I've posted here on DYes about a couple of the Republican candidates I've voted for in the past when it was germane to the discussion. The majority of my associates from high school and undergrad were Republicans until recently. I converted as a teen in a church with a notable Detroit area pastor who is a die-hard member of the GOP... and former politician. Many of my friends voted GOP until the party went off the deep end, and some still can't bring themselves to vote for a liberal. I became more liberal only in my mid-20s when I started teaching at Cass Tech and as I began to question the reasons I was taught that Republican = Christian. Now I am definitely center left, but that was not always the case.
My folks went back and forth between the Dems and the Repubs until the insanity took hold in recent years. Milliken and old man Romney could not be elected dogcatcher in the Republican party today. Neither would Presidents Eisenhower or Nixon for that matter. Rick Snyder was endorsed by Milliken recently, lives in the same town that I do, is a self-proclaimed "nerd", and actually has a vision for the state:
http://www.rickformichigan.com/visio.../10-point-plan
He is attractive to many in my demographic... upwardly mobile, educated Gen-X and Millennial voters who are fed up with both parties, and are looking for politicians who aren't pandering to the far right or the far left, but willing to move beyond this 1960s era cultural war BS to find 21st century solutions for the problems that we face. I am looking for similar rhetoric from the Dem side and am not finding anything laid out so clearly.
You didn't answer my question about your dog whistling, by the way. Which "segment" were you talking about?