2018 General Election Lost 54 – 46
Can Gretchen Driskell win this time?
In Michigan, candidates for Congress don’t have to file until April. Right now Gretchen Driskell is the only Democrat running against the Tea Party Republican incumbent. She was the Democratic candidate in 2016 and will be the Democratic candidate again in 2018. She had an early lead in the polls in 2016, but was beaten by double digits in the election. She attributes the loss to negative campaigning. She also attributes the loss to the difficulty of juggling her obligations as a state representative while campaigning against an incumbent Congressman. This time she is running unencumbered by her seat in the legislature. There will be negative campaigning.
Who is Gretchen Driskellhttps://votegretchen.com/ and can she win this time?
Thirty years ago, in 1987, Gretchen Driskell had already graduated from high school in Port Washington, Long Island, New York, Lynchburg College in Virginia, and had received an MBA from George Washington University. She was working as an assistant controller at KPMG’s Washington, DC office. In 1984, her marriage to Donald Blair Driskell, of Brookhaven, Mississippi and a figure at the Washington Research Council was reported in the New York Times. In 1988, this young Washington power couple moved to Saline, Michigan
It is not clear why they moved. They had three children. Gretchen Driskell has had a political career. Donald Driskell is in Virginia.
Until her loss in 2016, Gretchen Driskell had only successes as a politician. In non-partisan elections, she was elected to the Saline City Council in 1992 and reelected twice. She was elected as the first female mayor of Saline in 1998 and was elected four more times before running successfully for the state senate.
As mayor, Gretchen Driskellnotes she passed 14 balanced budgets in 14 years. Saline was named one of the top 100 small cities in America three times. Local schools were improved. She worked to attract new business ventures. It was urgent to diversify Saline’s economy because a large Ford parts plant was targeted for closure. It was a triumph when she was able to replace the parts plant with a French-based electric driverless car manufacturer. Her mayoralty was non-partisan and gained enormous good will. She was not only Saline’s first female mayor, she became Saline‘s longest serving mayor.
Her candidacy for the state legislature was not non-partisan. She ran for the state legislature as a Democrat — defeating a popular Republican in what was considered a Republican District. By 2014, she was one of NOW’s two legislators of the year. She was honored for her efforts on behalf of equal pay for women and equality in health care, opposing a requirement for additional insurance for abortion coverage.
Gretchen Driskell’s other issues included ethics in government and opposing efforts to suppress voting. In an earlier day, even the women’s issues would have been non-partison, good government issues. No longer.
Gretchen Driskell was not a full time politician. With a population just under 10,000, Saline is not large enough for a full-time mayor. She was also a realtor. Her decision to run for Congress in 2016 brought her a different kind of partisan experience. The negative campaign against her was a shock. It was persistent and tough. She had to deal with claims that:
- Her campaign was in debt (to herself, it turns out).
- She lied on her resume (using the usually interchangeable term real estate broker when technically she was a real estate agent).
- She missed a crucial vote in the legislature when she was in Washington lining up support (True. And she should have owned up to the purpose of her trip quickly. That the vote she missed was a surprise does not work as an excuse.)
Gretchen Driskell’s instincts are non-partisan. The Congressional campaign was inconsistent with her instincts.
She is back for more. She is running again against the same incumbent. How well has she prepared for the negative campaign ahead? How well prepared is she for a campaign that will be nastier than last time? How well prepared is she financially for this? The last campaign was one of the most expensive Congressional campaigns in the country. Help Gretchen Driskellhttps://votegretchen.com/ be prepared. Start now. The election is fourteen months away. Even a small monthly contribution is extremely valuable.
