A new Democratic candidate has entered the race to become Michigan’s next governor — state House Speaker Andy Dillon, D-Redford Township.
With a backdrop of an auto engine assembly line at auto supplier Detroit Diesel and surrounded by more than 200 relatives and friends, including Detroit City Council President Charles Pugh, Wayne County Sheriff Benny Napoleon and Detroit Medical Center CEO Mike Duggan, Dillon made the announcement Sunday in his hometown.
It was the first stop in a two-day tour of the state to include visits in Saginaw, Grand Rapids, Lansing and Detroit. Early in his 15-minute-long speech, the 48-year-old Dillon explained why he was running for the state’s top job.
“I love Michigan; there’s nowhere I’d rather be,” said Dillon, in his third and final term in the House. “… It’s America at its finest — where ingenuity and hard-working families converge to forge the American Dream.”
An attorney and former executive, Dillon was president at Detroit Steel Co. (formerly McLouth Steel) and was a vice president with GE Capital. He stressed he planned to join his personal vision of creating jobs with his business experience and the state’s engineering and automotive manufacturing expertise.
He lamented an exodus of nearly a quarter-million young people from Michigan over the past decade and partisan politics in Lansing that impede identifying solutions to Michigan’s many problems. He stressed Michigan must reinvent itself.
“We have to make Michigan a place where young people want to stay or even move to in order to pursue their dreams,” he said. “… We must refocus on growth industries like hybrids and battery technology.”
Dillon, who is married and has four children, joins a field of Democratic candidates that includes ex-Genesee County Treasurer Dan Kildee, Lansing Mayor Virg Bernero and State Rep. Alma Wheeler Smith, D-Salem Township.
Although it is early in the race, he faces a number of challenges, said Bernie Porn, president of EPIC-MRA, an independent research firm.
Recent surveys showed Dillon doesn’t have as much name recognition as Republican forerunners, he said.
And Dillon also “faces a challenge to try and explain how the government on his watch came close to shutting down over a budget agreement,” Porn said. “A lot of Democrats will want him to explain how he was willing to accept a cuts-only budget. A lot of voters in general are willing to support any level of taxes to avoid the kind of cuts that have already been made.”
From The Detroit News:
