[420 Girl]

Why Bill Schuette? Why right now?

Two months ago, it appeared the medical marijuana ballot initiative, Proposal 1, was going to slide past Election Day without any organized opposition stopping it.

Then Schuette, an outgoing state appellate judge, emerged out of nowhere at the 11th hour to lead the charge against Proposal 1.

He corralled all of the police groups ( after all, more dope in Michigan allegedly means more dope in our children's hands, heavier drug use, which leads to more crime, etc. ) and the Michigan Health and Hospital Association and other physician groups, whose officials say they don't necessarily have a problem with medical marijuana but think Proposal 1 isn't as lock-safe as it could be. ( Despite the fact that the proposal was crafted after Rhode Island's law, where there doesn't appear to be much of a problem. )

But why bother? Schuette says, as a father of two young children, he doesn't want marijuana more available or being viewed as socially acceptable. "Everybody knows" marijuana is a gateway drug to the harder stuff, and it's unnecessary to allow folks to grow it, he says.

I'm sure his feelings are genuine. As a former Republican congressman and Michigan Senator, Schuette is as conservative as Corn Flakes are bland.

He's also ambitious. He won his first congressional election at age 31. He opted not to seek re-election six years later because he wanted a crack at U.S. Sen. Carl Levin. When that didn't work out, former Gov. John Engler made him state agriculture director. In 1994 he won a state Senate seat. When term limits ended that run, he hopped to the state appellate court.

So why would Schuette, 55, leave a practically lifetime gig as a state appellate judge? The popular scuttlebutt is Schuette has his eyes set on attorney general, a position current AG Mike Cox can't run for in 2010.

If so, there's no better way to boost your name: get in good with law enforcement and take a hard public stance against crime then lead a public campaign against legalizing marijuana ( even if it is only for the sick ).

Tim Skubick confronted Schuette with this scenario on his WKAR television show, "Off the Record." Schuette told Skubick that defeating Proposal 1 wasn't about him and that he was "absolutely not" using the issue for personal gain. When asked if he'd connected the dots between an anti-Prop 1 campaign and an AG campaign, Schuette quickly shot, "I have not."

The head of the pro-Prop 1 campaign, Dianne Byrum, is skeptical.

"I think it's a possibility," she said in the broadcast. "A lot of free publicity ..."

To date, the fledgling anti-Prop 1 group has relied on free media to get out its message, calling numerous press conferences, making outrageous comparisons between the loosely written California medical marijuana law and the 15-page Michigan proposal.

Schuette's cadre squeezed the Michigan Health and hospital Association for $100,000, GOP gubernatorial wannabe Dick DeVos for $10,000 and some Florida-based anti-drug group ( the Drug Free America Foundation, which is run by Betty and Mel Sembler , who formerly ran Straight Inc., a chain of now defunct and allegedly abusive teen rehab centers ) for another $15,000. That'll cover the administrative expenses and maybe a couple robo-calls. There's no money for TV commercials and probably no radio, either.

In fundraising, they're not going to get anywhere near the pro-Prop 1 folks, which is bankrolled to the tune of $1.7 million by the D.C.-based Marijuana Policy Project.

But in the meantime, Schuette is front-and-center at press conferences and always accessible for media interviews, even when the subject is about his own experience smoking dope as a student in the '70s.

It reminds me of 2001 when the Republican Party was holding its biennial leadership shindig at Mackinac Island. Schuette was hosting an evening party at the Village Inn and everybody was invited.

Schuette stood on the front steps with his wife, Cynthia, greeting everyone as volunteers handed out campaign stickers with only the word "Schuette" printed on the front.

The rumor was Schuette was angling for AG, but nobody had nailed that down.

When my turn came to shake his hand, I said, "Senator, I have this sticker, but it doesn't say what you're running for."

"No," he grinned. "But they spelled my name right, and that's the most important thing."

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