Progressive Rick Snyder squeeks by in Michigan

A few days ago I told my wife I'm having trouble deciding between Pete Hoekstra and Mike Cox in the Republican Primary. Then I told her I bet other conservatives feel the same way, and this scares me. If the conservative vote is split, it might open the door for a moderate republican to squeak by a win.

Well, guess what has happened. The conservative GOP vote split, with 27% for Hoekstra, and 23% for Cox. Snyder won with only 37% of the vote.

What this means is that 50% of republicans in Michigan are conservative, and only 37% are moderate. That's the good news. The bad news is that because conservatives couldn't unite behind one candidate, yet another McCain progressive, moderate, centrist, republican is the nominee.

This should be a warning, or wake up call for Conservatives. If they want to win in other states, or if they want to take advantage of the unpopularity of liberal policy in Washington and states, then they are going to have to be united behind a single candidate.

I think it would be better for Michigan to have a republican than a democrat considering democrats are more progressive than moderate republicans, yet something tells me based on Snyder obtaining support from progressive and moderate republicans, and democrats, that he is no conservative, and he is a republican in name only.

With the tide trending republican, it only makes sense for a democrat to put the big old R behind his name when running in 2010. That, in my humble opinion, is what Snyder did. He is no republican. He is a moderate who chose the R, and hoped the conservative vote would split.

Well, his gamble, his marketing plan worked to a tee. He won. And now we have to deal with yet another progressive in the capital of Michigan.

What scares me about this is he will not cut taxes and reduce spending as Hoekstra or Cox would. He will not do what it takes to get the economy rolling again in Michigan, and the end result is if Snyder gets elected, voters will blame republicans for what ails Michigan.

In this way, it may be better to vote for the democrat and home he wins and when the economy still does not recover, democrats will be blamed. I'm not a fan of voting for progressive democrats, yet I hate to see republicans getting blamed because a democrat ran as a republican.

There is still hope the Michigan economy will recover, yet now it lies on the conservative representative and senators winning in their respective districts. They need to pass tax cuts and spending cuts that will place more money into the pockets of American citizens, and provide incentives for businesses to stay in Michigan, as opposed to leave for better tax rates.

There is hope for Michigan, yet it lies in true capitalistic and conservative ideas that have been proven to work, not tax and spend policies that have been historically proven not to work.

With Rick Snyder republicans have renewed hope for winning back Lansing. Yet let's not get excited that he is the man who will set an environment to restore Michigan's ailing economy, because he is no capitalist.

It's either Rick Snyder or Virg Bernero, both progressives, for Michigan governor in 2010.