Did Michigan Attorney General Bill Scheutte just kick off his gubernatorial campaign?

I don't claim any special political analyst powers. But when I read about today's news conference featuring the unlikely pairing of Attorney General Bill Scheutte and Detroit Police Chief Ralph Godbee, I wondered if something more than law enforcement was going on here.

To be fair, it wasn't just the Republican Scheutte and the presumably Democratic Godbee at the Lansing news conference. A number of police chiefs and county prosecutors came together to address the growing problem of violent crime in the state.

Flint and Detroit lead the nation in violent crime, according to recent FBI statistics.

Gov. Rick Snyder said in his State of the State speech last week that fighting crime will be a focus of his administration this year. He plans to issue a special message to the Legislature on the topic in March.

But Scheutte seemingly jumped ahead of the governor, a fellow Republican, during the news conference.



The attorney general said he wants $140 million of the state's $475 million budget surplus to be used to hire 1,000 police officers statewide. Snyder has not yet said how or if that surplus should be spent.

Several of my Lansing friends have told me Schuette does want to be governor someday. He's built a political resume full of elected and appointed positions, and his political ambitions still seem hot.

Schuette has been a U.S. congressman, a state senator, state Agriculture Department director and a state appeals court judge. He also served as one of many Republican sacrificial lambs who tried to unseat U.S. Sen. Carl Levin.

I have no personal knowledge that Scheutte intends to seek the governor's office in 2014. But if he does decide to run, we might look back on today's news conference as the unofficial start of his campaign.