DeVos holiday greetings more politics than pleasantries

Amway chief Dick DeVos, the 2006 Republican gubernatorial candidate, has sent holiday greetings to supporters that read much more like a campaign announcement than a Christmas card.

In the one-page, Dec. 13 e-mail entitled “A message from Dick DeVos,” he highlights state budget shortfalls and tax increases as problems and solicits ideas from readers, saying “we need to get all the good ideas we can, ’cause we can’t count on them coming out of Lansing.” The e-mail disclaimer said it was paid for by the DeVos for Governor campaign committee.

DeVos also attacked Gov. Granholm and legislators who voted for tax increases during the recent legislative session. “The Democrats were even successful in getting a few misguided Republicans to go along with them on the hike in state spending and increased taxes,” he wrote, “and so it became law.”

Continued -Granholm defeated DeVos for governor in 2006 by a margin of 56 percent to 42 percent. Granholm painted DeVos as a strong supporter of President Bush and his policies, and maintained that as head of Amway, DeVos outsourced 1,400 jobs from Michigan to China.

DeVos wrapped up his year-end message with a holiday greeting to those of the Christian, Jewish and Islamic faiths, saying: “To all our Muslim friends, we wish you a successful Eid Al-Adha,” the festival honoring Abraham’s sacrifice to Allah.

“The story here isn’t that DeVos is running again,” said Joe DiSano of Main Street Strategies, a Democratic political consultant  in Lansing. “That’s a foregone conclusion. The real story is if DeVos will have a primary challenge. I see another DeVos candidacy splitting the GOP in half and metro Detroit Republicans finding a candidate to challenge DeVos.”