A Rarity In Today’s Campaigns: The Unscripted Roundtable

Over at the Flap Jack in DeWitt this week, gubernatorial candidate Tom Leonard spent an hour laying out how he plans to lower auto insurance rates. 

Michigan’s are really high. Still. Even after that 2019 law that left the catastrophically injured with less care than they had before. 

Our rates average around $1,000 a year more than our neighbors in Ohio and Indiana. 

Leonard’s general idea is to give consumers more coverage-level options. He also wants to return to a tort-like system. If someone hits you, their insurance covers the costs. 

It’s not necessarily the content that caught my attention. (Although, to be fair, few others are talking in any depth about auto insurance. Why haven’t mine gone down much since the 2019 reforms?) 

It’s who was in the crowd. 

Instead of packing the room with bobbleheads, ready to nod in agreement at every word, Leonard brought in … well … seemingly anyone who was interested. 

We had Tom Judd from the Michigan Brain Injury Provider Clinic. Maureen Howell from the no-fault reform group “We Can’t Wait” and insurance agent Bill Brewbaker, among several others. 

Their points:  

1. It costs much more to repair a vehicle today than it did in 2019. Cars have more sensors. They have more chips. More gadgets. More things can go wrong. 
2. Going to court to get reimbursements is not cutting costs. It shifts the costs. 
3. Michigan’s auto insurance rates are high because we offer far better rehabilitation services for the catastrophically injured than other states. In states like Texas, the families of those badly hurt in crashes go broke paying for care . . . and then their loved one dies quicker. 

In short, they didn’t see Leonard’s plan really lowering rates at all. 

They didn’t slam in his face, though. They were just happy someone was willing to talk about the issue.  

Leonard was admittedly humble about it all. He wasn’t defensive. He appreciated everyone’s opinion. He said he’d give what they said some more thought. Maybe he’d revise his plan based on the feedback. 

I was blown away. 

Nobody came in with scripted comments. Nobody kissed Tom’s rear. 

A gubernatorial candidate in 2026 inviting the press to an open, unscripted skull session on probably one of the most complicated issues in Michigan? A politician opening himself to critical feedback while the press watched? 

Unprecedented. 

The event was everything modern campaigns are not. The policy roundtables of today are: 

Candidate A talks vividly for several minutes about a problem, and how something must be done. Invited guests talk about the same subject, often with a horror story baked in. 

Candidate A pledges to do SOMETHING about the problem, typically being as vague as possible. Invited guests praise Candidate A for his/her commitment to doing SOMETHING. 

Event over. 

This isn’t necessarily a critical review. We could probably go back to some of the first campaigns in U.S. history and see the same thing. 

However, it’s so much easier for campaigns of 2026 to play it safe. Got something to say? Go on Instagram and Facebook. Say whatever the hell you want. You don’t need the media. If you’re creative like Mallory McMorrow or charismatic like Abdul El-Sayed, you can get thousands of likes and hundreds of reposts. 

Trackers are at all of these big events with their cellphones. They’re just waiting for a candidate to mess up. Something they can post and go viral. 

Also, if you advertise an event too well, the candidate will get protesters. Hecklers. Ask James Craig about his hijacked gubernatorial announcement of 2022. The media coverage and social media posts became about the circus, not the news of him running. 

The more outrageous and obnoxious political hunters can be, the more they’re followed.  

It forces campaigns to confront today’s sad reality. Why deal with weighty issues if they don’t poll well? Especially, if they’re difficult, if not impossible, to solve? And, to boot, you could be publicly humiliated for trying. 

It makes Leonard’s decision to say yes, impressive.