Rough Start for Republicans

September 3, 2010

Rick Snyder pulled an Andy Dillon the other day. Recall that Democrat Dillon’s maiden news conference for governor was just a sandwich short of a bust.

Well, it was not quite that bad, but Mr. Snyder’s cracker-jack team looked slightly inept when the party faithful showed up at the Breslin Center for the GOP convention. Some “mistakes” were made, party chair Ron Weiser sheepishly professed.

The credentialing of delegates sort of broke down, not to mention that the ushering of folks into the Bres was not a work of art. Some waited in line from two to three hours to get in. If the Snyder folks had a business plan for getting them in, it failed.

But give them the benefit of the doubt on logistics, since more persons showed up than expected. Mr. Weiser contends that proves how GOP folks are geeked about this election cycle. But on the other hand, a good business guy would have anticipated a worst-case scenario.

That notwithstanding, the scrum the Snyder guys had with the Tea Party bunch was a little more serious and problematic.

The night before the convention, about 500 TPers assembled in a Baptist church. After the minister blessed everyone, they got down to business, which was to influence the outcome of the GOP convention the next day.

Gene Clem, the sort of self-anointed “leader,” had visions of molding a coalition to pick the winners and losers, even if Mr. Snyder disagreed.

Half way into the mini convention, another strategy emerged. The guy at the back of the church was handing out a yellow sheet. It made for some interesting reading, as the rhetoric proceeded to pick Brain Calley apart.

The Portland lawmaker was, of course, Mr. Snyder’s choice for lieutenant governor.

“Brian Calley is not a conservative,” the literature asserted. “Rick Snyder cannot win in November with the same number of votes he received in August. He needs to ensure that disenfranchised West Michigan voters…and true conservatives do not stay home on November 2nd.”

Oh my.

One woman who backed the ABC movement (Anybody But Calley), remarked that she was in no mood to have this nomination shoved down her throat by Snyder or anybody else from the GOP establishment.

“This is our decision, not Mr. Snyder’s,” she argued. Well, the Tea Party contingency finished their convention and proceeded the next day to make headlines by disrupting the Snyder-Calley coronation.

It was good theater, but bad politics. The number one objective of a convention is to foster a unity message.

So much for that story line. But it could have been worse.

When the party “regulars” got wind of what was coming down, they went to Mr. Snyder the night before and suggested he swiftly move to put the kibosh on this mini revolt in the making.

Snyder said no. Had he said yes, the mini revolt among these fiercely independent delegates would have exploded into something more dangerous.

This is what democracy is all about, Mr. Snyder advised.

And when the dust settled, Calley got elected. But the damage was done.

“If he can’t run a Republican convention, how can he run the state?” Democratic Party Chair Mark Brewer intoned to any reporter who would listen.

The only thing missing from the attack was a picture of Mr. Snyder sleeping.

Tim Skubick is Michigan’s Senior Capitol correspondent and has anchored the weekly public TV series “Off the Record” since 1972. He also covers the Capitol and politics for WLNS-TV6 in Lansing.

Tim Skubick Extra Extra… (A weekly bonus only for Dome readers)

Conventions: Two Faces
With apologies to rock and roller Lou Christie, who sang “Two Faces Have I,” there are two faces to every political convention.

The first is the one the political operatives orchestrate for the best possible message about the candidate for governor. They call it image making. And there was plenty of that in Detroit last weekend as state Democrats launched their 2010 ticket.

Candidate Virg Bernero entered the arena to the strains of “Gonna Fly Now” from the motion picture Rocky. If you got the connection that the Virg was a fighter, the image makers would be smiling.

But there’s face number two that the handlers are not so anxious to promote, because it removes some of the sheen from their image polishing. In Detroit that can be summed up in one word: anxiety.

Be certain here, nobody has tossed in the towel on Rocky…err…Mr. Bernero, but there is an undercurrent. Some fear he might not do well, which could adversely impact the rest of the ticket.

Several folks would talk about that angle, but if you reached for the microphone or TV camera, they tightened up like a New England clam. One Democrat was especially good at dancing around the elephant — or should one say, donkey — in the room.

Rep. Woodrow Stanley (D-Flint) wants to be speaker of the House, and as such he is closely monitoring all of his colleagues who are running for re-election. To be blunt, if Bernero tanks, those House Ds could be in trouble, especially those in districts where the Republicans have a shot at winning.

Stanley, to his credit, conceded the point but quickly added that he does not expect that to happen. And others were in the same boat.

But then there was Rep. Bert Johnson (D-Detroit). He did not waffle. He said Mr. Bernero has 30 days to prove he can cut into the lead of Republican Rick Snyder. If that does not happen, it’s every man for himself.

State Democratic Party Chair Mark Brewer disagrees with Mr. Johnson. Naturally.

See why they want to keep a mask on that face?

DJ on High Court
When’s the last time a disc jockey got a seat on the Michigan Supreme Court? Don’t bother scrambling for the history books, the answer is “never.”

Say hello to Alton Thomas Davis, the former appeals court judge from Up North. Last week in a stunner of an announcement, former Justice Betty Weaver finally resigned from the high court and worked her magic with Governor Granholm to get Davis the job.

But here’s a chance to impress your family and friends. In a moment you will know his unusual air name when he played records (you remember records, don’t you?) on an FM station in Petoskey years ago.

Tom Davis was attending college and doing a bang-up job on the debate team. A wealthy business man had just purchased a 50,000-watt FM station and was scurrying around for a disc jockey. He called the college and asked for somebody who could talk on the radio. Davis filled the bill and found himself in front of a microphone for the first time.

Back then, being on an FM station was not what it is today. Most folks did not have the FM band on their radios, and AM ruled the world. Davis figured that out as he often wondered, “Is anybody out there listening?”

Nonetheless, he did so well that the boss promoted him, if you can call it a promotion. He got to anchor what they affectionately refer to as the graveyard shift from midnight to 6 a.m.

What kind of music did you play? he was asked.

“Anything I liked, [and] early in the morning I played music for the farmers and the cows,” he said with a hearty laugh.

Being the top jock in that time slot finally gave way to his desire to practice law, and thus ended his show biz career.

But the “Red Baron” will go down in history as the first radio announcer to find his way to the state’s highest court.

And now, as Paul Harvey would say, you know the rest of the story.

Political Feast

by John Lindstrom
Gongwer News Service
September 3, 2010

It has always been a wonder why it is the American people feel the need to moan about the length of election campaigns. The exhaustion they emote when a campaign ad airs on television. The way they rend their garments when politicians speak on the news. The way they cry out in anguish about the campaigns being so long, and why are they so long?

To that last question there is a simple answer: we always know when the next election will be. Hey kids, look at a calendar and in the U.S. it’s a dead cert that the first Tuesday after the first Monday of November of an even-numbered year will feature an election. What other major democracy can make that claim? Britain? Japan? New Zealand? Lichtenstein? Well, okay, they do in Mexico, but otherwise?

Because we Americans are lucky enough to always know when our next leaders will be named by us (sort of like always knowing when dinner will be served), we are also lucky enough to be the beneficiaries of a giant political-electoral complex that is focused wholly and solely on winning campaigns.

And with November 2 barely two months away, and with the bill-of-fare for both parties now established, it is high season for the political campaign industry. For those who follow politics, we are now in the feast. For the rest, we are into statewide heartburn.

But while Democrat Virg Bernero and Republican Rick Snyder duke it out for governor, and Republicans and Democrats warn the public of the coming apocalypse should the other side win, there is a second more subtle campaign underway. It’s not exactly a secret campaign, but it is hardly one the general public is paying attention to while they munch on the electoral goodies.

The first campaign is obvious: the campaign to win office. That’s what all the money is about. That’s what all the shouting is about. Politics, as has been said, is show business for ugly people, and it is show time, folks. This campaign is about winning the hearts and minds of the voter.

The second campaign is really about the hearts and minds of the candidates. In truth, it’s really more about the minds of the candidates. And while this campaign is underway now, it will really get going the moment the election is done and the winners have finished sweeping away the confetti.

This campaign is about the effort groups all across the state, representing every possible point of view, are taking to make sure candidates and eventual winners understand their particular industry, their specific educational situation, their lands and environment, and the challenges and problems they face — and, by extension, the state faces.

This campaign is similar to the first campaign in some ways. There are going to be lit drops. Most people will have to contend with thousands of postcards and brochures blanketing neighborhoods, introducing the candidates and why they will balance the budget without raising taxes or cutting services, how they will ensure the state is awash with good-paying jobs while ensuring businesses are the most competitive ever, about how they will protect the environment and minimize unreasonable environmental regulation, about how they will get more money for schools and ensure that the schools are tough and every little kiddie gets nothing but As.

In the second campaign, the lit drops will consist of one or two background briefings or position papers for each issue, probably running in the end to thousands of pages, talking about how to balance the budget, about how to build businesses, protect the environment and promote economic development, and boost education.

In the first campaign, candidates will come knocking on doors, glad-handing voters, agreeing to everything the voter mutters darkly about while trying to turn the conversation to his or her basic campaign-speak.

In the second campaign, dozens if not hundreds of scholars, lobbyists, association heads, and wonks will come knocking at the door of the winning candidates, or the designated grandee to receive these callers. The callers will offer hearty handclasps, and nod earnestly and sincerely and concur enthusiastically at whatever the candidate or designated grandee says while they try to emphasize the critical importance of their issues and concerns to the state’s future.

During the first campaign, the candidates and their handlers will watch carefully and listen critically to what the voters seem to say, what issues worry them most, what items in the news will make them upset or enthusiastic. The candidates will attempt to seize on those issues, concerns and sentiments, building an identity with the voters based on their mutual concern or fear or disgust or excitement and weaving their message into the fabric of the moment.

In the second campaign, the policy operatives — be they scholars, lobbyists, association heads, wonks — will listen and study what the candidates say with singular intensity, able to parse each phrase and work it into their overall theme so that it will be irrelevant how far apart the candidate and wonks are at the beginning of the campaign. Because by campaign’s end they will largely be side by side, or at least close enough to win a hearing with the candidate.

None of this is intended as cynicism. It is the reality of politics. Someone will win, someone will have to have policies prepared to show the public he is ready to lead the moment he takes the oath, and someone, therefore, must help them develop the policies they will unveil. And during the first campaign the candidate’s mind is generally on more pressing electoral matters. So once the election is over, the candidate has to turn his or her attention to the issues he or she will be expected to deal with expertly.

Possibly the best public, historical example of how the second campaign works was the wonkstock gathering then-President-elect Bill Clinton held after the 1992 election. He and his soon-to-be vice president, Al Gore, sat at a large circular table while scholars, lobbyists, association heads and wonks sounded off for several minutes each on the issues they were concerned about.

Talk to, once again, scholars, lobbyists, association heads and wonks and you will hear about how papers on all manner of issues are being prepared.

Right now, the focus on preparing and presenting those issue papers seems geared toward Republican Rick Snyder. In part, that is because his lack of considerable government experience means interests see him as a clean slate to instruct and possibly influence.

For the most part, however, the focus is on Mr. Snyder because he has the heavy early lead in the polls, and most scholars, lobbyists, association heads and wonks (look, let’s just call them SLAW from now on) think his is a lead too formidable at this point to completely fritter away by November 2.

No one is ignoring Mr. Bernero, not entirely anyway, not yet. But the SLAW wants to see if he can build up some momentum and begin eating into Mr. Snyder’s lead before they prepare to slather him as well with their concerns, observations and literary exhortations on issues (see, the COLE for the SLAW). He does have the advantage in one sense of having had experience on a number of issues, so perhaps Mr. Bernero does not need the same backgrounding as Mr. Snyder. However, from the SLAW’s perspective, Mr. Bernero also has the disadvantage of having had experience on issues and so may be less open to their concerns, observations…right, right, the COLE.

For the voter it is important to realize that this COLE SLAW campaign is in many ways as important as the first campaign, the appetizer campaign so-to-say, because from the COLE SLAW the winning candidate begins to develop his or her appetite for the main course: the term of office to follow.

And the voters can have a taste of that campaign as well. Instead of being too salty and sour when talking to candidates, they can be better seasoned, more marinated in their views, which could draw out the candidates more. Likewise, the voters can pepper the different groups and associations they share the table with, issue-wise, with their own bucket of COLE, the better to fatten those laddies and lassies up for their intellectual chew with the winners.

As we masticate through this election, let us not forget, however, that politics is not just something to complain about: it is a giant banquet table filled with everything good and bad for you. And in our country, we always know when the next groaning hoard will be spread before us.

As that great gustatory political scientist Julia Child would have said: “bon appétit.”

John Lindstrom is publisher of Gongwer News Service. For nearly 50 years in Michigan, Gongwer News Service has provided independent, comprehensive, accurate and timely coverage of issues in and around Michigan’s government and political systems. For subscription information, including a free trial, visit Gongwer online.

The China Wave

September 1, 2010

Even before Lansing Mayor Virg Bernero secured the Democratic nomination for governor, he and his party started replaying the “shipped jobs to China” mantra against Republican nominee and business executive Rick Snyder. That rhetoric worked to help to defeat the Republican candidate for governor in 2006, so repeating the tactic was hardly a surprise.

In 2010 more than ever, we need less political rhetoric and more solid plans to get Michigan working again. China bashing is not a plan.

Michigan needs a governor who will stop playing Peking “duck” with the second largest economy in the world. We simply cannot afford to have another governor who claims he or she will “go anywhere and do anything for jobs” and then avoid China — the fastest growing large economy on the planet — for political reasons.

As you read this, I will be returning to China promoting “Pure Michigan” as a great place for tourism, education and investment. During the multiple trips I have taken there over the past two decades (particularly the past two years) to meet with top government, business and academic officials, I have never heard them suggest they would slow down the pace of change in their country because of troubles in America or Michigan.

While we complain, they are marching forward.

I am not predicting the demise of Michigan or America. We can thrive with the right leadership. That’s why I have been and will remain a modern-day Paul Revere, warning that “China is coming, China is coming.” We must find ways to assure that their continued economic rise does not come at the expense of our workers and our economy. Investment in education and skill development will be our salvation.

While we may have little chance or desire to stop China’s rise (imagine the chaos if one-fifth of the world’s population stumbled), we should be focused on preventing our own downfall. There is no need for the American/Michigan boat to sink because of the China tide.

In a recent Economist magazine article it was suggested that the continued rise of the Chinese economy and increased pay for Chinese workers is likely to benefit the world economy: “A 20-percent rise in Chinese consumption might well lead to an extra $25 billion of American exports. That could create 200,000 American jobs.” This would be good news indeed. There is much in Michigan, from agricultural products to autos, that the rising Chinese middle class wants and needs.

As a nation and state we must stop behaving like the frog sitting in a pan of water, unaware of the rising temperature that will boil us to death if we don’t take action.

If China threatened us militarily, there would be a call to arms. But this equally serious economic threat is methodically building through that country’s investments in education, R&D, technology and infrastructure, and its trade policies and fresh investments in innovative “green” energy initiatives.

China is investing in its future while we are not doing enough to invest in ours. A Michigan policy of whining about China while disinvesting in our people is a recipe for disaster.

Michigan is great for many reasons, but especially because we have always worked hard to invest in the potential of our people. But there exists no divine right that America or any of her states stay on top. We have been witnessing the economic slide of Michigan for some time.

Michigan has been slicing its state budget like a veg-o-matic much of the past “lost decade,” disinvesting in education from pre-K-12 on up to our community colleges and universities.

The money that does make it to the schools only props up unsustainable pensions and health care plans that exceed what is available in the private sector. Further, America has rung up an alarming national deficit.

According to The Washington Post, in the 2010 fiscal year the federal government is projected to collect $2.2 trillion in taxes and spend $3.6 trillion.

Too much of our dwindling tax resources are invested in propping up the past rather than investing in the future. To invest in education, training and technological advances without significantly raising taxes will require eliminating some of the status quo in favor of investing in programs with long-term paybacks.

The father of power politics, Niccolo Machiavelli, captured the essence of the battle to upset the status quo when he wrote in 1532, “There is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things.”

But “a new order of things” is exactly what this state and nation need.

The best predictor of a state’s wealth is the proportion of adults with a four-year degree. Of the top 10 states in college education attainment, nine are in the top 12 in per capita income.

Michigan has fallen from 18th in per capita income in 2000 to 37th in 2008 and has not improved its position the last two years.

A quarter of Michigan’s high school students don’t graduate in four years, and many who do graduate are not prepared for the rigors of higher education.

Talent and education matter. A major challenge for Michigan to overcome in our economic struggle is our 34th-place ranking in terms of four-year degree attainment.

The educational pipeline is equally troubling. What is transpiring in Detroit, Michigan’s largest city and school district, should be considered educational genocide. If the dropout rate were considered a public health issue, it would be branded an epidemic, and its test scores are the worst in the nation.

Clearly the needle is moving in the wrong direction if, as a state, we wish to regain our economic health. In a global, knowledge economy, a state or nation that is uneducated is destined to be poor.

The economy we once had, one that enabled someone to drop out of school, walk onto the factory floor and into the middle class, is gone, never to return. While this is not what battered Michigan workers, whether blue or white collar, want to hear, no job in Michigan is safe from competition from around the globe.

This is true regardless of whether the Angry Democrat or the Tough Nerd Republican becomes our next governor. Technology and a globally connected economy are here to stay. Our hope and opportunity rest in how we, as individuals, and our political/government leaders adjust to this shifting reality.

During Mao’s days leading the Red Army against the Nationalist Troops of Chiang Kai-shek, he was fond of saying: “You fight your battle, I’ll fight mine.“

Those close to Mao knew this to mean he would not fight a reactive battle but would construct his own strategy to make the enemy suffer. He would maximize his smaller numbers through surprise in order to fight against the larger and seemingly superior enemy.

We could certainly learn from Mao’s strategy.

With strategic thinking and strong leadership, the opportunity exists for the U.S. to turn Mao’s philosophy to our advantage. While we may never be able to compete on an even footing against China’s sheer billions of people, our advantage has been and always will be our freedom to imagine, innovate and create. This country’s entrepreneurial spirit has allowed us to out-work and out-invest our competitors using education and R&D.

America can once again rise as the brain bank of the world — a place for others to deposit and withdraw intellectual capital.

We are slipping and need to regain our traction in these endeavors if we wish to remain on top of the world’s economic mountain and not be knocked too far off the peak.

I am proud to be an American, but also am cognizant of our historical and contemporary mistakes. So, too, on many occasions I have written about the challenges that China faces: treatment of Falun Gong members and Tibetan and Uyghur minorities; the lack of an open, honest and free press; pollution; corruption; the lack of fair and open trade; theft of intellectual property — just to name a few.

The Chinese are sensitive to any criticism they feel interferes with their internal affairs, core interests or sovereignty. While dramatically improved since my first visit to China in 1989, critical inquiry and free reporting remain a foreign concept for China when it comes to sensitive subjects like the Falun Gong movement, Tibet, the 1989 Tiananmen Square uprising, the South China Sea, Uyghur, Taiwan, and other topics perceived to impact the “harmonious society” — open discussion of which can quickly land you in a Chinese prison, or worse.

Yet, on many other issues, China is progressing while we are stuck. Consider:

• China is on course to overtake the United States as the world’s largest economy around 2025, according to the World Bank.
• The Chinese economy, the fastest growing large economy in the world, has been growing at double digits for more than two decades.
• China invests hundreds of billions in modern infrastructure — everything from high-speed rail to roads, dams, sea and air ports, utilities and power plants.
• They are investing heavily in green energy technology — solar, wind and battery, and seem intent on winning the “green race.”
• China is not content to be “factory of the world” and is investing in higher education and knowledge workers to become the “innovation nation.”
• The Chinese are underwriting the huge U.S. national debt our leaders have been ringing up for the past decade, a debt on steroids today.

In the July 29 issue of Fortune magazine, Geoff Colvin, senior editor-at-large, wrote: “Americans should be alarmed, not because we have to beat the Chinese on every statistic, but because those facts [numbers of engineers and other knowledge workers in China] threaten the heart of our great economic story.

Ouch!

Colvin continues, “For America’s great economic story to continue, we need to reverse the downward spiral now, before it picks up speed. That means changing our culture.”

We must sound the alarm that we are competing in an unpredictable, disruptive, transformative world where others want a slice of the American pie we have grown accustomed to keeping for ourselves.

China and other countries are turning up the heat. If we do nothing we will be poached, if not boiled alive.

We know what we must do: invest in education and support innovation and creativity, ingenuity and hard work. The problem is we are not doing this.

Our challenge is to invest in the American people and our collective future, not cling to past glory. Our relative prosperity over the years has led to pomposity and complacency that, if not addressed, will lead to our continued decline.

The time to act is now. Waiting much longer will certainly assure we come in second in the economic war of the 21st century. We know what coming in second means — it makes us a first loser.

Our day of reckoning has arrived — time to sink or swim!

Tom Watkins is an education and business consultant in the U.S. and China and served as Michigan’s state superintendent of schools from 2001-2005.

(Also see Dome’s September 2009 feature “China Bridge” by Watkins for a detailed focus on China.)

Hiding the Real Problems in Education

by Stephen A. Jones
September 1, 2010

Of all the experiments being tried in the name of education reform, the one for which I’m most interested in seeing the results is beginning this fall at Barbara Jordan Elementary School in Detroit.

At Barbara Jordan Elementary, there will be no principal — the school is to be run by the teachers. Moreover, the school’s staff will have an unusual level of autonomy to make their own decisions about curriculum, purchase of supplies, building repairs and even hiring.

The approach has been tried in a few other cities, such as Los Angeles and Boston, but it is still too new to make a clear assessment of its effectiveness. Barbara Jordan Elementary appears to be the first teacher-led school in Michigan.

The cynic in me suspects education policy makers may have approved this approach as a potential cost saver. By eliminating the principal you can cut out what is normally the highest salary in the building. And autonomy at the building level could, if expanded to multiple schools in a large district, eventually eliminate a level or two of administrative bureaucracy.

But the idealist in me hopes that it marks a turning point in the debate over school reform — a refocusing of our educational system on the relationship between students and teachers.

In March, Newsweek ran a cover story titled, “The Key to Saving American Education.” That headline was superimposed over a chalkboard on which was written (by some recalcitrant student kept after school?) endless repetitions of the statement: “We must fire bad teachers.”

In other words, teachers are the real source of all our educational problems.

I’ll be honest: I found that cover so offensive that I still have difficulty speaking calmly about it.

I come from a family of teachers. I have known teachers as family friends, as my instructors, as colleagues — or as some combination of the three — for all of my nearly 60 years of life. I taught for 10 years in a Detroit high school and have worked, at least briefly, in at least five other school districts. In addition, a significant portion of my journalism career has been spent reporting on education.

I’m here to tell you, teachers are not the problem.

Are there bad teachers? Absolutely. Should bad teachers be removed from the classroom? Certainly.

But find me a profession that doesn’t have bad practitioners. Doctors? Lawyers? Clergy? Restaurant cooks? Auto dealers? Investment bankers? Please.

Teachers are easy to blame because they are so central to the educational enterprise. And they are an appealing target for those whose political agenda is to do away with public education; painting teachers and their unions as villains helps weaken opposition to that agenda. The attacks seem plausible to most people because most have encountered a teacher, sometime in their lives, whom they did not consider good. Of course, the same could be said of doctors, lawyers, restaurant cooks, etc.

The real problem, though, is that taking the easy out by blaming teachers obscures the true nature of the difficulty facing our schools.

For example, let’s look at the state’s list of “persistently lowest achieving schools” that was released in August. The list used standardized test results (that’s an issue for another time) over the last four years to identify 92 schools that have failed to meet federal standards (yet another issue) for student performance. These schools must be “improved” by one of four federally mandated methods — one of which involves firing the principal and half the teachers. (The floggings will continue until morale improves!)

But let’s set aside my nagging little caveats and just look at the list of “failing” schools. Nearly half of the schools on the list are in the Detroit Public School District. Nearly all of the rest are in cities — such as Grand Rapids, Lansing, Flint, Saginaw, Pontiac, Warren, Kalamazoo, River Rouge, Inkster, Ypsilanti — that have substantial low-income and/or minority group populations.

So what does that tell us?

First of all, it tells us that the crisis in American education may not be so all-encompassing as the sound and fury of the public policy pundits would lead us to believe. While any school will have its problems, the most severe difficulties appear to be focused in urban districts that serve low-income populations — in which, not coincidentally, minority groups happen to be disproportionately represented.

Lesson No. 1: Be wary of hyped-up atmospheres of fear and panic because they can lead to bad decisions. (See Iraq War.)

So maybe the key problem facing American schools isn’t bad teachers. Maybe just firing da bums won’t produce better education.

But if the enemy isn’t teachers, if the enemy is, instead, the persistent pernicious and devastating impact of poverty on a large portion of our nation’s children — especially minority children — how do we go about improving education?

Lesson No. 2: Keep your eyes on the prize.

We start by recognizing that while schools may help students get an education they can use to rise out of poverty, schools cannot solve the problem of poverty. Therefore, it makes no sense to punish schools and teachers for not doing something they are unable to do.

Let’s create a program of school reform that is based on encouragement and support rather than degrading labels and punishment. The magazine Educational Leadership ran a cover recently that parodied that Newsweek cover. The headline read, “The Key To Changing The Teaching Profession.” On the chalkboard was the repeated phrase, “We must support good teachers.”

That means doing what we can to promote smaller schools, lower class sizes and greater access to resources for troubled schools — anything we can think of to build strong and supportive relationships between students and their teachers, because that is what makes the difference in learning.

Maybe we should even think about giving teachers — who know best the needs of their students — more control over the way our schools run.

That’s why I look to the experiment at Barbara Jordan Elementary with hopeful optimism. It’s an experiment that good teachers devised and fought for. And the best interests of the children are at its heart.

Stephen A. Jones is a Detroit resident and assistant professor of History at Central Michigan University. He is co-editor with Eric Freedman of African Americans in Congress: A Documentary History (Congressional Quarterly Press).

Reckless Love Affair

by Susan J. Demas
September 1, 2010

Attention, teenage girls. Are you bored? Not sure what to do with your life? Do you want your boyfriend to marry you so you can live happily ever after?

Better yet, do you want to be popular? Have magazine covers devoted to you? Even end up on a kickass reality show and make lots of money?

Then go ahead. Have sex with your boyfriend. And whatever you do, don’t use a condom. Think of the beautiful kids you crazy kids will have.

It’s hard not to take away that message when you look at the life of Bristol Palin, 19, the eldest daughter of failed vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin. Even for those of us bored silly by the Alaskan apple-cheeked teen mom, it’s hard to get away from her with the constant stream of magazine covers and “news” stories.

Two years ago, Bristol’s pregnancy was inauspiciously announced in the middle of the presidential campaign. It was hard not to feel sorry for the then-17-year-old then and even her oafish high school dropout boyfriend having their poor judgment dragged into the national spotlight.

One had to wonder why Bristol’s parents and John McCain’s campaign would want to subject her to that. When I read that some McCain staffers were pushing a fall wedding to boost the ticket’s chances, my stomach turned.

But my, my, has Ms. Palin recovered nicely. First there were Us Weekly and People magazine spreads on the whole Palin clan. Thanks to her mom’s $150,000 campaign shopping spree, Bristol had a very stylish maternity wardrobe. Bonus.

After giving birth to her son, Tripp, she made a boo-boo and let it slip that abstinence isn’t really practical for teens (she should know). But as soon as the pro-abstinence Candie’s Foundation came knocking, she changed her tune. Now she makes up to $14,000 per speech telling teens not to get it on. And she appeared on some ABC Family Channel sitcom playing herself.

Not bad for a Wasilla girl with no college degree.

And now, by golly, she’ll be on “Dancing with the Stars.” No one has bothered to say why Palin qualifies to be a “star” (but then again, they’ve also enlisted some orangish reality teevee meathead who actually goes by the moniker “The Situation”).

But it’s clear why Palin signed on. She told the E! channel that she “wants to have fun in California for awhile.”

Awesome. One can only hope that Sasha and Malia Obama are taking notes. I’m sure the world will embrace a couple of African-American gals having babies out of wedlock and would never dream of blaming their parents.

Good thing the media aren’t actually reporting the facts on teenage pregnancy as they breathlessly detail Bristol’s fun and flirty wardrobe. That would be a bummer.

So here’s the deal. Kids born to teen moms are nine times as likely to be poor. Half of all teen mothers end up on welfare — three-quarters if they’re not married. Teen childbearing costs taxpayers more than $7 billion each year.

That’s right. If your mom isn’t the former governor of Alaska with a multimillion-dollar book deal and a contract with Fox News, you might not be on easy street if you get knocked up during your sophomore year.

But wait, there’s more. Babies born to teen moms are 21 percent more likely to be underweight and less likely to receive sufficient health care. Child abuse rates are 50 percent higher for teen moms.

And their kids do worse in school — they are 50 percent more likely to have to repeat a grade. So their chance of escaping the life of poverty you’ve so generously provided them is slim.

As for your life, well, forget it. Only one-third of teen moms get their high school diploma. And only 1.5 percent have a college degree by 30.

I haven’t seen the statistics, but I’m guessing your chances of appearing on a sleazy network teevee show are worse than winning the lottery.

If the tabloids and celebrity mags want to ignore this grim reality, that’s not a surprise. But when Politico, The Washington Post and Newsweek glorify Bristol Palin in the name of capturing more almighty page views, that’s a sad commentary on the state of the media today.

Funny, with as much as Sarah Palin whines about the awful liberal media, she never seems to mind the fawning coverage of her daughter.

So how would the Michigan media report on a governor’s teenage daughter getting pregnant? Honestly, I can’t see this being something the Capitol press corps would salivate over. Maybe some newspapers would play coverage high online, but that’s about it.

Actually, I could see some papers using it as the backdrop for an issue story on teen pregnancies. About one-third of all births are out of wedlock now. In some Michigan communities, that statistic is far higher — something of which groups like local United Ways are very conscious.

Out of fairness, Bristol isn’t the first rich teen mom the national media have glorified. There was Jamie Lynn Spears, best known as Britney’s younger sister, who got pregnant at 16 and graced several magazine covers. Cantankerous conservative Bill O’Reilly blasted her for destroying America, but declared everyone needs to leave poor Bristol Palin alone.

That’s been the message from much of the right-wing media, which fervently defend their own. Decades ago, conservatives would shame teen moms, who would often stay with nuns or relatives through their pregnancies and selflessly give up their babies for adoption. Now that teen pregnancy is so prevalent, even in the Bible Belt, the rules have changed. Right-wingers choose to celebrate young girls who show off their baby bumps because they haven’t had abortions.

So Bristol Palin is a hero. And she looks to have lost most of the baby weight.

Looks like I just found a new role model for my 8-year-old.

Susan J. Demas is a 2006 Knight Foundation Fellow in nonprofits journalism and a political analyst for Michigan Information & Research Service.

The Kwame Bleed

September 3, 2010

DETROIT — A year ago, there were lots of reasons to think Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox would be the next governor.

The son of working-class Irish immigrants joined the Marines, put himself through the University of Michigan’s college and law school, and then was elected attorney general, the only Republican to win that office in Michigan in a half century.

He owned several compelling and popular issues, including efforts to make deadbeat parents pay child support, and, most recently, he led Michigan’s efforts to fight against Asian carp.

Mike Cox had big endorsements, name recognition, and campaign cash. Yet, in the end, he finished a weak third, behind Rick Snyder, the Ann Arbor venture capitalist who came out of nowhere, and U.S. Rep. Pete Hoekstra, from the western side of the state.

What happened?

The attorney general himself has no doubt: “I had to deal with the Kwame bleed,” meaning efforts to tie him to Detroit’s famously corrupt ex-mayor, Kwame Kilpatrick.

His opponents indeed hinted that he was too close to the former mayor, didn’t adequately investigate the long-rumored Manoogian Mansion “party,” and that both men were part of a corrupt network of Wayne County politicians.

Cox thought that wouldn’t stick — in part because it was his office that, in the end, was the mayor’s final downfall. After Kilpatrick assaulted two sheriff’s deputies, he filed the charges that led to the mayor resigning and taking a plea.

“I could have made this all go away by insisting on being in court and arguing the case myself,” he said. “But I didn’t do that — I thought Kym Worthy [the Wayne County prosecutor] had the right to do it, and I ended up paying for it.”

As for the legendary party, which allegedly featured strippers, sex acts, and an assault on an exotic dancer by the mayor‘s wife — Cox doubts it ever occurred.

For one thing, no credible witnesses have ever been found who say they were there. “There’s no evidence. As a prosecutor, how can I ethically charge anybody? What could I charge them with?”

It does seem hard to imagine — in our blabbermouth, Oprah world — that someone wouldn’t have talked.

But the party is now an accepted urban legend.

And others have a different take on the primary election, especially Hoekstra, who said on public TV’s Off the Record that his one consolation was that he finished ahead of Cox, whom he plainly despises. He accused the attorney general of running a vicious and nasty campaign right from the start.

“Positive campaigning is nice and wins good government awards, but never works,” said Cox, who reflected and added. “Look, I would have loved to have been positive, but I had to deal with the Kwame [attacks] started by Rick Snyder.”

“He put Kwame next to me in his first ad on the Super Bowl; he ended his campaign in Detroit with a group picture of me, Ella Bully Cummings [Kilpatrick’s pliant police chief] and Kwame.”

“And you know what — it worked for him.”

That may be true. But the attorney general and his supporters also ran a series of nasty ads attacking first Hoekstra, who for a while seemed to be his main opposition, and then Snyder.

Rick Snyder, who has never run for office before, then shrewdly said he would refuse to participate in further debates. This seemed to give the impression that he was not a “politician.”

Voters weary of negativity and squabbling seem to have turned to him. Many Democrats and independents apparently crossed party lines to vote for him as well, as the lesser of two evils.

In the end, the newcomer won easily.

Cox is still shell-shocked from his loss and unhappy with the media‘s treatment of his campaign. He notes that he did, early on, put out a detailed plan with ideas for revitalizing Michigan.

“Yet the press would never read or report on it; never analyze it or ask questions.” That, unfortunately, is largely true.

But Cox didn’t spend enough time telling his own story, either. He does, in fact, have an appreciation for and a knowledge of Detroit that is far deeper than that of most suburban politicians.

He was a shrewd litigator who, as a young lawyer, managed to quickly rise to head Wayne County’s homicide section, and he got a reputation for taking on the hard cases.

Nor has he forgotten his own middle-class roots. He noted that while other Republicans party with the swells, he prefers to “hang out in Livonia at Murphy’s on Seven Mile with just regular guys and gals.”

But little or none of that came out in this campaign. Today, he is a bit dazed. He never expected to lose, and made no fallback plan.

He thinks he’ll just go to work practicing law. But at age 48, he’s still more than young enough to run for office again.

My guess is the odds are that there will be a next time. If there is, one wonders which Mike Cox we will see.

Veteran journalist and national Emmy Award winner Jack Lessenberry teaches at Wayne State University, serves as Michigan Radio’s senior political analyst and writes regularly for several publications. He also serves as The Toledo Blade’s writing coach and ombudsman and is host of the weekly television show Deadline Now on WGTE-TV in Toledo.

The Politics and Personality of Justice

by John Lindstrom
Gongwer News Service
August 27, 2010

Before considering the intrigue that who sits on the Supreme Court can cause, and by that we mean any person sitting on any Supreme Court whether it is John Marshall or Elena Kagan on the U.S. Supreme Court or Thomas Cooley or Alton Davis on the Michigan Supreme Court, think first of how lucky we are to be able to worry about who sits on the Supreme Court at all.

After all, that is the beauty of the common fiction we live by in civil society. We live by the rules of our society not because nature or divine majesty compels us to, but because we agree both subconsciously and consciously to abide by the contrivances we have created. So instead of worrying about sharpening rocks to hunt rabbits and squirrels, or trying to rebuild mud huts washed away in floods, we can say there is something called a Supreme Court, and we can really think it’s important, and we can wonder and worry about who sits on its bench.

So take a sip of your latte and feel both good and guilty about how really honest-to-pete spoiled you are that you can dither about Supreme Court justices and not about how that guy next to you has a big rock pointed at your head and a really hungry look in his eye.

Okay, enough of that.

If there is anything that the soap opera of now former Justice Elizabeth Weaver and the Michigan Supreme Court demonstrated in the last decade, it is the intensely personal and political nature of the application of law — in that it helped to both defuse and define some realities of judging. (And for the purposes of this column, ignore the wounded howlings of the role politics played in the dramatic shift of justices that took place on August 26. Both parties have played their role to politicize the court, or attempt to politicize it, and both share in the criticism for whatever role politics plays in the administration of justice.)

Decades ago the Doonesbury strip had a law professor asking a class what a knowledge of law tempered by a sense of morality should create. When no one answered he shouted: “Why, a sense of justice!” “Will that be on the exam?” came the reply, and the prof in frustration muttered, “No.”

But then how are those principles defined? And more particularly, how are those definitions applied? What is the basis of the morality a jurist applies to his or her knowledge of the law, and how is that basis affected by their status, their upbringing, and who asked them to lunch that day. Each of these plays a role in the final outcome that we accept grudgingly or not as justice.

Let us accept, for once and for all, that like unicorns there is no such animal as a judicial strict constructionist. No jurist can be a good jurist without actively interpreting the law, and that means the idea of a strict constructionist simply is a fantasy. Laws have to be applied given particular circumstances, and it is impossible for any Congress or legislature or city council to anticipate all circumstances. The essential law may be simple (look at the Ten Commandments for example), but the application is anything but simple (look at the Talmud for example).

So for all the political squawk about activist judges, it is time for the mature recognition that conservative or liberal, a good judge has to be an active judge. Even the act of discerning what the governing body meant while interpreting and applying the law is an activist…what?…act, action, activity, activation. It’s active, kids, it’s alive and kicking.

In one way then, the saga of Ms. Weaver and the Supreme Court current and recently past has helped us clear away that strict constructionist fantasy. All the protests by the justices that they were simply applying the law as intended just doesn’t fly with anyone who watches how the legislature really works. Michigan had a conservative activist court, and while one might question the results, one cannot say the court was not doing what it is supposed to do.

The years of growing tension and discord between the justices, that played itself out in the decisions that dripped with bitter acid, helped expose the basic truth of judgeship: that judging is an active profession. So frankly, we as a public should thank the court and its battling barristers for knocking the ugly sense into us.

But what about the personalities, what about friendships and alliances, conflict and enmity between judges that helps define and decide the law? These last 15 or so years have also exposed the sad reality of the human imperfectability of judging. One supposes that again we should be thankful that ugly sense has been knocked into us, but really do we want to be grateful for that?

The ongoing fight between Ms. Weaver and at least the Republican members of the court has been likened to a high school hallway brawl in judicial robes and footnotes. It may have all the trappings of an intellectual dispute, but any good and honest reading of the voluminous written record left behind reveals the sad and somewhat painful reality.

Just like a high school fight, this has been personal, really personal, really personally ugly. The wounded egos, bruised feelings and anguished psyches cry out through the pages. One can easily envision some of the most powerful judges of the land citing precedents and drawing dicta with tears running down their cheeks or their teeth gritted so tightly in anger their molars might crack.

At least once, in a cry out to Ms. Weaver from Justice Maura Corrigan for them to put aside their differences and try to restore some semblance of friendship, the human toll of jurisprudence was made unquestionably plain.

The disputes had been growing for awhile, the acrimonious authorship becoming more common through the 1990s, but what really seemed finally to trip the balance towards outright outrage was the court’s decision to deny Ms. Weaver a second term as chief justice. Most chief justices get a second term. She did not, and it hurt her. It hurt her, one can’t but help to think, in a way few things have done in her life.

Unless some memoir of those years is written soon we may never truly know the full extent of what the problems were that led all the other members of the court — those who would become her friends and allies as well as those who would become her implacable enemies — to vote to reject her bid for a second chief justice term. We won’t know if there were attempts at intervention, at conciliation, at counseling, at an altar call, at whatever it might have taken either for Ms. Weaver to get the second term or to recognize the fight was lost.

But we have to know that from that time in 2001 until the breach exploded in full view in 2007 that the anger and the hurt and the sense of wronged injustice on both sides played a part in altering the interpretation and application of justice in Michigan. Was it spite or a better sense of justice that led to some of the decisions, on either side? In any of the decisions was there ever a subtle call to come home, to give up the dispute? That we may not fully be able to tell. All we do know is that it did not seem that the legal decisions made were based solely and wholly just on the question of law. It did not seem so. Perhaps a cooler analysis years from now will show that personalities played no part in the justice rendered. For now though, one cannot escape the sense that private feelings were as much a part as judicial precedent in the court’s action.

Again, mayhaps we should be grateful for being reminded of the role humanity plays in justice. There is an old legal principle that a judge may still rule against what the law says if, in the judge’s opinion, the law would create an injustice. Opinion is really just nice multi-syllabic word for one’s feelings. Justice is never really truly defined, it is felt. Justice is more an emotion than an intellectual ideal. Certainly, the pain of injustice is clearly felt and for several years that pain was played out by the Michigan Supreme Court.

Ah, but we are spoiled. We do not have to watch over our shoulders at the vultures circling to eat our starved bones. We get to deal with the sweet convenience of civil society, even when, as the court has shown for too long, it isn’t necessarily civil.

John Lindstrom is publisher of Gongwer News Service. For nearly 50 years in Michigan, Gongwer News Service has provided independent, comprehensive, accurate and timely coverage of issues in and around Michigan’s government and political systems. For subscription information, including a free trial, visit Gongwer online.

Shades of Fieger

August 27, 2010

Check this out: “[His] anger appeals to people who feel left out of the system,” “he did best among Black voters in Detroit,” he’s “running against his own mouth.”

You’re thinking those are references to the Democratic nominee for governor, Virg Bernero, right?

Nope. It’s former Democratic candidate for governor Geoffrey Fieger, circa 1998. Unless things turn around quickly for the “Virg,” someone will tag him as the next Fieger.

Bernero starts 19 points down in the polls against Rick Snyder, the GOP nominee. Fieger started behind, never got within striking distance of Gov. John Engler and ended up losing by 24 points.

But there is a major difference now.

Back then, nobody expected Fieger to beat Engler. At least no one has reached that conclusion yet about the Lansing mayor. He is the underdog, but his defenders claim: “Don’t underestimate Bernero.”

They did underestimate him during the primary, as most felt he could not beat House Speaker Andy Dillon.

But Snyder is no Dillon. The Ann Arbor business guy actually has a well-oiled campaign machine, and it’s unclear if Bernero can find enough monkey wrenches to gum up the works. But he will try and has a better shot than Fieger did against Engler.

Having said that, there will be some signs along the way to suggest that Bernero is headed to Fiegerland. One indicator will be the rest of the Democratic ticket, which could stiff Bernero if he looks like he will tank. Think rats jumping off the ship.

If the next two or three polls suggest that Bernero is not making any gains on the front runner, you can expect to see a repeat of 1998, when lots of Democrats ignored Fieger — including one Jennifer Granholm, who was running for attorney general at the same time. The two were never…repeat, never…seen in the same place at the same time. Think plague.

But before the Snyder team declares victory and heads for the beach, keep in mind that Bernero has not begun to fight. And he has one major coalition that Fieger never had: most of organized labor.

So look for an onslaught of anti-Snyder ads, as Democratic Party chair Mark Brewer has spent hours pawing over the internal documents of the Gateway computer company that Snyder once ran. The “findings” will suggest that the one-time CEO is no friend of the little guy and lined his own wallet at the expense of those little guys.

Snyder dismisses all this as untrue, but when did that ever stop Brewer from pitching it just the same?

However, Bernero also walks a fine line. He can beat up Snyder, but savvy independent voters want to hear more than just that. They want a reason to vote for Bernero not necessarily against Snyder. In fact, if it’s anti-Snyder all the time, Bernero can pretty much kiss this thing adios.

Which is why the debates are so critical. Fieger had none with Engler. Bernero hopes to have at least three. Depending on how both these guys perform, the meetings could be game changers. Bernero needs them more than Snyder, so the stakes are higher for the “Virg.”

Hence, Bernero begins his uphill climb with the pundits poised to write him off as Geoffrey Fieger-lite without the personal wealth.

But Mr. B. has no intentions of joining Mr. F. in the loss column.

Tim Skubick is Michigan’s Senior Capitol correspondent and has anchored the weekly public TV series “Off the Record” since 1972. He also covers the Capitol and politics for WLNS-TV6 in Lansing.

Tim Skubick Extra Extra… (A weekly bonus only for Dome readers)

Inside Out
The Snyder insider revealed the strategy about six weeks ago, and this week the candidate confirmed it. He, indeed, picked a legislator with hands-on experience — which Mr. Snyder lacks — to be his running “partner.”

In fact, without knowing it, Mr. Snyder underscored that point when he noted that Rep.Brian Calley “can hit the ground running on Day One.”

Mr. Snyder cannot say the same thing about himself, since he is the consummate political outsider.

At some point, somebody is going to ask, “which is it?”

If the GOP candidate for governor wants somebody who has Day One credentials, why wouldn’t the voters wonder why the guy at the top of the ticket doesn’t have the same resume?

Ken Sikkema, the former Senate leader and Republican who was on the list for lieutenant governor himself, warned about picking insiders for the Snyder team. He says it is all about “branding,” and by going inside, Sikkema figures, Snyder runs the risk of taking the pop out of his outsider brand that was so popular with voters on August 3.

And that’s the way Democratic Party Chair Mark Brewer sees it, as he clobbered Calley as the insider who has ties to the established power hierarchy at the Capitol.

So which is it?

But Mr. Brewer cannot have it both ways either. He’s got a candidate who ran from the outside against insider and House Speaker Andy Dillon. But Virg Benero is a child of the legislative process and has been on that career path from the first day he cracked a book at Albion College.

Since he does not need an insider to get the job done on Day One, Bernero is looking for an outsider to balance the ticket that way.

At the end of the day, however, it’s unlikely that voters will pick a candidate for governor based on his sidekick’s credentials…in or out of government.

Another Hail Mary
It appears that Mike Bishop is picking up where his buddy from Oakland County, Mike Bouchard, left off with the Hail Mary passes.

In an 11th hour, last desperation gasp to jump-start his sagging campaign for governor, Bouchard reversed field and went full bore on the Right to Work issue. It failed to be right or work.

Now comes GOP attorney general candidate Mike Bishop, with his transparent attempt to squeeze some badly needed political juice out of the Arizona immigration mess. This comes on the eve of the state GOP convention, where another A.G. contender, Bill Schuette says he’s fixin’ to wup Mr. Bishop.

Bishop, dropping into the backfield, a la Bouchard, and on behalf of the Senate GOP caucus, has filed a legal brief to join the Arizona lawsuit against the Obama administration as it attempts to nip this law in the bud.

Can you say pandering?

Mr. Bishop can’t and won’t, as he sees this as totally appropriate since Michigan has borders with a foreign country. Never mind that not one soul in this state has made any noises about Michigan facing the same kind of “illegal” problems similar to Arizona.

But then, don’t let the facts get in the way of a good pander.

Bishop’s political brain trust saw an opportunity and seized it. As for it’s impact on Bishop’s candidacy, we’ll know the outcome of that this weekend.

Anyway, it got him some free media attention and underscored his ultra-conservative credentials, especially with the Tea Party crowd. And it just might work…if some of those disgruntled Arizona residents show up at the Breslin Center this weekend to vote for their guy Mike.

Stairway to Nowhere

August 27, 2010

Republican Brian Calley, the odds-on favorite to be the next lieutenant governor of Michigan, didn’t support native son Gerald Ford when he lost a close election to Jimmy Carter.

That’s because he hadn’t even been born.

Nor did he ever cast a vote for Ronald Reagan or the first George Bush. He was a little boy when they ran for president.

Yet in January, he may be, in the classic cliché, a heartbeat away from leading his large and very troubled state.

Very few people outside his rural district west of Lansing ever heard of Calley before Rick Snyder, himself a virtual unknown a year ago, announced that the 33-year-old banker and two-term state representative was his choice.

Suddenly, there was a flurry of interest in the new kid on the block, especially with polls showing the GOP nominee with a whopping lead over Democratic nominee Virg Bernero.

Depending on who was doing the analyzing, Rick Snyder, a 51-year-old venture capitalist from Ann Arbor, selected Calley either: A) to make a cynical bid for support from the staunchly anti-abortion faction of the GOP; B) because he felt a like-minded kinship with him as a fellow businessman with new ideas; C) because he thought it was a safe choice who wouldn’t hurt him; or D) all of the above.

“To the extent that we can use great skills like Brian has, I want to optimize that,” said Snyder, a self-styled “nerd” who is, despite his unchallenged business brilliance, not renowned as an orator. But the winner of the GOP nomination also said something that could be more significant: he wanted to make the job of lieutenant governor “much more than the historical role.”

Being lieutenant governor of Michigan has not, in recent years, been a stairway to the stars. The current incumbent, John Cherry, is so little known outside Lansing that his campaign for the top job collapsed almost before it began. Does anybody remember Connie Binsfeld or Jim Damman? Didn’t think so.

Once upon a time, the job of vice president of the United States was just as dreary as that of lieutenant governor of Michigan is today. The VP presided over the Senate, in case his vote was needed to break a tie, and stood by in case the president should happen to die.

That was about it. John Nance Garner, Franklin D. Roosevelt’s first vice-president, is often quoted as having said the job “wasn‘t worth a pitcher of warm spit.” Actually, he didn’t say spit.

However, things have changed in Washington, starting with the Carter Administration. Vice-presidents now play more of a role, get more responsibilities. More often than not, they end up eventually running for president themselves.

Ironically, in Michigan, lieutenant governors have less clout than they once did. That’s because until 1964, they were elected independently. John Swainson used the office as a springboard to the governorship. Philip Hart was elected to the U.S. Senate.

Not that this didn’t sometimes make for friction.

“George Romney had a Democrat, T. John Lesinski, as lieutenant in his first term,” former Attorney General Frank Kelley remembered. “Romney was a non-smoker, and T. John used to puff cigar smoke in his face,” at meetings.

He also left cigar butts in the governor‘s limousine. After that, however, the governor and “loot guv” were elected in tandem.

In earlier days, Michigan even had a professional lieutenant governor — the happily forgotten Luren Dickinson, a Republican who served an astonishing seven terms between 1914 and 1939.

According to columnist and author George Weeks, he was a religious zealot who prayed constantly and was disdained by just about everybody. Then disaster struck. Gov. Frank Fitzgerald died in 1939, and the 80-year-old Dickinson became governor.

He spent much of his time praying and vetoed a bill that mandated clipping horse’s tails, because, “if God wanted horse’s tails to be short, he would have made them short.”

He was soon voted out by a landslide.

In fact, lieutenant governor choices have sometimes been more likely to hurt than help. Gov. William Milliken’s re-election in 1974 was almost derailed when it turned out that his nominee, Jim Damman, had been involved in a questionable land buying scheme.

Milliken survived, but treated his running mate as a pariah and dumped him at the next election.

Gov. James Blanchard lost his re-election in 1990 after a squabble in which an aging Lt. Gov. Martha Griffiths was messily dumped from the ticket after ignoring hints that it was time to go.

Mostly, however, nominees for lieutenant governor fade into the woodwork. If their tickets lose, they are apt to vanish forever. (Anybody see Jim Agee, Olivia Maynard or Loren Bennett recently?)

Yet there is always an exception that proves the rule. Democrat Howard Wolpe’s campaign to unseat Gov. John Engler went down in flames in 1994, and Wolpe indeed left the state and vanished.

But his running mate’s career managed to survive. Today, she is U.S. Senator Debbie Stabenow.

Veteran journalist and national Emmy Award winner Jack Lessenberry teaches at Wayne State University, serves as Michigan Radio’s senior political analyst and writes regularly for several publications. He also serves as The Toledo Blade’s writing coach and ombudsman and is host of the weekly television show Deadline Now on WGTE-TV in Toledo.

Governor’s Race:
August is not November

by John Lindstrom
Gongwer News Service
August 20, 2010

Does it matter really that it is August, that the warm days are still long, that the gardens are fat with melons and tomatoes?

No, because to hear the talk of the town it is past early November, it is past when the leaves are fallen and the first fires are alight in the hearth. In fact, listening to the cognoscenti it is really January and the cold winds are lashing the east steps of the Capitol, where Rick Snyder has just taken the oath of office and is Michigan’s 48th governor.

Two weeks after Mr. Snyder won the Republican gubernatorial nomination and Lansing Mayor Virg Bernero won the Democratic nomination, there is an overriding air of cocksure assumption that the people have spoken and that Mr. Snyder has nothing to do but check paint colors for the Oxford Street residence until he officially moves in.

What’s that? An election? Didn’t we just have an election, and that’s why Rick Snyder is going to be the gov…oh, that election, that little thing in November, yeah, well, everyone knows the Republicans are a slam-dunk, so what are you saying? Don’t you read Facebook, man? It’s all over Facebook that it’s all over, here, in Michigan. And Mr. Snyder is the guy, so why would you even bother me with November?

It’s not just in Facebook that Michigan residents are breathing in the air of inevitability. State bureaucrats are already psychologically trying to account for what changes Mr. Snyder will make to the office and the state, according to business types that have had meetings with state bureaucrats. Even among politicians, Democrats and Republicans both, there is an understated sense that, after the weary years of ongoing economic turmoil and the struggle Governor Jennifer Granholm has waged in combating that struggle, the public wants a change. No one person’s election alone can change the state’s fortunes, but it can at least provide a sense of hopeful change.

So it is time, more than time, in fact, to remind people to breathe oxygen, not the polluted air of assumption. The only thing inevitable politically now is that the voters will decide between Mr. Snyder and Mr. Bernero. There is much yet to occur before either man can plan on standing on the cold steps of January and raising his right hand for the oath.

Mr. Bernero certainly is not conceding the election. A video of a campaign performance in Wixom showed him full of fire while at the same time realistic of the task ahead. He knows he is behind in the polls and, more importantly, he knows he is behind in the public anticipation of who will win the election.

During that appearance he said it would take a lot of elbow grease to win in November. Okay, what else would someone expect a candidate to say, especially some 10 weeks before the election? Of course a candidate is going to proclaim confidence and urge hard work from his or her supporters.

One thing Mr. Bernero is not, however, is an actor. He’s been in tough races before. Don’t forget that even a month before the primary, the expectation was that House Speaker Andy Dillon (D-Redford) would be the Democratic nominee. Mr. Bernero knows what it is to be an underdog, and he doesn’t mind that role in the least.

However, Mr. Bernero also knows what it is to be front-runner and how to play that hand. In a very critical way, he has the advantage of experience over Mr. Snyder.

This is Mr. Snyder’s first run for office. Like Mr. Bernero, he too was the underdog, and he played that card brilliantly with some high-stakes plays that paid off. In early July, after all, the expectation was that Mr. Dillon would run for the governor’s office against either U.S. Rep. Pete Hoekstra or Attorney General Mike Cox.

Now, however, he is the front-runner, and as front-runner he has to perform one of the hardest tasks a politician can master: he has to go from now to November and not screw up. He has to be engaged but not haughty, active but not overbearing, aggressive but not mean, and show above all that he is ready to run the state should he win. In the end, Mr. Snyder might wish he had the underdog title, because the same steadying rules that govern front-runners don’t necessarily apply to underdogs.

And, remembering that it is still August, both men have a big task ahead of them, and that is to shore up the necessary votes. Again, it sounds obvious but it is more complicated.

In Mr. Snyder’s case that means he has to hold onto, or at least not lose too many, conservatives. Go back to reading Facebook. Conservatives are moaning. They do have some justification to moan, since while Mr. Snyder won by a good percentage over his four opponents, his four opponents still gathered some 60 percent of the total vote. The big question now is will conservatives vote for Mr. Snyder, who is suspect as far as they are concerned. They don’t trust him on the central issues they care about, such as abortion and gun rights. They want a Republican to win, but to them, Mr. Snyder has to convince them he is a Republican. They may be happy to mouth Ronald Reagan’s dictate that he who agrees with you 80 percent of the time is your friend, but frankly, they worry more about the 20 percent of you they see as a traitor.

“The election will be a slam-dunk for Republicans, just not for conservatives,” one such advocate groused on Facebook.

That is one reason why conservatives, helped by tea partiers, have been trying to flood the county party conventions, to ensure the GOP stays conservative no matter the ideological bent of the nominal head of the party.

At the same time, Mr. Snyder cannot accommodate the conservatives too much and risk alienating the independents and crossover Democrats who support him. His whole entrance into the race was a way of trying to stay out of the fatal fight of conservative versus liberal without anyone appealing to the middle. He has to keep some conservatives, he has to keep some of the base, but not so much to lose the core voter demographic.

Mr. Bernero has a similar issue, though in his case the base — labor and progressive groups — are secure. He also needs the independent and more moderate/conservative Democrats that so far are leaning towards Mr. Snyder. It appears his strategy is already in place: make Mr. Snyder appear a front for Wall Street, currently being reviled by all Democrats for the state of the economy.

While the conservatives don’t think they can trust Mr. Snyder on their core issues, Mr. Bernero needs to build the same suspicion on his opponent in order to bring his voters back. One top official in the Granholm administration said recently, “Democrats think they can trust a Republican and they always find out Republicans will hurt you.” Mr. Bernero needs to drive that message while at the same time convincing Democrats and others he can work within divided government to turn the state around.

So, exhale that air of inevitability. Enjoy the balmy last days of summer, for the fall fight should be full of frosty fun and there are a good couple of months of political intrigue ahead before either man gets to honestly declare victory.

John Lindstrom is publisher of Gongwer News Service. For nearly 50 years in Michigan, Gongwer News Service has provided independent, comprehensive, accurate and timely coverage of issues in and around Michigan’s government and political systems. For subscription information, including a free trial, visit Gongwer online.