DeVos blog-vertising

Somebody searching the phrase "Dick DeVos doesn't know Tigers" (he doesn't, btw) hit this blog the other day, so I looked to see what the search turned up. The blog was #2 on the list, though it didn't give the searcher what he/she was looking for. Even more interesting though: the #1 return was from the very-loud conservative Hugh Hewitt's Townhall blog. His post from Aug. 19 cited a David Broder column on the Michigan governor's race supporting the tactics of DeVos and pretty much recommending them to other Republicans in similar situations of trying to unseat Democratic governors. Hewitt quotes from a recent DeVos TV ad (you've seen it) in which a man talks about his personal experience with being unemployed:

"I've spent two months looking for a job. This last month we had to dip into our savings to pay for health care, a thousand bucks a month, but I can't do that very long without saying, 'Crap! I got to move.' Nobody seems to be serious about all the work that's been leaving the state. The next governor, they need to be serious about bringing work into this state to take care of the people who are voting them into that office."

Hewitt then sums it up:

The message is that governors do indeed matter a great deal in whether state economies grow or contract. High taxing/big spending governors kill jobs ... But the message of the DeVos campaign isn't copyrighted, and expect that it will appear in battleground states across the country. Jobs matter. Democratic governors kill them.

All very maddening, to be sure. But here's what really got me when I went to Hewitt's site: DeVos is all over that blog! On the main page, the top banner is a rotating 'DeVos for Governor' strip. On the page where this article appears, the top banner again stumps for DeVos, plus there are multi-media DeVos-placed ads on both the right and left sides.

DeVos has been playing it up in mainstream media for months and ads on the high-profile conservative blogs are a no-brainer, I guess. But it shows me two things: The man indeed has intentions far beyond the governor's seat here in Michigan. And big bucks can get you exposure and votes in the polls even (especially?) when your message is without substance. I have faith that the people in Michigan know better, but Granholm has to keep up the fight (she will). We can't be taken in by such stuff.