State Rep. GOP primary winner has troubling ties that bind

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

Steven Johnson’s GOP primary victory for 72^nd District state representative Tuesday set MLive and suburban southern Kent County on their ears, leaving them to wonder how such an upset could happen.

Christian ties that bind apparently are stronger than DeVos-Vandel financial support and a yawning electorate in Kentwood and Gaines Township.

MLive seemed shocked to have to report that an unemployed 25-year-old who looks like he just graduated from high school got the best of much better known restaurateur Tony Noto, supported by the conservative big bucks Houses of DeVos and VanAndel. Noto himself ruefully told MLive that not enough of his people went to the polls to offset big margins Johnson rolled up in Allegan County.

Johnson had a huge advantage in the religion department with his ties to the Christian Reformed Church, South Christian High School and Cornerstone University. The result was that he polled 30%, enough to win with a plurality over four other candidates, yet less than one-third of the total vote.

Which brings up a point I’ve been beating to death in this on-line rag since I launched it four years ago. The American election game is indeed rigged, particularly in West Michigan, with the passive complicity of voters.

Just like Cindy Gamrat two years ago, Johnson was able to ride a loyal special interest group, not to win a majority, but a plurality in a five-man race. History shows the winner of the GOP primary will get six years in the Big House in Lansing, a package worth almost a half million dollars and some of the best health care benefits around. For Johnson, it’s like winning the lottery.

Gamrat, however, because of scandal, was the only GOP primary winner to fail to get the six years reward.

Ever since Paul Hillegonds was retired to the sidelines in 1996 because of term limits, we’ve seen Patty Birkholz, Fulton Sheen, Bob Genetski and Ken Yonker take home the six-year bacon because once you win that first primary, you are transformed into an invincible Republican incumbent who will win the general election and two more after that. Genetski was even able to withstand the scandal of driving while impaired to gain his third two-year term.

Because this game is rigged, and as the late comedian George Carlin observed, “Nobody seems to notice, nobody seems to care.”

This means what we really have is not the triumph of the will of the majority but a frantic multi-candidate race every six years, decided by who has the most loyal and committed special interest support. The winner of the primary is assured of six years, as long as he or she avoids a really awful scandal.

Interestingly, Johnson was an intern for Gamrat. Also interesting is that he gleefully trumpted the endorsement of former State Rep. David Agema, a quasi-racist homophobic Tea Party darling who starred 18 months ago in a Pow Wow hosted by Gamrat and partner in crime Todd Courser.

My opposition to Johnson is based on his horrible politics that mirrors the positions of all three of his Tea Partying friends. He wants to protect women and children from phantom pedophiles in unisex bathrooms, he wants to apply theocracy to state government, he wants use God, guns, guts, gays and abortion to oppress and scapegoat certain people in our society.

He won’t really do anything different than predecessors Sheen, Genetski and Yonker. So we’ll be stuck with more of the same — a State Legislature that solves no problems, creates new ones and fiddles while roads, Flint and Detroit die.