It will be up to the Governor to tell us, because Dick certainly won't. In today's episode, watch John Truscott disavow the Mackinac Center, which is either laughable or tragic, depending on your point of view.
Dick DeVos and DeVos family money has created and fueled the modern GOP and its extreme right-wing flavor, and they are now making it a point to hide and/or run away from all those connections.
Voters should ask themselves why. Either Dick lacks the courage of his convictions, or he is hiding his agenda because he knows he couldn't get elected if it were revealed.
"I'm running against someone who has led and financed organizations that have called for drilling under Great Lakes, selling off state parks, eliminating vulnerable populations from Medicaid," Granholm told the Free Press editorial board, referring to DeVos' association with the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, a conservative-leaning think tank in Midland.
DeVos is a former board member of the Mackinac Center and has donated $100,000 since 1999 to support the organization.
"Dick disagrees with the Mackinac Center on a lot of things," said John Truscott, spokesman for the DeVos campaign, saying DeVos never has supported drilling under the Great Lakes or selling state parks. DeVos would like to see fraud eliminated from Medicaid, but he doesn't want to eliminate benefits for vulnerable citizens, Truscott said.
Granholm also criticized DeVos' past support for school vouchers and his opposition to abortion rights and stem-cell research.
Granholm said voters still know little about DeVos, a wealthy Grand Rapids businessman whose father was a cofounder of Amway (now Alticor), but will learn more in the last six weeks of the campaign. She stopped short of saying her campaign plans ads to attack DeVos on wedge issues.
Later, her campaign spokesman Chris DeWitt declined to comment on possible ads, citing "strategic reasons." Recent polls show the governor's race is a toss-up.
Truscott said Granholm's comments were "just real disappointing" because they focused on divisive issues.
And here is the laughable part- name a divisive conservative "issue" and you will find DeVos money behind it. If it wasn't for Dick and his family, the "culture wars" probably wouldn't have had the influence on politics that they have today.
Just imagine what that would be like.
Look up any one of these right-wing organizations, read up on the policies they promote and follow the money. Dick is behind them all.
The "D" in DeVos stands for divisive.
During the past quarter century, the DeVos family has funded and supported just about every major right wing think tank and public policy institute. It is not an exaggeration to say that the DeVos' largesse helped change America's political landscape.
The Richard and Helen DeVos Foundation has supported a panoply of right wing groups including the Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies, the Heritage Foundation, the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, the Media Research Center, and James Kennedy's Coral Ridge Ministries. Foundation money helped build the State Policy Network, an association of state-based conservative think tanks. In Michigan, the foundation provided funding to the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, which uses its research to propose and promote various policies in Michigan.
DeVos money has also gone to Paul Weyrich's Free Congress Foundation, the man considered as the godfather of the modern conservative movement and a proud purveyor of America's culture wars.
The Dick and Betsy DeVos Foundation provides funding to many of the same organizations as the Richard and Helen DeVos Foundation.
One could write a book about the DeVos family money and how it has shaped the discourse in this country and the Republican Party as it stands today. They are the heart and soul of the culture wars, and it's hard to believe that DeVos would suddenly abandon every single radical cause he has supported with his millions.
Perhaps Truscott's "disappointment" lies in the fact that the truth is coming out about DeVos, Amway, and the radical right agenda, and now he is going to have to figure out new ways to hide his candidate.
He has his work cut out for him.
(One note about this Free Press article- they have a video of Granholm talking about the economy. Go watch- she makes a lot of good points.
The idea of going to video instead of printing a transcript is intriguing, but they need to a) learn video production (the audio is out of sync) and b) print a transcript anyway. A lot of people still want to read. It could be they just haven't transcribed it yet and it will show up later, I don't know, but just having video doesn't cut it.)