By Zachary Gorchow
Executive Editor and Publisher
Posted: April 25, 2017 3:27 PM

There was an obvious major political development in the last two days – Lt. Governor Brian Calley taking steps toward running for governor.

But beyond the obvious about how this sets up the primary everyone has been anticipating for more than seven years – Mr. Calley vs. Attorney General Bill Schuette, who while he has not announced or teased an announcement is most definitely going to run – there was plenty of more subtle but fascinating material to emerge Monday.

First of all, Mr. Calley has secured the services of John Yob, the Republican consultant who has made a fortune and formed a national clientele from advising anti-establishment Republican candidates and his involvement in a company, The Washington Post reported last year, that became an email list broker for the Republican National Committee and was paid more than $30 million by clients in the 2016 election cycle.

Mr. Yob oversaw the rollout of the new website and video previewing an assumed May 30 announcement that Mr. Calley is running for governor, through an entity called MIPAC, a political action committee. While it never seemed likely that Mr. Yob would have a role with the expected Schuette campaign, he did work for Mr. Schuette involving the 2010 and 2014 Michigan Republican Party conventions when Mr. Schuette was working for the attorney general nomination.

And there was always the possibility that a Republican outsider could have snapped up Mr. Yob’s services, much as Governor Rick Snyder did in 2010. But there were longstanding ties between Mr. Calley and Mr. Yob – Mr. Yob’s firm Strategic National worked for Mr. Calley on his 2010 Senate bid and then on his 2014 efforts to secure renomination as lieutenant governor.

Then there was the $500,000 that MIPAC purportedly will spend on online advertising leading up to May 30 when Mr. Calley will presumably announce. That’s an amazing sum to spend 15 months before the primary, but it underlined a couple points – that Mr. Calley will have access to considerable resources but also that he has a name recognition deficit compared to Mr. Schuette and will need those resources to catch up.

While the attorney general post enables the office-holder tremendous free exposure from the activities of the office, the lieutenant governor typically toils in relative anonymity although Mr. Snyder seems to be delegating a far greater number of public events to Mr. Calley in the past year.

Macomb County Public Works Commissioner Candice Miller’s involvement in Monday’s event at the Macomb Chamber of Commerce luncheon where Mr. Calley spoke also was intriguing. She introduced Mr. Calley around the room. There’s a few different ways to speculate about what her actions could mean (remember, this is just speculation):

• Ms. Miller, whose name remains mentioned as a possibility to run for governor, clearly is not planning to do so, otherwise why would she help Mr. Calley out on her home turf;

• Ms. Miller might endorse Mr. Calley;

• Ms. Miller is in the middle of a crisis with the Fraser sinkhole and is asking the state for millions in assistance and thus can ill-afford not to keep friendly relations with the Snyder administration, so this was less about gubernatorial politics and more about local politics; or

• Forget all the theorizing, Ms. Miller was just showing some courtesy to the visiting lieutenant governor.

Whatever the case, Ms. Miller’s ally, Democratic Macomb County Executive Mark Hackel also stirred the pot again yesterday with warm remarks at the event for Mr. Calley. Mr. Hackel is keeping his name in the mix for governor too though few expect he would run and fewer still can see how Mr. Hackel, whose affiliation with the Democratic Party often seems pretty loose, could possibly win the party’s nomination.

All this material to dissect, and the race has yet to truly begin.