Gov. Rick SNYDER met with five prominent publications this week after his announcement that Detroit was emerging from bankruptcy, but it turns out the first question out of the box in all five cases had nothing to do with the Motor City.
Instead, the lead-off query of the Governor was if Snyder — particularly with his pledge to share the “Michigan Story” nationwide (See “Snyder To Share ‘Michigan Story’ Nationwide,” 12/11/14) — is positioning himself for a potential presidential or vice presidential run in 2016?
The Republican field is far from set, with the Republican National Committee (RNC) recently conducting a straw poll with the names of 33 possibilities (See “So Who Is In The GOP Prez Field?” 11/25/14).
A source observed, “It’s like they wanted to talk about that first, before they got to the Detroit bankruptcy story.”
The Governor anticipated that and per usual he did not announce he was running nor did he remove himself from consideration either.
During one of many yearend interviews the Governor gave this week with in-state press, Snyder reflected on the speculation. Was he flattered by all the national attention?
“It’s nice,” he said. “I explained to them that I thought the “best candidate should be a GOP governor.” He noted there was a “great” array of them out there, but again he did not embrace the speculation one way or the other about himself.
Snyder said he believes the speculation is “helping to support the successes in Michigan,” which he wants to promote. The national image of Detroit and, therefore, Michigan, “lags” by about five to 10 years.
He said would like to accelerate closing that lag time by getting those “successes” into the national media now. One can infer that he won’t try to stop the presidential or vice presidential speculation because doing so would wipe out that national platform.
Recall that First Lady Sue SNYDER has tremendous influence in this regard and she has basically said he can’t run without her permission, and last December during the WKAR-TV broadcast ‘Evening with the Governor,” she indicated she was not giving it.
Among those publications interviewing Snyder were the New York Times, Time magazine, Politico.com, The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post.