Snyder, Calley still won't cut ties with GOP extremists

The MIGOP's silver-haired extremist, Dave Agema, far left,  is seen
 here campaigning on Saturday in west Michigan with the GOP ticket.

As Election Day is about to dawn it seems that Gov. Rick Snyder and Lt. Gov. Brian Calley are still not ready to cut all ties with the extremists within the Michigan Republican Party.

On the GOP’s 11^th-hour campaign bus tour of the state, some of the far-right party members have been featured on the “stage” alongside the Republican ticket – with Snyder front and center.

The lightning rod, of course, is Republican National Committee member Dave Agema, who has associated himself with homophobic and racist comments on Facebook. Most recently, he referred online to Arabs as “camel jockeys.”

Some Republican activists, particularly MLive columnist Ken Braun, have said that the top post-election priority for the MIGOP should be forcing out Agema from his RNC seat.

On Sunday’s “Flashpoint” on WDIV-TV in Detroit, the governor said in an interview that Agema’s language is totally out of bounds. But he stopped short of getting on board with an Agema purge.

At the same time, Agema, a former west Michigan state representative, has served as part of the photo-op at GOP bus campaign stops in the last couple of days. Another Republican state House candidate who appeared in front of the crowd was Triston Cole, who has the backing of Agema and seems to share some his same anti-gay, bigoted views.

And one of the photos supplied to me also shows Lee Chatfield on stage. A Baptist minister who teaches at a northern Michigan Christian charter school, Chatfield and his church have been accused of anti-Catholic bias.

Hob-nobbing with these tea party fringies might not be big news if their clique hadn’t spent much of the past year criticizing Snyder, trying to knock Calley off the GOP ticket, and generally stirring up dissidents within the GOP.

It’s also worth noting that Snyder tried to shore up his moderate credentials on Sunday by paying a visit to the ultimate Michigan Moderate, former Republican governor Bill Milliken.
Milliken may want to reconsider his Snyder endorsement. In fact, he may want to join those tea party rabble-rousers who have been urging a protest vote for Democratic challenger Mark Schauer -- of course, the ex-guv would have very different reasons for crossing the party line.