Free Press columnist Brian Dickerson writes that U.S. Senate hopeful Terri Lynn Land has been relatively reclusive during her campaign, but her her decision to emerge "from the protection of her handlers" and appear on a call-in radio show Friday may have been a mistake.
He writes that her "rare, live appearance on Michigan Public Radio Network's 'Michigan Calling' show was a maddening exercise in evasion, obfuscation and incomprehensibility." The host of the show was Rick Pluta.
Dickerson writes about Land's appearance:
She invoked a handful of talking points ("the president needs to lead," "Isis is a terrorist organization") with almost metronomic frequency, like reflexes triggered by electronic shocks applied at regular intervals. Her maternal status ("I'm a mom with two kids") came up no fewer than seven times, and twice in one rambling answer to a question about Ebola.
Land's opposition to Obamacare is a centerpiece of her campaign. "We need to repeal and replace it," she told Pluta again and again.
"What would be the essential components of the replacement part?" Pluta asked.
"Well, exactly," Land responded.
Pluta repeated his question once, twice, three times, but Land seemed tuned to a different frequency.
"Well, again, we talked about two kids," she said, "and dental is very important when you have children at home. It changes when you get older and you don't have kids at home. So there's lots of things that would be involved in a health care plan, but the key is you'd have the choice."
Land trails Gary Peters in the latest WXYZ-Detroit Free Press poll by a margin of 42-33 percent.
