This candidate for governor wants to be middle finger to Donald Trump
After
"If I win this primary, I want you to think about what happens to this race," he told a Democratic audience in
"A lot of people want to send a message to
That's because El-Sayed is a very different candidate than most. He tells almost every audience on the campaign trail that friends tell him, "You're a little too young (he's 33), you're a little too brown and you're a little too Muslim" to win a race for governor.
But this Muslim American thinks he represents a winning combination that will lead him to the state's top job.
Growing up in an unusual mix of cultures
It was an unusual mix of cultures for El-Sayed, especially on holidays when both sides of the extended family --parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles and siblings -- would get together for annual feasts.
"I'm running in part because I was really lucky to experience the kind of diversity in our state and in our home. I was raised by my father, an immigrant from
El-Sayed had a comfortable childhood, spending summers either in
Students, staff and faculty at U-M took notice of his accomplishments: an honors student every semester; a varsity lacrosse team player; the vice president of the
"The
Former President
"I don't want to embarrass your senior speaker. But I wish every person in the world who believes we're fated to have a clash of civilizations and can't reach across the religious divide could have heard you speak today," he said. "I just wish every person in the world could have heard you speak today."
Now, El-Sayed wants
The path to public service
El-Sayed spent two more years at U-M's medical school, where he met his wife, Sarah, and they got married before he won a coveted Rhodes Scholarship to
But when it came time to do his residency and become a practicing physician, El-Sayed decided to take a different path.
"I came to appreciate the structure of health care is so broken that, as a doctor, it's hard to fixate on solutions to the problem," he said. "So I decided not to do a residency and took a risk by dedicating my life to public health."
Two years in academia, teaching public health at Columbia, however, was enough. He said his research papers were being read by fewer and fewer people, so he decided to jump into public service. A two-hour job interview with
"For the first time, it felt like the work we were doing was having a real impact," he said.
The city's health department was in a transition back to city control after the department was dismantled in 2012 amid cost-cutting and impending bankruptcy. The city had transferred most of the health services to an independent nonprofit agency, but under El-Sayed, the department grew from five city employees to 200.
He was able to rebuild the city's
And although he left the city after only 18 months to run for governor, he hoped and expected to get the endorsement of Duggan.
But that was not to come, especially after El-Sayed started harshly criticizing Duggan, his first boss in public service, this year for several of the programs in the city.
He told one crowd in
He also has been sharply critical of the city's water shutoff program, which stopped water services for city residents with delinquent bills, and the tax incentives that have been given to businesses that decide to locate in the city.
Yet when El-Sayed had the chance to speak out as health department director against the programs he now criticizes, he didn't do it, according to e-mails obtained by the
In one e-mail about the demolition program, he wrote, "From our colleague at U-M: They haven't seen increases in lead deposition into soil following demos -- which is a huge win." In another, he wrote building department authorities, "Thank you for making health a priority in this process."
El-Sayed says the e-mails don't tell the whole story: "I don't know that the e-mails reflect the full course of what actually is said in rooms and conversations."
Duggan called El-Sayed "a remarkably accomplished and talented public health administrator" when he started his job at the health department in 2015. On Wednesday, his office said, "We aren't going to dignify these ridiculous comments from
Instead, Duggan endorsed former Senate Minority Leader
Taking on the progressive mantle
There was never a hint that El-Sayed had political ambitions before he jumped into the governor's race last year.
His contributions to political campaigns are virtuallly nonexistent and his voting record in
After the Secretary of State cleared up that issue last week, El-Sayed declared at a candidate forum in
He said he decided to run after seeing the devastation to families as a result of the
"I know my skill set in an operational role," he said. "I looked at the
El-Sayed has taken on the progressive mantle of
All of the ills facing the state can be traced back to big business and corporate money in politics, he said, and most politicians are bought and sold by special interests. The issue is his
"We have assumed in
He doesn't mention that political action committee donations are legal and a standard fuel for most campaigns. And a voter at the
"They're not bad, but they always optimize their financial position," El-Sayed replied. "A company that is not owned by an individual or group, but by stockholders, who don't have allegiance to any one place, so they make decisions to optimize that quarterly bottom line. It's the stock price that drives everything. It was never meant to be that corporations dictate what happens in our politics."
Those issues are what drove
"He's the only one who is really pushing for the things I believe are the most important issues, getting money out of politics and fighting for single-payer health care," she said.
State Sen.
"The fact that he recognizes his privilege, the fact that he is willing to use his degrees and gift to shake things up and make this state a better place ... those are the kind of leaders that we need," she said. "He doesn't have to walk around and say he's a real progressive. He is the progressive. This is not about spending
Looking to connect with mainstream
Despite the enthusiasm for El-Sayed from the left, he hasn't gained traction with mainstream
And he has run into other problems as well.
State Sen.
When the issue came up in an
"I'm a lot more interested in making sure this is the type of state where everybody gets to live the life with which they choose, the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, independent of how they pray or the color of their skin," he said. "We're starting to call certain people more American than others and that's really dangerous."
When the taunts and the frequent death threats start to wear him down, El-Sayed says all he has to do is walk into the
"She does two things for me: her smile can take away all the stress and she is a reminder every day of what I'm working for is the world I want her to grow up in -- is a world that should not matter who she is. I can't express that to a little kid, but some day, I hope to tell her how much she meant to me in a moment that was really hard."
Contact
Roads: Create a state "infrastructure bank," where state dollars can only be used for infrastructure projects such as roads and water pipes. The bank would be fueled by a shift of money that is now given to corporations in tax incentives, tax revenues from the sale of medical marijuana and a shift to a graduated income tax from a flat income tax rate that would require a change in the state's constitution. The infrastructure bank would also be used to provide free water to all Michiganders for basic needs, such as bathing, drinking, cooking and cleaning, with a surtax on people who use more water above and beyond the basic needs.
Auto insurance: Remove health insurance coverage, through the state's catastrophic fund that pays lifetime benefits to people critically injured in car crashes, from auto insurance and require that only driving-related issues, instead of credit scores and ZIP codes, be used when figuring insurance rates.
School safety: Push for tougher gun laws, including universal background checks on gun purchases and a ban on assault-style weapons. Don't allow guns in schools, but add money for mental health services and counselors.
Pension tax: Think holistically about how much of the tax can be rolled back to make sure other state services can still be addressed and "where there are opportunities to repeal the tax, I want to do that."
Legalized marijuana: Supports legalization for adult recreational use.
Medicaid: Supports Medicaid health care coverage for all and opposes legislation that would require most Medicaid recipients to work.
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