By Zachary Gorchow
Executive Editor and Publisher
Posted: October 9, 2018 11:43 AM

Eighteen years ago, I was in Monroe to write about a competitive race for the state House between the incumbent Republican, Randy Richardville, and the Democratic challenger.

Mr. Richardville handed me a negative mail piece Democrats were sending that showed him, then with a moustache, kind of slouching on a couch with a wry look on his face, which was resting on his hand. It was … not a flattering photo. How did the Democrats get this photo? Well, Mr. Richardville said someone on his team posted it to his campaign website for reasons not entirely clear. By the time he said he saw it and frantically demanded it be removed, it was too late. The Internet is forever and Democratic operatives had their photo.

Presto, negative mail piece.

It's October of an election year, which means mailboxes across the state in areas with hot races are filling up with political mail. "Candidate A is the greatest human being in the history of humanity." "Candidate B is evil incarnate who should be burned at the stake." Well, not really. But sometimes I am amazed this stuff works. Yet it does.

Which brings us to Julia Pulver of West Bloomfield, the Democratic nominee in the 15th Senate District in southwest Oakland County.

Below is an image of a mailer sent by Republicans attacking Ms. Pulver.

And below is the actual photo Republicans used for the mailer.

In a Facebook post showing the contrasting images, Ms. Pulver explains: "It's true, my picture is super scary: for paczkis. The picture they are using is my 'I'm gonna eat the heck out of these paczkis and there's nothing you can do about it' face! So, unless you're a Polish seasonal donut, I'm not very scary and am actually a pretty nice person."

It's amazing. Republican operatives combed her Facebook page and found a funny photo of her planning to devour some paczki like any good Michigander should on Fat Tuesday. I think I annihilated an entire box myself before slipping into a sugar-induced food coma. I digress…

Anywho, the Republicans did some cropping and filtering while adding a background that looks like a jail cell wall and – ta-da – Ms. Pulver looks, well, pretty darn frightening.

For a state legislative candidate running for office for the first time, Ms. Pulver's gotten a big response to her post on Facebook and Twitter.

If she can spread her response wide enough, it could be pretty effective. There are not many things in politics people agree on these days, but I'm pretty confident one of the few causes out there with 100 percent support is paczki.