Back in the day, before the social media leviathan invaded the political arena, here’s the way some candidates for governor made their announcement.

The “fly-around.”

What the hey?

The candidate would usually begin the announcement day in front of the TV cameras in Detroit or Lansing and then usher their hopeful staff onto a chartered airplane and “fly around” the state to every other TV media market to make sure that as many voters as possible knew he or she was running for the state’s top job.

That meant at each stop the newly minted office seeker had to take questions from the media, which can be a risky proposition, but unless you had just gotten out of prison, the chances of a major blunder in front of the cameras on day one were pretty remote. The news hound truly appreciated the opportunity. Little was it known that these events would disappear.

With the advent of the Internet and instant access to a broad audience without having to rent an expensive plane, that jettisoned the fly-around into the hangar for good.

Which brings us to the latest “user” of this new method of communication, which by the way is a two-fer for politicians. It saves time and money, and it’s pretty darn hard for an enterprising/nosey reporter to cross-examine a piece of video or a written statement on Facebook.

His name is John James.

He ran twice for the Michigan U.S. Senate seat and lost to Debbie Stabenow and later Gary Peters. He eventually won a congressional seat from Macomb County, but now he wants a bigger chair in the state capitol.

The conservative Republican notes in his statement that he “prayed” on this decision and wants to correct all the wrongs the current governor has imposed on the state.

If he had held a live news conference with reporters, betya one of them would have asked, “Did God advise you to run?”

But he is not alone in controlling the announcement, thus reducing any chance of a slip-up.

It is a smart consultant-driven strategy as they would point out that nobody is listening at this early stage anyway, since the vote is not until November of 2026! Plus, there is plenty of time for the rough and tumble give and take as the campaign moves ahead. And of course, the handlers are spot on.

Former Democratic presidential candidate “The Hill”, Hillary Clinton, was the first major candidate to scrub the in-person announcement via video instead as did Kamala Harris.

But there are some who were not camera shy. Candidate Gretchen Whitmer did not fly around the state, but she did invite reporters into her East Lansing breakfast nook early one morning to say she was “in the race” and then hit other media markets.

Independent governor candidate Mike Duggan gave out selected newspaper interviews, but he didn’t come within a hundred miles of the state capitol, home to the blood-thirsty members of the Capitol Press Corps.

Democratic candidate Mallory McMorrow did a canned video announcement but quickly followed that up with a host of political reporter interviews, including a statewide Public TV exchange where she was grilled by four reporters.

Novice candidate and One Tough Nerd Rick Snyder did have the courage to run a bus around the state to announce, and he set up a podium in front of the state capitol steps and proceeded to give a less-than-sterling performance. In fact, he got on the bus and told his wife and kids, “I’m not doing that again.” Well, of course, he learned from that and went on to be governor.

It’s a free country, and office seekers are free to do whatever they want, and while the media may gripe, so be it.

But behind the griping is a strong desire by political journalists to get as much info as possible on candidates to fulfill their duty to provide you with the info you need to make a reasoned voting choice.

For the candidates, of course, that democratically worthy objective is not on their agenda. Their’s is way more self-serving: winning.