Democratic Party has to be rooting for Cindy Gamrat to win GOP primary

ACHTUNG: This is not a “fair and balanced” story. It is an editorial by the editor.

The Allegan County Tea Party held a forum Tuesday evening for the eight candidates for 80^th District State Representative in the special election Republican Party primary Nov. 3.

Six of the eight showed, and Tea Partiers conducted a straw poll afterward, with the much-maligned and even banished Cindy Gamrat winning by polling 35 percent and another tea partier, Willis Sage, coming in second with 29%.

The people who should greet this news with the utmost enthusiasm are Allegan County citizens who identify as Democrats or who are, at long last, willing to switch sides. If I were a Democrat (and some wrongly believe I am), I would be hoping and praying for Cindy to win that primary less than two months away.

This is the best chance Democrats have had in my lifetime to capture a State House seat from these parts. The Dems are running a respected retired judge, David Gernant, in the March 8 general election, and if his opponent is Gamrat, he just might win.

Because there are eight candidates running for the GOP nomination for the 80^th District House seat, the Nov. 3 primary winner could capture as little as 15 to 20 percent of the total vote. Do the math. It will indeed be victory by plurality, not by a majority.

Primaries are not famous for attracting huge numbers of voters, so the turnout is likely to be light. And because this primary can be won so easily by a disciplined, tight-knit minority, it could present Democratic voters with solid incentive to vote for Cindy in the Nov. 3 primary.

Therefore, with Democrats joining Tea Party zealots, disgraced incumbent Gamrat could be the GOP standard bearer against a Democrat in March. It would be hard for a Republican Party, so dominant over the years in this county, to back such a scofflaw as Gamrat in a general election that it might quietly throw its support behind Gernant. Stranger things have happened.

Don’t forget: “Politics makes strange bedfellows.” But other astute observers rightly have insisted that “Politics is the art of the possible.”

The Allegan County Tea Party very clearly has revealed its disdain for Mary Whiteford, who finished second to Gamrat in the GOP primary of 2014. This party line has been that she is a Democrat running as a Republican.

The Allegan County Tea Party is now on record as endorsing damaged goods in Gamrat, a fellow traveler in Willis Sage and perhaps the darkhorse of the primary race, Allegan County Commissioner Jim Storey.

Right now, about all a very worried Allegan County Republican Party can hope for is the emergence of Whiteford, already tarnished as a RINO (Republican in Name Only), or Sage, who may stray almost as far from the party as did Gamrat.

As former Detroit Pistons scout Will Robinson once said, “It ain’t very good, but it sure is interesting.”