Republican U.S. Senate candidate Clark Durant raised eyebrows at Calvin College a week ago when the former Niles resident said the gulf between rich and poor should be wider.

Durant, 62, still fondly recalls Ralph Casperson’s book shop and Yankee/Carberry streets neighbor Doris Hunziker cooking dinner, with strawberry shortcake or brownies for dessert when he lived in Cass County while attending law school at the University of Notre Dame.
Putting his Grand Rapids point in context at Zeke’s in Dowagiac Wednesday evening, Durant said, “I don’t want the poor to get poorer or the rich to get richer, I want everybody to get wealthier. I told the kids, ‘Flip it on its side and make it wider, so everybody’s 1-percent talent, gift and innovation creates benefit for everybody.’ Rather than dividing people with the 1 percent against the 99 percent, I want to run a campaign that brings people together for the challenge in front of us.”
Durant, a Grosse Pointe charter school executive who founded Cornerstone Schools and a former Michigan Board of Education president, ran for Senate in 1990.
He is the fourth of five candidates to visit Cass County as guest of the 912 Tea Party, with former Congressman Pete Hoekstra, who lost the 2010 gubernatorial nod, coming in early December. The 2012 GOP nominee will face Democratic Sen. Debbie Stabenow seeking her third term.
“Our education system is failing our people,” Durant said.  “We are not allowing children to develop the full capacity of their gifts. All children can learn, but they all learn differently. You have to create more choices and opportunities to be successful. You can’t do that by having ‘one restaurant in town.’ The food won’t be as good, and it will cost you more. We have to expand choices for our kids to be better educated.”
Asked about tax breaks that cost the United States $1.2 trillion — more than $671 billion in discretionary spending, $744 billion in defense spending and even $1.1 trillion collected in income tax, Durant said, “Tax reform can’t be done piecemeal because the existing system does not allow capital and investment to grow — particularly by ordinary people. You’ve got to throw out the existing code and make some fundamental decisions about rewarding thrift, savings, investment. Don’t penalize people who create capital gains, whether they’re selling the family farm or a small business. We need more makers and fewer takers.”
Durant was a trustee with the state-owned Ann Arbor Railroad, “which should have been liquidated with close to $100 million in debt and claims and 14 labor unions, six major lawsuits and track that needed to be rehabilitated, but with the right team of people, put it into the private sector where 25 years later it’s still paying taxes, maintaining jobs and providing service. That was under a Democratic governor, Jim Blanchard.
“People are hungry for a different kind of leadership, willing to work with all kinds of people to solve problems as opposed to this entitlement and entanglement state crushing our economy and our children and at risk of imploding. One reason I decided to get into this race was our youngest son saying my self-indulgent generation, both Republicans and Democrats, caused our country to be on the verge of economic collapse, going back 40 years. He reminded me that when you make a mistake, you correct it; when you break something, you fix it; and when you start something, you finish it and get it right,” Durant said.
“People ought to throw out irresponsible career politicians. Pete Hoekstra’s a good guy, but just like Debbie Stabenow, he’s voted time and again to increase spending, debt limit and earmarks, and he’s conservative? We get the government we vote for.” Jobs come through innovation that only comes from the private sector. People taking risks with ideas they think will work. President Obama missed a great opportunity as a man with little experience who articulated a powerful vision to unite and grow our country. He threw it away.”