So, this author has an admission to make: it was a massive struggle to come up with a snappy, or, witty opening line for this entry onto the platform because it was nearly impossible to come up with the correct combination of words that properly captured how much of a farce former police chief James Craig's official campaign launch was. Complete train wreck, total shitshow, and absolute mess all pale in comparison of what a better writer could describe the event.
Any attempt at capturing the essence of what was said over the 4 agonizing hours of speeches, some completely pointless while others were, at best, uncomfortably tangential, would be like a hemiplegic attempting to pick up egg yolk with their feet. Even if we did our best, we would still fail at getting a firm grasp on our subject. And yet, for the public at large, a serious look into Craig's campaign is essential for Detroit's voters to get an idea of what to expect from the candidate's campaign as the race slogs forward towards August.
This publication has to emphasize "Detroit's voters" because Craig's campaign even skewed heavily towards a demographic that'd be more likely to frequent a Grosse Pointe yacht club rather than being the electorate of the inner city (which, is to say: mostly White, and comfortably fitting within the Baby Boomer generation). Even though the audience were the prime demographic to soak up mainstream Republican talking points, as the event went on, most left out of pure frustration because Craig was so bad at working the crowd.
Craig spent a considerable amount of time haphazardly jumping from topic to topic, first, he talked at length about being a "public servant" and harping on about his experience as the chief of police in cities like Los Angeles which he contrasted with what he dubbed "the consequences of failed leadership" around the country and here at home in Detroit (which, is an odd choice, because, he was literally the chief of police in the city for eight years).
Then, while discussing past attempts at getting elevated to elected office, he seemed to sidestep and downplay the fake petition scandal that resulted in him bowing out of the 2022 Michigan gubernatorial race as if it was just a simple faux pas rather than a deliberate betrayal of the public's trust and a move that should make him legally disqualified from seeking office ever again.
Finally, Craig gave a slew of his closest buddies in the local Capitalist class a considerable amount of time on the mic to discuss issue in typical Republican fashion like "cutting red tape", law and order (the speaker who brought up this point was literally head of Craig's security detail and suggested that he was going to make him "a lot of money"), and urging the unrepresented public to look past his party affiliation and focus on Craig's personal attributes.
With this in mind, Black Label Detroit would like to say this: Coverage of Craig's campaign is only being reported on because his candidacy represents an existential threat to the prospect of a Metropolitan Parliament in Metro Detroit, which, is a proposal that this publication has publication has been building towards for years now. This publication is confident in this assertion because James Craig willfully disclosed to a reporter from this publication that he was "fully in favor of a Metro-Detroit [government]", and specifically suggested that the City of Detroit could contract out police dispatches to surrounding suburbs in exchange for money. Even though this publication has not yet given a clear indication or blueprint as to what the Metropolitan Parliament would look like or what government services it would have. there's no doubt in this author's mind that Craig will likely back proposals like the flawed Ranked Choice Voting(RCV) campaign that's trying to get to a state wide ballot. It should be noted that RCV is a system that entrenches the disastrous two party system within elections and stops Radicals from being elected into government.
In any other circumstances, Craig's campaign event, it's flawed policies, and his disappointing speech could be written off as forgettable, unserious, and an indication of a soon-to-be failed campaign. However, this author would caution readers from following this naive train of thought. In a Freudian slip make to one of our correspondents, Craig made the suggestion that he "never lost a [political] campaign" during the even, which, essentially could let the public know that he doesn't seriously think that the fake signature scandal was a unprovoked end to his political career. On the internet, something of this nature would be dubbed "saying the quiet part out loud".
In a city with regular discrepancies in it's handling of ballots for all sorts of elections, Craig "making it" past the August primary could mean that he effectively swindles his way into the mayor's office. That event would deflate all of the prospects of a comprehensive, equitable, and clean creation of a Metropolitan Government.
Because there's so much at stake for this election and no one else within the media space has the liberty to speak their mind the way Black Label Detroit can, we'll use our platform to say we condemn the candidacy of James Craig, and wish for his anemic campaign to go down in flames.
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