It might seem that ever since Donald Trump and family moved into the White House there aren’t any entertainers drawn to the Republican Party’s flame.
But Wes Nakagiri, a Michigan automotive engineer who ran an ill-fated campaign to dump Michigan Lt. Gov. Brian Calley from the Michigan GOP’s 2014 ticket, is now pushing to have musician Kid Rock run for U.S. Senate against incumbent Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D) in the 2018 election.
That has led political pundits, who have time for speculation much like baseball fans talk about player trades during the winter months, to ask, “If Kid Rock, why not Ted Nugent?”
PJM reported Nakagiri dreamed of running a conservative revival under the big tent of the Michigan Republican Party in May 2014. He campaigned to be selected as the GOP’s lieutenant governor candidate.
Nakagiri was elected to the Michigan GOP’s central committee Feb. 11 and immediately put his name back in the Detroit Free Press by offering Kid Rock as a possible candidate for Senate.
Why not, Nakagiri told the Free Press: Kid Rock endorsed Donald Trump for president in 2016, and he “has name ID, (it) is an out-of-the-box idea, and would kind of get rid of that stodgy Republican image.”
Nakagiri also said the Kid Rock campaign team could use the Trump campaign as a model for strategy.
“I’ll bet you he would generate as much excitement as Trump did,” Nakagiri said.
Kid Rock’s people didn’t comment on the Detroit Free Press story.
But there is no reason to believe there wouldn’t be room for him under the Republican tent.
Like President Trump, Kid Rock, known to his parents as Robert James Ritchie, has been both an outspoken advocate and critic of the GOP.
While it might not have been a full-throated endorsement, Kid Rock told Rolling Stone in February 2016 that he was “digging” Trump.
“I feel like a lot of people, whether you’re a Democrat or a Republican, feel like if you get Hillary or Bernie, or you get Rubio or Cruz or whoever, there’s going to be the same s–t,” Kid Rock said. “My feeling: let the m—-f—ing business guy run it like a f—ing business. And his campaign has been entertaining as s–t.”
Trump voters might also like the way Kid Rock took Republicans to task, again, in the pages of Rolling Stone, in 2013 for passing a law in New York that only allowed the first 16 rows of concert seating to be sold via paperless ticketing. That wrecked Kid Rock’s plan to put people who could only afford $20 tickets into the front row of his concerts.
“That’s one of the times I’m f—ing embarrassed to be a Republican,” he told Rolling Stone. “It’s f—ing Republican lawmakers passing those laws, you dumbasses”
GOP establishment voters have to like this: Kid Rock did campaign for Mitt Romney in 2012. He improvised a short campaign song outside the GOP national convention that year: “They say Obama is lyin’. That’s why I’m voting for Romney and Ryan.”
Again, there has been no comment from Kid Rock showing the slightest bit of interest in running for Michigan’s Senate seat on the GOP ticket.
Maybe Kid Rock is not anti-establishment enough for Michigan voters who gave Trump victories in the GOP primary and the national elections of 2016.
Not to worry. There’s always Ted Nugent, aka “The Motor City Madman.”
The Michigan-born hard rock guitar legend, known affectionately as “Uncle Ted” by Detroit-area rock fans who have followed him since the 1970s, has never shied away from speaking his mind.
Nugent wrote on his Facebook page in January 2016 that then-President Obama and Hillary Clinton should be “tried for treason and hung” for their response to the attack on the U.S. diplomatic facility in Benghazi.
“What sort of chimpass punk would deny security, turn down 61 requests for security, then tell US forces to STAND DOWN when they were ready to kickass on the allapukes & save American lives!” Nugent added.
Nugent came out in support of the Trump campaign in 2015.
“He would kick ass and take names and that’s what America needs right now,” Nugent told the host of the “Rita Crosby Show.”
But would Nugent be interested in running for the U.S. Senate?
Kid Rock might be reluctant to enter the 2018 race, but hesitation has never been part of Ted Nugent’s modus operandi.
“If these GOP sonsabitches dont get it right this time,” is the quote attributed to him on the Draft Ted Nugent To Be Michigan’s Next Senator Facebook page. “I will come charging in as the ultimate WE THE P**SED OFF PEOPLE Mr FixIt Consitutional firebreathing s**tkicker candidate from hell!”
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