Schuette, Whitmer sling mud, promise fixes in WOOD TV8 debate

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) — Only 25 days before voters go to the polls, Michigan gubernatorial candidates Bill Schuette and Gretchen Whitmer debated at WOOD TV8 Friday evening.

Both candidates boasted their previous experience in government and promised to make changes to improve our state. They traded the expected jabs on each other's stances on taxes and health care.

They were also pressed by 24 Hour News 8 political reporter Rick Albin, who moderated the debate, to provide specifics about how they're going to reform automotive insurance to lower rates and where they're going to come up with the cash to fix Michigan's notoriously bad infrastructure.

OPENING STATEMENTS

Republican Michigan Attorney General Schuette from Midland, who previously served as an appeals court judge, a state senator, a U.S. representative and the director of agriculture in Michigan, said in his opening statement that he is running because he wants Michigan to grow.

"I want Michigan to be jobs state, a paycheck state and a growth state," he said.

He said that if elected, he would cut tax increases, lower automotive insurance rates, improve schools, rebuild infrastructure and make health care affordable and accessible.

He lobbed insults at former Gov. Jennifer Granholm, whom he blamed for Michigan's recession, and called his opponent's plans "extreme."

Whitmer, a Democrat from East Lansing, previously served in the state House of Representatives and the state Senate, where she was minority leader, and as the Ingham County prosecutor. She touted successes on health care and the economy while serving in the state Legislature, saying she crossed the aisle and worked with current Gov. Rick Snyder, a Republican who is being term-limited out.

She rejected Schuette's claims about his stances on health care, saying he tried to stop the Affordable Care Act, more commonly known as Obamacare.

"We cannot afford to go back. It would be bad for business, it would be bad for Michigan families," she said.

She promised to work to ensure clean drinking water, expand health care, improve education and jobs training, and, echoing her campaign refrain, to 'fix the damn roads.'

Full story on WOOTV8.com


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