Hoekstra’s Tax Somersault

June 11, 2010

In politics it is the most dreaded disease of all: Flip-flop-itis.

Problem is, there is no vaccine, and once you catch it there’s no quick cure either. And it can scar you for life.

Ask John Kerry, who was against the war in Iraq before he was for it. Or Mitt Romney, who was pro-choice and pro-gay-rights when it was fashionable in liberal-leaning Massachusetts, but he flipped when he needed the conservative vote for president.

In Michigan, Gov. John Engler flipped on term limits and Gov. Jennifer Granholm was once for a ban on dove hunting. She then decided killing the little birdies wasn’t all that bad. And who can forget her infamous 180-degree turnaround on showing off the Ten Commandments in the state Capitol?

Now comes would-be governor Pete Hoekstra.

Years ago he was for term limits, like Mr. Engler, but facing a possible elongated career in the U.S. House, he changed his mind.

But what about his latest summersault on the no-tax pledge? This one could haunt and hurt him, especially with independent voters whom he will need in the fall if he lands the GOP nod for governor.

A year ago during a debate, Hoekstra racked up major points when he stood on a stage with others who had signed the no-tax pledge and basically told them they were wrong and irresponsible to sign because who knew what the future would hold?

Fast forward to one year later; same stage, basically the same opponents, but now a different answer.

“Have you changed your position on the no-tax pledge?” was the straightforward question. To his credit, he did not dive for the tall grass or lace up a pair of dancing shoes. But to his discredit, he said, “Yes I did.”

And then he proceeded into an explanation that boiled down to things have changed, adding, “Raising taxes in this state is now out of the question.”

Oh yeah. A lot has changed.

Instead of being one of five running for governor last year, and having no standing in the polls, it was really easy to stake out some new ground.

Mr. Hoekstra neatly culled himself from the herd by going against the popular wisdom that every conservative who is not comatose signs the pledge.

Ah, but now, Mr. Hoekstra is no longer a nobody; he’s actually leading the pack. And as such, he increasingly is coming under attack.

Maybe you’ve seen the Mike Cox commercials tagging Hoekstra with the “big spender” tag. GOP opponent and ex-Marine Cox knows an Achilles heel when he sees one and has effectively whacked away at Hoekstra’s.

Without any fanfare or even a press release to announce it, last April Hoekstra caved and quietly signed the pledge not to raise taxes.

When the Cox gang ran an ad accusing Hoekstra of not signing the pledge, Hoekstra’s guys, in what may have been a calculated move to trap Cox, then revealed the signed pledge to prove Cox wrong — and it was at that point that the flip-flop emerged.

You could hear the collective boo-hiss from segments of the political chattering class, which frowns on flip-flops and doesn’t cotton much to political expediency either. The twin diseases go hand in hand.

Pandering for votes is an unsightly scene, and even though every pol at some point in his or her career is likely to do just that, it does not make it right.

Political leadership is doing what you believe is the right thing to do, and doing it without worrying about the next election.

Perhaps Mr. Hoekstra and the others before him dozed-off during that lecture in Poli Sci 101.

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.

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Mr. Obnoxious
Give the guy some credit for being smart enough to know he could have done better.

Of all the candidates who could have had a lackluster debate performance, you would not expect Virg Bernero to be one of them. Yet by his own admission, his recent showing in a history-making debate on Mackinac Island “wasn’t my best.”

The Lansing mayor, while owning up to how he debated, fingered the format as the culprit. It did not have enough structure, he complained.

With six other contenders hogging the stage and elbowing for microphone time, somehow the scrappy mayor, who thrives on confrontation and in-your-face politics, found himself trying to get a word in edgewise.

“The venue was tough,” he reflected on a WILS-radio broadcast in Lansing. “I was fighting for space and fighting for time…It is not pretty.”

When he finally got his chance, Bernero was hyper, a tad preachy, and often confrontational, which is not necessarily a bad thing. But when the dust settled, Bernero concluded, “I came off as kind of obnoxious.”

Those who have followed him for years would go, “Yeah. So what’s so new ’bout that?”

Being obnoxious is part of his charm and certainly part of being the Angriest Mayor in America. Take that out of Mr. Bernero and you have Mrs. Bernero, who is a kind and motherly elementary school principal.

Bernero got caught up in a no-holds-barred format that encouraged a give and take between the five GOP and two Democratic candidates. He described it as a “free-for-all.”

There was one moment when they were talking about confronting the head of the Canadian government over the issue of slant drilling in the Great Lakes. The hockey-lovers over there are doing it, and all the candidates on stage opposed it.

GOP contender Pete Hoekstra pulled off a great ad lib. Asked what he would do with an uncooperative head of state, the West Michigan Dutchman said, “I would take him down…” And then he paused as the audience caught what that meant, but then added, “to the Gulf of Mexico.”

Bernero followed, saying he would talk nice to the Canadian premier.

The debate anchor wanted to know, “As the angriest Mayor in America, can you do that?”

“Sometimes, I can be nice,” Bernero retorted, to a burst of laughter in the crowd.

Pass the Legacy Polish
It didn’t take long for the audience to figure out the not so subtle subtext to Gov. Jennifer Granholm’s speech on Mackinac Island the other day.

It was one part history lesson, two parts “Here is what I was stuck with,” and a dash of “Please don’t blame me for this economic challenge I am handing off to the next governor while I drink a margarita on the beach somewhere.”

Of course, she didn’t say that, but the message was neatly tucked between the lines.

It was another sterling performance as the governor strolled back and forth on the stage between two screens that she used to chronicle her eight frustrating years in office.

“It would have been fun to be governor in the ’90s,” she joked, and the audience of business tycoons and hangers-on got it. Times were better then, and it seemed as if she took the oath of office one minute and the economy went to hell the next in 2003 and beyond.

The most telling slide she used was a 1961 Time magazine piece on the economic woes and the political infighting in Michigan to turn the economy around.

“Sound familiar?” the current chief executive asked as the audience looked at the picture of then-Gov. Soapy Williams trying to make ends met.

Some in the audience were shocked to discover that diversifying Michigan’s auto-industry-dominated economy has been going on for over 40 years. Every time a governor got close to doing it, the economy would bounce back and the need would temporarily evaporate, only to re-emerge during the next downturn.

Gov. Milliken didn’t get it done; neither did Blanchard nor Engler. And as she prepares to head for that drink on the beach, Gov. Granholm has failed as well. She contends, however, that the “seeds” to diversify the economy have been planted as she hands off the sprinkling can to the next guy.

And when she talked about the need to bring in international jobs to help in that long-delayed movement away from autos, it rang hollow in part.

Yes, she visited dozens of foreign lands and brought back 19,000 jobs. But, and she did not tell the audience this, in eight years she never made a sojourn to China to either brings jobs back or help companies expand there in order to stay afloat back here.

So she gave it the ole college try to polish her legacy with her speech, but that will stand out as one glaring omission.