Peter Luke handicaps Dillon’s chances

Peter Luke has a thoughtful column looking at the obstacles that Rep. Andy Dillon must overcome in order to win the Democratic nomination for governor. The first and most obvious obstacle, Luke notes, is that Dillon is right at the center of the establishment that every other candidate is going to be running against:

Everyone campaigning for governor this year is running against the place they are seeking to govern. Except Democratic House Speaker Andy Dillon, that is, who really can’t.

Two, however brief, government shutdowns in three years and the public perception that Lansing is a dysfunctional mess has put Dillon in the position of arguing that he’s the best person to fix what doesn’t work and expand upon what does. Since he reiterated he has no intention of stepping down as House leader, voters will be able to judge for themselves.

The second is that Dillon is largely responsible for budgets that have infuriated Democrats over the last couple years and has to run while putting together yet another budget:

Dillon’s message that he’s an independent centrist who can bridge Michigan’s political divisions was the strongest theme of Monday’s announcement tour. That tour, however, is the start of a five-month obstacle course that requires appealing to core Democratic voters while producing a budget that doesn’t assault their values.

Dillon took much grief last year for agreeing to a budget that made deep cuts to education, health care for the poor and local services critical for urban residents. Pledges to raise even modest amounts of revenue to soften the blows fell flat. The mostly-cuts, no-tax 2010 budget followed Dillon’s launch of a plan to overhaul public employee health care that unions representing those workers don’t much like.

The next budget test comes soon as Dillon reconciles Gov. Jennifer Granholm’s call to raise revenue to help close a $1.6 billion budget deficit with firm opposition to that idea by Republicans who control the Senate. Dillon would have more room to deal politically if he didn’t have any primary opposition. But he does in Lansing Mayor Virg Bernero, Genesee County Treasurer Dan Kildee and Rep. Alma Wheeler Smith.

But Dillon does have a couple of advantages, as Luke points out. One is name recognition; the other is fundraising. Dillon claims to have more than a million dollars raised already, though he hasn’t had to file any campaign finance reports yet (and won’t until July). Whether Bernero, Wheeler Smith and Kildee can match that fundraising remains to be seen.

But now that the Democratic field appears to be set, I can’t help but think that with Dillon’s track record of enraging the traditional Democratic constituencies, all of those groups — the unions, the pro-choice folks, civil libertarians, etc — will put all of their resources behind whichever other candidate they think can mount the strongest challenge. I expect an ABD — anybody but Dillon — strategy among traditional Democratic groups.