Auchtoon!

Originally published in the Grand Rapids Business Journal, November 6, 2006

Growing up in South Carolina, my brother and I used to hang out with the Williams boys — Mike, who was my age, and Scott, who was two years older than me and a year older than my brother. That made Scott our elder statesman and knower of all things, which suited him because he was a smarty-pants/imaginative kind of guy and suited us because, when you’re only eight years-old, every grade level is a huge gap. In this role Scott was a wonderful source for a wide range of misinformation — from education (4th graders should not read 6th grade math books because it will damage their brains) to music (“Hot Rod Lincoln” by Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen was the best song ever) to pubic hair (umm… you don’t want to know what he said about that).

One time when we were tromping through the woods upstream on the creek behind the blackberry patch where the bamboo trees grew (not important, but these are the kind of things I remember), Scott pointed to a rounded-off bluff that jutted out on the opposite side of the creek. He told us that mound was actually the head of a whale that had gotten frozen there when the ice age came and the land was covered with water. Over time, the sea receded and the whale became covered with dirt and woods grew around it. But it could become unfrozen at any time, so we should never walk on the mound because the whale might wake up, flip us in the air, and eat us. As naïve as I was, I didn’t completely believe that one. But then, I remember making it a point to never walk on that mound. Scott knew enough about earth history to make it seem somewhat legitimate, but then he added the one ingredient that actually modified my behavior: fear. I didn’t want to be eaten. I had seen pictures in a Moby Dick book of bloody sailors clutched in the jaws of the great whale, so why chance going out like that?

Ya know what, though? This is exactly how political parties operate in an election season. Case in point: Democrat Robert Dean challenged Republican Tim Doyle for a Michigan House seat representing the east side of Grand Rapids. This is a traditionally Republican seat but with a term-limited incumbent and a well-known challenger in Dean (former school board member and county commissioner), it certainly was not a safe-bet for the Republicans. So the leader of the state GOP, Saul Anuzis, decided to send his flying monkeys out in the form of a mailer to scare folks away from Dean.

This mailer had an obviously darkened image of Dean (a black man) next to a list of misdemeanors Dean had committed back in the mid-1970s. Dean had been very open about his past and made a point of fully disclosing his criminal record when he announced his candidacy. So while it was clear that the flyer was accurate, it was eminently clear what the flyer was intended to do: scare voters. Black man = criminal = vote Republican. (Ironical irony: the state senator for the area which includes that district is a Republican black man.)

Doyle immediately disavowed anything to do with the mailer and demanded the state GOP stop sending it. Anuzis defended the mailer vigorously saying, “Fly, My Minions, Fly! And Do My Bidding!” or something to that effect. In the end, Dean upset Doyle and won the seat. So take that, Scott Williams. And the next time I’m in South Carolina, I’m gonna march right over and stand on that mound of dirt …maybe.