R. Warren and some special friends
        In the last post about Rebekah Warren we noted the donation from a powerful Lansing lobbying firm (after all of her campaign’s castigating Leigh Greden); in this post, we look at the issue of “special interests” a little further.
        Warren’s website has long featured, in the right column of the front page, a quote,
“The promise of a politician whose interests lie with the wider community rather than self-interest and special interests leads me to endorse Rebekah Warren.”
Ed Steinman
        So does one of R. Wa’s opponents have (by implication) “special interests”, and, even, “self-interest”? As opposed to which hypothetical selfless candidate?
        However, a quote that has also been running about as long as the Steinman quote, I believe, and consistently 3 spaces below it, too, is
“Rebekah’s leadership, savvy, and sound knowledge of the legislative process are unparalleled. She is a superb candidate and well-deserving of your vote.”
Alma Wheeler Smith
State Representative,
54th District”
        …One is tempted to ask Warren, “I see your campaign condemns other people’s ’special interests’ in some vague way. …Ms. Warren, would you mind telling us if you have a special interest vis-à -vis Alma Wheeler Smith that you should have bothered to disclose to the public on your website?”
        Where does Warren’s site mention that Smith is virtually Warren’s mother-in-law, since Warren lives with Wheeler Smith’s son (and Warren’s fiancé) Conan Smith (who himself is a Washtenaw County Commissioner, for District 10)? Doesn’t that relationship possibly count as a “special interest”, at least for Warren? I see no mention at all, and I have looked throughout the site.
        I try to be moderately politically well-informed, but I myself did not know that Wheeler Smith and her son were so “specially related” to Warren until early in July. So there are probably scads of people in the general public who are not familiar with Warren’s having virtually married into a powerful local political family; and this issue should be brought up.
(See also this DFA, “Democracy for America”, page of Warren’s, where we see Conan Smith’s saying, “In my experience, Rebekah has a long history of making great decisions! She’ll be a stellar Rep!” and Alma [Wheeler] Smith’s saying, “I will do some door to door”. Sans any mention of their relation to Warren.)
        And I am not faulting either of the Smiths; it’s Warren’s own responsibility to mention her connection to them, if it is not immediately obvious. Again, I do not believe everyone in the public is aware of Warren’s particular connections here, just as I was not until fairly recently.
        Who is Warren, or her campaign, to complain about someone else’s supposed “special interests” in any way, when she can’t even be bothered to inform the public about her own privileged place in the local power structure, and the reasons–even in part, and even hypothetically–that she might be getting certain endorsements from politically powerful people? (The issue of relationship is the reason for, e.g., recusal in many legal and other cases: i.e., people may be completely innocent and unbiased, as the Smiths may well be; but because of people’s relation to a certain party or matter, they should recuse themselves anyway, just as a judge previously related to the matter of a case is often required to recuse her/himself from that case, even if the judge would try to be completely objective and fair. Thus, while the Smiths need not recuse themselves from endorsing Warren, any endorsement by the Smiths on the website should be accompanied by an open and public acknowledgment of the relationship on the website.)
        Rebekah Warren might not be legally obliged to disclose re the Smiths (as she was legally obliged to do, one presumes, re the lobbyist donation to her), but it would have kept the public more fully informed if she had done it anyway.
        Coming soon: much more, such as, has Warren seriously disaffected anyone from her own campaign? –Have a good weekend!