WHEN PIGS FLY
That’s how some political insiders are dismissing the the rumored possibility that former U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos is being positioned to run against Gov. Whitmer in 2022. Too much negative baggage associated with that billionaire family name. In the 2018 Michigan primary for governor, Betsy was the figurative whipping post for Democrats, who to a person ran against what she represented for education in Michigan before her time in D.C. and what she pushed as policy once in the national post. Her family is firmly linked to past pushes in this state to take tax resources for parochial and private schools, along with expanding charter institutions, some of which were for-profit undertakings. Older voters will remember their family’s push of a ballot drive for vouchers in decades past, which was opposed by 69 percent of those casting votes. Then there was the 14-point loss of Betsy’s husband, Richard DeVos Jr., when he ran in 2006 against Democrat incumbent Gov. Jennifer Granholm, despite the DeVos family spending in the neighborhood of $35-40 million of their personal money in the race. Voters don’t forget that easily.