Labor Day is the unofficial end of Summer.
For politicians, Labor Day is also seen as the unofficial beginning of the final campaign stretch toward the November election. The election is little more than two months away.
Many Michigan politicians spent the Labor Day holiday walking in parades and shaking a lot of hands.
For Democrats, the place to be Monday was in or around the annual Labor Day parade in Detroit.
Democratic gubernatorial candidate Mark Schauer spent hours Monday meeting and greeting union members at Detroit’s Labor Day parade.
“Rick Snyder has certainly unified and energized the Democratic Party. And I think more broadly created a sense of change in the state,” Schauer says, “I think the labor movement is a very important part of that.”
Like other Republican candidates, incumbent Governor Rick Snyder was busy elsewhere on Monday.
Snyder led about 30,000 people in the annual trek across the 5-mile-long Mackinac Bridge which links Michigan's two peninsulas.
Back in Detroit, a lot of Democrats were talking about who’s going to replace Carl Levin in the U.S. Senate. Levin is retiring after six terms, 36 years in Washington.
Democrat Gary Peters is running to take Carl Levin’s seat in the U.S. Senate. Peters spent part of Labor Day wooing union members at Detroit’s Labor Day parade.
“We need backing from folks all across the state,” says Peters, “Certainly labor is a key piece of that.”
Peters’ Republican opponent in the November election is former Secretary of State Terri Lynn Land.
She spent Labor Day walking in the Michigan Peach festival parade in Romeo.
