On October 12, 2018, Republican Bill Schuette and Democrat Gretchen Whitmer, on the right, face off against the first governors debate of this cycle. (Courtesy Photo, Nick Smith / WOOD TV8)
Republican Bill Schuette and Democrat Gretchen Whitmer, who were competing for governorship, were acrimonious at their first stage meeting in a debate late Friday.
Gretchen Whitmer and Bill Schuette embrace the first debate in the Governing Council
Both have always been different politicians.
Schuette, currently Attorney General, had a long political career at the federal and state levels and was approved by Donald Trump.
Whitmer, formerly leader of the Senate minority, has already sat at the state house and was approved by Barack Obama and Joe Biden.
They were asked questions about politics in Friday's debate, but the answers often gave rise to insults. The following are eight who stood out.
"I think the most striking difference between me and my opponent is that I do the work when the cameras are not turned on." – Whitmer
"The fact is that you have the audacity to go on TV and say that you are fighting for big insurance, but you are captive of great insurance.Even a Democratic colleague says you were bought . " – Schuette
Schuette raised this issue when asked if he would continue to expand Medicaid into the state.
Whitmer devoted the essence of her message to the Michigan expansion, Healthy Michigan Medicaid, with including a television commercial claiming that she had battled with the insurance company for cover the chemo of his mother.
When Schuette speaks of Whitmer's critical "democratic colleague," he probably refers to Abdul El-Sayed, an opponent of the Democratic primary who has since supported Whitmer. But during the main campaign, he often hit her for receiving donations from donors affiliated with Blue Cross, Michigan, to the Blue Shield. He has often spoken of candidates bought and sold.
"An economist said that he had to hope that he had magic because he described his plan as being BS, and I do not think he was talking about his initials." – Whitmer
This Zinger came from Whitmer when she spoke of Schuette's road map. He called for reallocation of existing dollars to roads, but did not specify their amount or provenance.
Whitmer, on the contrary, called for the creation of new incomes – something Schuette had some zingers about himself.
"When she says that she's going to fix the roads, she'll raise your taxes." – Schuette
Schuette criticized Whitmer's word "sanitized" for "repairing the damn roads" in order to create this zinger.
