I think we’ve seen all that can happen in the bizarre continuation of the Michigan Democratic Senate primary, which of course actually ended a few months ago. But given what’s happened over the last 72 hours, I guess, who am I kidding? Stevens did a new round of interviews last night, including one on CNN with Anderson Cooper. It was a further train wreck in the weeklong run of pile-ups. It was a classic case of why, in a high-stress news environment, you shouldn’t go on TV if you don’t know what you want to say. Stevens appeared to be figuring out or trying to come up with an explanation for her actions in real time on live TV. At one point she seemed to suggest she might end up voting for Abdul El-Sayed after all, though it was so disjointed that it’s hard to know just what she was trying to say. It’s for this reason that both her erstwhile friends and her current friends have been begging her to just stop talking.
People around Stevens think this whole episode is heavily tied to her newly public fiancé, Jason Turkish. They question just how it was that he went from being a donor to being her fiancé and they point to various examples of controlling or dominating behavior they’ve observed in their interactions. (I’m choosing my words carefully and judiciously here.) Last night, a subscription-only Michigan political news service ran an interview with former Michigan Governor Jim Blanchard in which Blanchard described a recent dinner with Stevens, Turkish and others in which Turkish aggressively berated Stevens in front of other dinner guests for not driving a harder line with El-Sayed.
Here’s the key passage …
The former governor, a longtime friend and supporter of the congresswoman, said Stevens was happy and looking forward to going to a church in Detroit on Sunday to campaign alongside her onetime Democratic primary rival for U.S. Senate, Abdul El-Sayed.
Then things got tense. Blanchard, in an interview Sunday with Gongwer News Service following the stunning news of Stevens revoking her endorsement of El-Sayed and instead endorsing Republican Mike Rogers, said Turkish, a longtime Democrat who is Jewish and endorsed Rogers last week over El-Sayed’s views on Israel, began chiding his fiancée, Stevens.
“He was working her over. The way he was saying it was, ‘Everyone is disappointed in you, they did everything they could to help you and then immediately after you lose the primary, you endorsed him,’” said Blanchard, who was governor from 1983-91 and remains an active voice in the Democratic Party.
Blanchard said he pushed back at Turkish on Stevens’ behalf.
“I said, ‘Yeah, because she’s a team player. You have to be gracious. Come on,’” he said.
Turkish was unmoved, Blanchard said.
“He said, ‘I know, but they’re really disappointed in her,’” the former governor recalled.
My overall take is that what happened here is much more a personal than a factional or electoral situation at this point. And I know from my own reporting that, quite apart from the politics, people around Stevens have been increasingly worried about that relationship itself.
That said, if a new relationship can lead to this kind of erratic and consequential public behavior — out of the blue endorsing a candidate of the opposite party — that’s not a great recommendation for serving in elected office or positions of public trust.
