One in a series of profiles on the candidates running for Michigan governor.
CANTON – You know you're the most extreme of four conservative Republicans running for governor of Michigan when:
a) Senate leadership removes not only your committee assignments, but your authority to hire staff and spend your office budget.
b) You hold a campaign fund-raiser at a gun range, allowing a one-stop shop for supporters to cut you a check and fire off a few rounds.
c) You sponsor legislation to make it easier for parents to exempt their kids from being vaccinated for contagious and potentially deadly diseases such as measles and meningitis and to bar schools from turning away unvaccinated children.
d) Fox News host and right-wing political commentator Sean Hannity withdraws his endorsement because your Muslim conspiracy statements are too controversial.
It's all of the above for Sen. Patrick Colbeck, a Canton Republican and aerospace engineer who helped design components for the International Space Station before making his first run for public office in 2010.
Colbeck's campaign wasn't making much news until late April, when Buzzfeed published a video showing he cast aspersions on a Muslim opponent, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, the American-born former head of the Detroit health department, with unsupported claims of links to "civilization jihad."
El-Sayed's "parents have apparently had ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, back in Egypt," Colbeck said in narrating a presentation about alleged Muslim efforts to quietly subvert institutions in the U.S. "This is scary stuff," and "they're already advertising him as the first Muslim governor."
Colbeck, 52, later admitted he made a mistake, but only in that he instead meant to reference El-Sayed's in-laws. "The jury is still out on his parents," he said Tuesday. Pressed about that on Thursday, Colbeck apologized for referencing El-Sayed's parents.
Even then, Colbeck didn't point to a connection between El-Sayed's in-laws and the Muslim Brotherhood, which in any case is not designated as a terrorist organization by the U.S. government. The Michigan Republican Party was among the many individuals and groups to condemn or distance themselves from Colbeck's remarks, saying it "isn’t interested in peddling any conspiracy theories and anything he said was not on behalf of the party.”
El-Sayed said Colbeck's remarks are indications of "the ugly face of white supremacy that Donald Trump and his friends have sanctioned."
Colbeck said Thursday his comments had nothing to do with race. He said he's the one taking the high road in the discussion, after El-Sayed told him during a Thursday candidate forum that "you may not hate Muslims," but Muslims "hate you."
Colbeck, who is completing his second four-year term in the Senate and can't run again because of term limits, says he has the support of President Trump's Michigan base and it's he who should have received Trump's endorsement, not Attorney General Bill Schuette, who is also seeking the GOP nomination for governor.
Trump didn't retreat in December 2015, when faced with a barrage of criticism after proposing "a complete and total shutdown of Muslims entering the United States."
And aside from his limited apology Thursday, Colbeck hasn't backed down on his remarks about El-Sayed.
Instead, he has taken another page out of Trump's playbook by attacking the media, claiming he is facing a backlash not for trying to link El-Sayed to a conspiracy, but for wanting to have a discussion about the Muslim Brotherhood — an Islamist movement founded in Egypt that has been designated a terrorist organization by Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
"They go right after the jugular," said Colbeck, who cited what he described as distorted media reports about his comments as the likely reason Hannity withdrew his endorsement.
Colbeck hasn't made concerns about Muslim extremists a prominent campaign issue in the way Trump did, but immigration and homeland security are mainly federal issues. As was the case with Trump, the controversy does not appear to have dampened Colbeck's support among his most avid supporters.
"I have a few suspicions about that candidate," Colbeck supporter Jim McFerran of Livonia said Tuesday of El-Sayed.
Colbeck "might have been right, but it was probably not the most politically correct thing for him to do," McFerran said. Having made the controversial remarks, "you have to sit there and explain, and when you're explaining, you're losing."
McFerran has known Colbeck since 2010 and said he still has his support.
"He's not part of the swamp," McFerran said in an earlier interview at an April fund-raiser at the Firing Line Gun Range and Gun Shop in Westland. "He's kind of like, if I was running, what I would do. I know he's not popular with a lot of people, but that's why I like him."
At the event McFerran attended, a $30 donation was good for a gun rental, a box of ammunition, and one hour shooting on the indoor range. For a $50 donation, attendees got all of that, plus a Colbeck T-shirt.
Colbeck stepped to the range with the semi-automatic pistol he shares with his wife, Angie,and fired off some rounds from the Smith & Wesson 9mm Shield.
Patrick and Angie Colbeck at their home in Canton on Friday, April 6, 2018. Patrick Colbeck is a Republican candidate for governor of Michigan. (Photo: Eric Seals, Detroit Free Press)
"Anybody who is taking the Constitution seriously, they're usually with us," Colbeck said, adding that he's encouraged by the expressions of support he's getting from strangers, the Colbeck bumper stickers he spots while on the road and people snapping up about 4,000 lawn signs he ordered.
"That's reminiscent of what happened with Trump," he said.
Colbeck championed right-to-work legislation, which Gov. Rick Snyder signed into law after lawmakers narrowly approved it late in 2012. He opposed two other signature Snyder measures backed by GOP legislative leaders — the 2013 expansion of Medicaid under President Barack Obama's Affordable Care Act and the $1.2-billion road funding deal in 2015 that hiked gas taxes and vehicle registration fees.
He clashed publicly with Snyder in 2017, when the governor vetoed his bill to create and sell an anti-abortion fund-raising license plate with the "Choose Life" message. Snyder said the plate was inappropriate because its political message had the potential to bitterly divide millions of residents. Colbeck labeled Snyder's action "disgraceful."
"The only way a message to 'Choose Life' is divisive is if you buy into the idea that 'Choose Death' is an acceptable message," Colbeck told the Free Press at the time.
At his Westland fund-raiser, Colbeck, after firing off a series of shots, handed the gun he was using to his wife of 23 years. She's a pediatrician — not currently practicing medicine — who met Patrick when they lived in the dorms at U-M. She also fired a few shots. "I just need to get the feel for it," she said of the gun.
Colbeck recounted at an April 3 event at MSU how he confronted a U-M fraternity house single-handedly during his junior year after a member of the fraternity made an inappropriate gesture toward Angie as she walked by.
"Start paying a lot more attention to the character of the people you are electing to office," Colbeck told the crowd of mostly students at the MSU Union. "You need to have someone to stand up and do the right thing."
How, Colbeck was asked in an April 6 interview, does he square that with his support for Trump, who has repeatedly criticized women for their physical appearance, and, in an "Access Hollywood" tape from 2005, boasts about grabbing and kissing women without their consent?
"I didn't pay any attention to any of that stuff, to tell you the truth," Colbeck said.
Why not, given his strong feelings about character and respect for women?
"There was a change in President Trump ... during the election," Colbeck said. "You can see it in his eyes" and "a lot of that stuff is in the past."
Colbeck, who hasn't met Trump, said he was impressed by some of the people who were advising Trump late in the campaign, such as Family Research Council President Tony Perkins.
"We were asking, 'Is this real?' to folks we knew and they said, 'Yes,' " Colbeck said.
The Colbecks, who have no children, grew up only about a mile away from each other in Livonia but didn't know each other until university because they attended different high schools.
Three GOP candidates for governor: Sen. Patrick Colbeck (center); Dr. Jim HInes (seated left); and Lieutenant Gov. Brian Calley (seated right) took part in a town hall meeting at MSU on April 3. (Photo: Paul Egan/Detroit Free Press)
Colbeck played football at Detroit Catholic Central with former Michigan congressman and state lawmaker Thaddeus McCotter, but said he was much more of a high school introvert and engineering geek than a jock. He didn't even like shopping because he didn't know what to say to the cashier, he said. Even in university, it took him forever to ask Angie out.
Immediately, "I just knew I liked this guy, I could trust this guy — it's a good guy," Angie Colbeck said of her husband.
Colbeck received bachelor's and master's degrees in aerospace engineering from U-M before going to work as a senior design engineer for Boeing. He also has studied at the International Space University in France and provided contract engineering services to the U.S. Department of Defense.
The Colbecks endured years of long-distance dating when Angie was completing her medical residency in Grand Rapids and he was working for Boeing in Huntsville, Ala.
After returning to Michigan, Colbeck in 2005 founded and headed a technology consulting firm — Perspective Shifts, LLC, which since 2007 has also operated under the name Tek Made Easy.
The Colbecks never became politically active until 2009, when they attended their first tea party event at Kellogg Park in Plymouth. They carried a sign that said: "The people are broke; the constitution isn't."
Shortly before that, Colbeck was completing his state business taxes and couldn't figure out why his tax bill wasn't going down as he added in more of his expenses.
That's when he realized the Michigan Business Tax — which Snyder and the Republican-controlled Legislature eliminated in 2011 — taxed businesses largely on their gross receipts, not on their profits.
"That was one of my first wake-up calls that something was wrong at the state level," Colbeck said.
A year later, Colbeck won a four-way Republican primary with just more than 31% of the vote and went on to defeat Democrat Kathleen Law in the general election.
It's a rare feat in Michigan for political newcomers to go straight to the Senate on their first try — one that Colbeck chronicles in his soon-to-be-released book, "Wrestling Gators: An Outsider's Guide to Draining the Swamp."
Since taking office in 2011, Colbeck said he has focused on staying true to his tea party principles of smaller government, lower taxes, and respecting the constitution, despite what he says is unrelenting pressure from special interests and party leadership to do otherwise.
He's no longer shy about speaking in public, which he credits to his Christian faith.
Colbeck, who said he makes a point of reading the bills he votes on and proposing detailed alternatives to proposals he rejects, said it was his vocal opposition to Medicaid expansion and his growing support among the party's grass roots that caused Senate Majority Leader Arlan Meekhof, R-West Olive, to take the unusual step of removing him from Senate committees and placing hiring and spending controls on his office.
"The committee assignments were just (Meekhof's) attempt to, you know, a cigarette on the ground, just squash it with your foot and keep out that ember," Colbeck said. "What the enemy intended for evil God turns around for good because it really highlighted why we are running."
Despite seven years in the Senate, Colbeck has not been endorsed for governor by a single member of the Republican caucus.
"He's not shy about identifying problems, but his solutions are not tenable," Meekhof said. "He hasn't been able to sell them to his caucus members."
Colbeck said he hasn't sought endorsements from his fellow senators, who he believes would be unfairly punished with reduced campaign contributions from special interests if they publicly supported his campaign.
One House member, Rep. Steve Johnson, R-Wayland, has endorsed Colbeck, crediting the senator with courage in the face of institutions resistant to change.
"Lansing is full of people who go along to get along," Johnson said in a news release. Colbeck, "even if it hurts him politically ... will stick to the promises he makes to the voters."
A centerpiece plank of Colbeck's gubernatorial campaign is elimination of the state's personal income tax — a proposal critics say is unrealistic in a state that already has crumbling roads and bridges and low-performing schools.
On a snowy day in, April 2018, a political sign in the front yard of Patrick Colbeck's Canton Township home. (Photo: Eric Seals, Detroit Free Press)
Colbeck says the personal income tax rate can be gradually reduced from 4.25% to zero by cutting unnecessary spending, such as hundreds of millions of dollars in business subsidies handed out through the Michigan Economic Development Corp.
Another Colbeck proposal that has not become law is Senate Bill 300 of 2017, which he said would stop health department officials from requiring parents to listen to a "one-sided lecture" before opting their children out of immunizations and prohibit officials from excluding non-immunized children from school when they think there is a non-epidemic risk of infection.
Michigan is among a minority of states that allows parents to keep their children from receiving required vaccinations not just for medical or religious reasons, but also for philosophical reasons. Medical experts say making such exemptions easier, as Colbeck proposes, heightens the risk of the spread of disease.
"I'm not anti-vaccine," but "this is a personal decision on the part of the family," Colbeck said.
In assessing his Republican opponents, Colbeck said electing either Schuette or Lt. Gov. Brian Calley would mean "politics as usual." He points to hundreds of thousands of dollars Schuette has received over the years from political action committees representing corporations such as DTE Energy and Consumers Energy and said, based on that, consumers would have no hope for greater choice in electricity providers — a free market program he supports.
But as a senator, Colbeck hasn't turned away special interest money. Over the last seven years, he has received more than $160,000 from PACs representing corporate interests, including $4,200 from DTE, $5,400 from Blue Cross Blue Shield, $10,250 from the Michigan Bankers PAC, $11,250 from the Michigan Chamber of Commerce and $13,850 from PACs associated with the Lansing-based association Michigan Realtors.
Colbeck said DTE is an example of a corporation that donates to all Republican lawmakers because the GOP generally supports its policies.
"I never asked" for the donations and "I was not influenced by any donations from anybody," Colbeck said.
"The best evidence that I don't do the bidding of DTE is that they have not donated to my gubernatorial campaign."
As he logs thousands of miles around the state, Colbeck relies heavily on Bob Cushman, a retired pilot for GM who drives the mobile home Colbeck uses as a campaign vehicle.
Colbeck is "one of the smartest people I know," and "the best man for the job" because of his integrity, leadership and Christian principles, Cushman said.
Candidates for Michigan governor
A series of profiles on the candidates running for Michigan governor.
- Jim Hines: Republican could be 1st gubernatorial doctor in Lansing (May 4)
- Shri Thenedar: This candidate wants to be Michigan's governor — then president (May 10)
- Patrick Colbeck: He's Michigan's most conservative Republican candidate for governor (May 11)
"A lot of people don't think he's going to win," he said. "When we do win, it's going to shake the foundation in the political world."
Contact Paul Egan: 517-372-8660 or pegan@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @paulegan4.
Patrick Colbeck on the issues
- Roads: Focus on improved quality, even if the up-front cost of building roads is increased. State should use new technologies and products to keep water from getting beneath roads and increase durability. Also favors transparency laws to hold designers and builders accountable and improved methods of patching potholes.
- Auto insurance: Says premiums could be reduced 40% to 60% by reducing the cost of catastrophic claims through fraud reduction and reduced medical costs so claims could be paid using interest generated by the $21-billion Michigan Catastrophic Claims Association fund. That would allow elimination of the annual fund fee.
- School safety: Favors arming of properly trained teachers and abolishing "gun-free zones" such as schools. Says allowing women to carry concealed weapons on university campuses would be a "great equalizer" in combating college sexual assaults.
- Pension tax: Colbeck voted against the tax on pension income in the Michigan Senate in 2011 and would vote to repeal it. He also wants to reduce the personal income tax rate from 4.25% to zero.
- Legalized marijuana: Opposes it, saying it would have unforeseen impact such as hurting the job market because of the need for many employees to pass drug tests.
- Medicaid work requirement: Colbeck voted in favor of legislation passed by the Senate that would require many able-bodied Medicaid recipients to work at least 29 hours a week. The legislation exempts residents of counties with an unemployment rate of more than 8.5%.
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