rick snyder.jpg

Gov. Rick Snyder compared what metro Detroiters are going through with Monday's flood to a leak in his lake house.

(The Associated Press)

Two women died during the epic rainstorm that roared through metro Detroit on Monday.

Thousands of basements have been flooded with raw sewage in Warren. Courts were shuttered to clean up the wreckage, as was the Detroit Zoo.

Five highways closed, as water threatened to submerge bridges overhead. Three days after the storm, lanes on I-94 closed again as the pavement cratered.

Little wonder the flooding made a splash in the national news, despite huge events unfolding in Iraq and Ferguson, Mo.

At times like these, people want leadership. And Gov. Rick Snyder has not exactly filled that role.

On Tuesday, CBS-Detroit ran this headline: "Gov. Snyder On Storm Cleanup: It's OK, We Were Prepared For This."

That wasn't exactly helpful.

These kinds of natural disasters are hellish for residents. Who expects I-696 to turn into a river, even with five inches of rain? Few people had flood insurance, because they don't live in Florida.

In Warren, 18,000 homes and buildings worth $1.2 billion were damaged.

Let's face it: No one was prepared for this.

Snyder didn't help matters by waiting a couple days to declare metro Detroit a disaster area -- something self-evident to the millions of people living there.

That was after Snyder's Democratic opponent in November, former U.S. Rep. Mark Schauer, had called for such action. Schauer smartly grabbed a mop and helped a Royal Oak senior citizen clean up her basement.

Then Snyder really veered into Mitt Romneyland with his cluelessness about what average Michiganders are going through.

"I've been through a lot of things like that," Snyder said on WJR-AM Wednesday. "We just recently had holes in our roof from storm damage to our lake house.

"We have a vacation place and we had a limb come down on the roof and had water running through the whole place; those experiences are not pleasant ones."

That comes on the heels of Snyder's housing director resigning for charging escargot and stretch limo rides to taxpayers. And Snyder's beloved Educational Achievement Authority (EAA) spent $178,000 on travel, while its former head had a chauffeur.

Those scandals haven't touched Snyder personally, however.

But his flood comments remind people that he's a multimillionaire former CEO with #firstworldproblems like lake house flooding.

The rich really are different.

Conservatives will jeer that calling him out is "punishing success." But consider their (correct) criticism of Hillary Clinton bewailing her family's financial "struggles."

So how does someone as smart as Snyder, who may not be a seasoned politician, but is relentlessly on message, make such an insensitive gaffe?

It's probably because he was lulled into a false sense of security in appearing on right-wing radio. Host Frank Beckmann isn't the enemy; he's openly supportive of Snyder and his policies.

Snyder sounded like he was talking to a friend on the back nine -- not giving a careful response to millions of Michiganders.

Naturally, critics had a field day. Liberal blogger Chris Savage (a.k.a. Eclectablog) led the charge with tweets that started an uncomplimentary hashtag:

Michigan GOP Chair Bobby Schostak tried to change the subject, blasting Schauer for "shooting from the hip." Others muttered that Schauer was exploiting the situation.

They're right. But Republicans know they have a problem here.

Look for some rebranding for "One Tough Nerd" as a man of the people in the coming months. No politician wants to look out-of-touch.

The only saving grace for Snyder is that this happened in August, not October. Maybe the memory of his gaffe will recede in time, just like Detroit's flood waters.

Susan J. Demas is Publisher and Editor of Inside Michigan Politics, a nationally acclaimed, biweekly political newsletter. She can be reached at susan@sjdemas.com. Follow her on Twitter here.