snyder said. "We need to be louder and prouder as Michiganders and spread the word — and spread the word through the election."
Snyder did not reference Schauer during his stump speech.
But Schuette didn't shy away taking shots at Schauer and U.S. Rep. Gary Peters, the Democrats' Senate candidate running against Republican Terri Lynn Land.
"If you like President Obama, oh you'll love Mark Schauer and (Gary) Peters because they voted with Obama 90 percent of the time," Schuette said.
Land, a former Michigan secretary of state from Byron Center, was at the Michigan Republican Party's headquarters in Lansing for the start of what her campaign is dubbing the "STOP OBAMA" bus tour.
At an outdoor gathering in chilly temperatures, Land said the election "is about his policies," referring to President Barack Obama who was to lead a Democratic rally in Detroit on Saturday evening. "His policies are on the ballot and they're not working," she said.
"This is a true opportunity to keep that comeback team, that great governor . . . to keep the whole ticket, to keep the House, to keep the the Senate," added Land in line with Snyder's campaign theme that Michigan is on the rise again. Republicans also are battling to continue their majorities in both of the state's legislative chambers.
Land's candidacy for the U.S. Senate seat from which Democrat Carl Levin of Detroit will retire after 36 years could figure into Republican hopes of seizing control of Congress' upper chamber from Democrats and dethroning Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada.
"We have a true opportunity to change the Senate," she told the small gathering at GOP headquarters before leaving on her campaign bus. "We can be the 51st vote — to repeal and replace Obamacare. The 51st to balance the (federal) budget and the 51st to send Harry Reid to a retirement party."
About seven blocks south of the GOP bus tour kickoff, the national president of the AFL-CIO fired up a group of volunteers before they began a weekend of canvassing Lansing neighborhoods to drum up votes for Schauer and Peters, D-Bloomfield Township.
AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka told 20 union canvassers to ask voters at their doors which candidate is "more likely to side with the corporations, the financial interests and the wealthy. And who's more likely to side with middle class working people?"
"You ask them that question and it will plant the seed in their head and I know how they're going to answer," Trumka said. "It's sure not going to be Snyder, because he's going to be with the financial interests."
Land has built her campaign upon opposition to Obama and his Affordable Care Act, following the playbook of of other Republican candidates for seats in Congress. Peters campaigned Saturday in southeast Michigan before joining Schauer and Obama in Detroit at the evening rally at Wayne State University.
As Snyder meets with party faithful and prospective supporters in cities such as Grand Rapids, Traverse City and Gaylord this weekend before moving though Metro Detroit, he's especially aiming to bolster his credentials among independent voters who swept him to victory in 2010. He'll have Sunday morning coffee at a public event in Traverse City with Republican ex-Gov. William Milliken, a moderate who this year split his endorsement ticket by announcing he favors Snyder and Peters.
Recent polls suggest Snyder's in a close race with Schauer, a former congressman and state legislator from Battle Creek. The final Detroit News/WDIV (Channel 4) poll last week showed the governor leading 45.2 percent-39.5 percent, representing a modest gain for Schauer from the previous survey.
For Land, caravanning through the heart of the Lower Peninsula presents a last-ditch opportunity to close with Peters, who polls have shown gradually widening a lead he enjoyed since early summer. The latest Detroit News-WDIV poll indicated he has built a 15-percentage-point gap.
Trumka said Tuesday's election could not come sooner.
"I've been waiting for it for four long years while this guy ravaged the state and ravaged workers," Trumka said of Snyder.