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.

Street Fighter Stirs Up Contest for State CEO

Attorney General Mike Cox battles to be Michigan’s next governor

by Susan J. Demas
May 16, 2010

As World War I engulfed Europe, another battle was brewing in Britain. On Easter Monday, 1916, the Irish Republican Brotherhood stormed through several buildings in Dublin.

After more than a century of British rule, Irish nationals rebelled against fighting another war for the empire and clamored for their independence. And while the British army quashed the weeklong Easter Uprising, as Yeats wrote, a “terrible beauty [was] born.” The Brotherhood begat the Irish Republican Army (IRA), which won the ensuing bloody war of independence in 1922, although the British held onto Northern Ireland.       

Mike Cox at a Tea Party event in Northville. Campaign photo.

The Easter Uprising claimed 434 souls and authorities rounded up more than 3,500 suspects, including a young Anthony McGuane from County Clare. The IRB member would be arrested again later on in the conflict, serving a total of four years in prison.

Ninety-four years later, McGuane’s grandson is a veteran of a more civilized form of politics. But Mike Cox — Michigan’s first Republican attorney general in 48 years — would be the first to tell you some of that Irish Brotherhood brawling spirit courses through his veins.

That’s the reason why many believe he’ll be the state’s next governor.

“Mike is a street fighter,” says Republican National Committeeman Saul Anuzis, who has not endorsed in the race. “This guy has always come from behind. He’s tenacious, loyal and not afraid to stir things up. He is that tough prosecutor, ex-Marine kind of guy. For lack of a better term, he has the right stuff.”

Whereas his two older brothers shined in college and law school, Cox enlisted in the Marines fresh out of high school (“I was a screw-up,” he unabashedly admits). The 18-year-old marched down to the army recruiting station with dreams of being a Green Beret jumping out of airplanes, but the Marine recruiter picked him off first (“I guess I was an easy mark,” Cox laughs).

The corporal emerged from his almost three-year stint not just with “your basic Marine Corps eagle tattoo” on his bicep, but with a scar ripping from his left ear through the back of his skull. That’s the handiwork of a disgruntled sailor at a base party.

“It grew out of, you know, you’re 19 and you have a few words with someone and he went back and got a knife and came back and jumped me,” Cox says, almost nonchalantly. “That was the Jimmy Carter armed forces, before they thinned a lot of people out…He ended up doing some time in the brig.”

His political career, of course, carries scars of its own. Cox was asked to investigate former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick’s alleged 2002 party at the Manoogian Mansion and the subsequent death of a stripper, but the AG found no evidence of wrongdoing. Rumors of a cover-up have dogged Cox ever since, even though he has steadfastly stood by his findings. Then in 2005, Cox admitted to having an extramarital affair, something he calls his “biggest failing as a man.”

Known for being hot-blooded and playing hardball, Cox has made plenty of enemies during his career, like former Rep. John Stewart. The Republican switched parties after his wife, Beth, lost her job in the course of a bitter 2006 GOP primary to succeed her husband. Cox and others backed Northville Township Supervisor Mark Abbo, who ended up losing in the general election.

“He seeks out to destroy. This is the Mike Cox modus operandi,” Stewart declares. “In my humble opinion, he’s the master and king of being Machiavellian.”

Cox’s dagger-blue eyes don’t flash at the criticism; in fact, he’s typically exceedingly calm in interviews. The AG dismisses Stewart as harboring a grudge and compares his own temper to that of the famously even-keeled Barack Obama.

“I don’t know what a temper means,” Cox shrugs. “My professional career started off being a prosecutor and every single day when I went to work, it had real life consequences. You’re in front of a jury in a murder trial and testimony comes out that’s different from what you expected and what police officers expected, you have to roll with it and you have to adapt. In the courts where I practiced, our view of hard work and being just that strong advocate was a little different than the work setting here in Lansing. It was high-pressured, high pace. I guess it was just a matter of expectations and culture.”

Sen. Nancy Cassis (R-Novi) has known Cox for two decades and serves on his campaign finance committee. She says her old friend is often misunderstood.

“He’s Irish; I’m Irish. I’d say get to know him,” she says. “… Mike is more approachable than people think. He started out humbly in the bowels of Wayne County. He’s come a long way, as probably we all have.”

Now Cox, 48, is ready for the ultimate pressure-cooker job, CEO of the most depressed state in the nation. It’s something he’s jumped into full force. While Republicans were licking their wounds from their thumping in the 2008 election, Cox had already moved on to 2010. Four days after the party’s electoral smackdown, he became the first candidate to file papers establishing his gubernatorial campaign committee.

“It’s kind of like when I was in law school and I started practicing. The people who were my heroes in my profession, after a little while seeing them, I thought, ‘I can do what they do,’” Cox says. “And when I got here and talked to people, I thought with a little hard work and study I can do what other folks can do. And as the economy worsened, it sort of started to grow.”

Irish roots
With his reddish, heart-shaped face and trademark glower, Cox looks like he could play a turn-of-the-century Irish immigrant in a Daniel Day Lewis flick.

That’s probably because his father, John, left an Irish-Catholic ghetto in Glasgow for Toronto in 1949. The skilled carpenter then walked across the Blue Water Bridge and hitched a ride to Detroit, later serving in the Korean War. And Rita McGuane Cox emigrated from Ireland a year later and worked as a domestic.

The couple would have three boys: Sean, who would become a federal judge; Kevin, a medical malpractice lawyer; and their youngest, Michael Anthony, born on December 29, 1961. The family settled in the working-class suburb of Redford near Rouge Park.

“It was your typical 950-square-foot house with a bunch of kids — we only had three,” recalls Cox, who wears a modest Timex watch along with a sharp green-gray suit. “I was a typical Irish-Catholic immigrant’s kid.”

Cox graduated from Detroit Catholic Central in 1980 — the same year as fellow gubernatorial candidate House Speaker Andy Dillon (D-Redford Township), though their paths rarely crossed. U.S. Rep. Thad McCotter (R-Livonia) was two years behind, but he and Cox didn’t bond until they both worked in party politics two decades later.

In the Marines, the future AG was stationed in North Carolina, San Diego, Puerto Rico, Japan, and Korea. He was nominated for the Naval Academy, but opted to go back to Michigan in 1983 to earn some money doing construction, but he kept getting laid off.

“If the money had been better, I might have hung on and done that for a couple years, but I said, ‘What the hell. I’ll just go to U of M,’” he recalls.

Armed with Marine Corps discipline, Cox completed his undergrad at the University of Michigan in three years and graduated from its law school in 1989. Cox won custody of his 3-year-old daughter from a previous relationship, forcing him to juggle fatherhood and constitutional law (“I got a lot of help with family — the old-fashioned way,” he says).

His first job was in Oakland County, where he was hired by then-Prosecutor Dick Thompson, best known for tangling with Dr. Jack Kevorkian over assisted suicide. Cox was interviewed a year later in Wayne County by another familiar face, Kym Worthy, now the county prosecutor. He spent 13 years as an assistant prosecutor in Michigan’s largest county and would go on to head up the homicide division.

Cox met his future wife, Laura Erpelding, in 1990. It was a setup by her MSU sorority sister and future judge Lisa Asadoorian, at the Juke Box in Royal Oak (“A pretty happening place for the time,” he grins). Although he hit it off with the blonde police officer, there was a catch.

“The funny thing was Laura was working undercover then, so she wouldn’t give me her last name for a couple weeks,” Cox recalls.

She eventually relented and they married in 1994. Settling in Livonia, the couple has three kids together, ages 10, 12 and 14. Cox’s eldest daughter, now 27, has given them two granddaughters, ages 2 and 6 months. The father of four has coached soccer and basketball, although he gave it up a couple years ago when his kids grew older (“I don’t want to commit malpractice,” he jokes).

Politics has become something of a family business, with Laura winning a seat on the Wayne County Commission in 2004. Her husband tries to squeeze in family time on the campaign trail, frequently bringing the kids along. But he doesn’t have the same angst about his hectic schedule that many Baby Boom dads do.

“I sort of grew up in an immigrant culture where the highest compliment you could give to someone is he or she is a worker,” he says. “When I was growing up, my old man worked all the time. It was just what was expected. Forty hours a week?… I just never saw that growing up.”

Cox starts off his day running three to five miles or lifting weights (“I’ll tell you this,” he smiles. “I can bench-press more than anyone else running for governor. I say that tongue in cheek, of course.”)

Right turn
Like many Republicans in Wayne County, Mike Cox didn’t start out as one (“Being a Democrat kind of fit with my background,” he notes).

He caucused for Al Gore in 1988, was “agnostic” about John Engler’s upset in 1990 and voted for former Attorney General Frank Kelley a couple times (“Don’t tell Cliff Taylor that,” Cox smiles).

Actually, for a man known as the consummate political animal, Cox didn’t show much interest at first. That was the domain of his older brother, Sean, a force in the county GOP. But the younger Cox tagged along for some events, where he met McCotter again. The AG-to-be marks 1992 as the year he became a Republican, impressed by then-President Bush’s foreign policy and Engler’s success in Michigan.

McCotter, known as much for his lead guitarist skills as for his elaborate analogies, says Cox was a quick study, going on to serve as Wayne County chair.

“It’s like the Beatles with Lennon and McCartney,” the congressman says of himself and Sean. “And McCartney brings George Harrison around and it’s like, ‘Who’s that?’ [Mike] was really quiet. He was learning. He was smart about that. And then he comes out with ‘All Things Must Pass,’ you think, ‘That’s pretty good.’”

In 2001 Cox was a finalist for U.S. attorney position, but lost out. Soon the Wayne County assistant prosecutor was being recruited to go for attorney general, as Jennifer Granholm was making the leap to governor. Cox admits he had a “sort of obtuse idea” to run for office, but he courted controversy when he tried a white Detroit police officer, David Krupinski, for the 2000 shooting of Errol Shaw, who was deaf and African American.

“There were 11 or 12 prosecutors under me, and none wanted to try the case, so I did,” Cox recalls. “It was my one and only case on Court TV.”

Krupinski was acquitted and Shaw’s civil case, ironically, was taken up by Cox’s future nemesis, Geoffrey Fieger. But the case didn’t deter conservative activists from recruiting the prosecutor as their nominee for the state’s top law enforcement officer. Cox was the last man standing, with then-Senate Majority Leader Dan DeGrow dropping out and others shying away from the prospect of facing Granholm if she lost her gubernatorial bid in the primary. She didn’t, Cox was nominated and the rest is history.

Cox’s tenacity paid off in the tense 2002 campaign. With a razor-thin 5,200-vote margin, Cox defeated now-U.S. Rep. Gary Peters (D-Bloomfield Township), coming from behind in the polls in the final days.

“It was the same things he embraced as a volunteer — you work as long as you can, as hard as you can,” McCotter says.

Cox made cybercrime and child support collection two of his top priorities. Admitting he’s a demanding boss, the workaholic strived to consolidate operations and cut costs. Building on his successful statewide organization, he coasted to re-election four years later against Detroit attorney Amos Williams, piling up a hefty 380,000-vote lead. A fierce competitor, Cox seems almost disappointed at the blowout (“The second time I ran, I enjoyed it, but it didn’t have the same urgency, ’cause I had a pretty good lead.”)

“I don’t know if Scott Bowen or Amos Williams called me ‘the accidental AG’ in 2006,” Cox adds. “And the funny thing is, I took it as a compliment because I wasn’t one of these people running for office at age 28, after four years of practicing. I’m an experienced lawyer. I’ve done a lot and it’s one of those good twists of fate where someone can run an office and have a lot of practice and actually get into the AG’s office. And it’s just been great ever since, as Pollyanna-ish as it sounds.”

Cox would be termed out of office at the end of this year, but he probably would have been ready to take the next step, regardless. (“I love being attorney general,” he smiles, “but being governor is a lot more consequential.”)

Courting controversy
The ex-Marine is a love ’em or hate ’em kind of guy.

He’s not afraid to be out front on controversial issues, from being one of the few elected Republicans to back the 2006 Michigan Civil Rights Initiative (MCRI) that banned many affirmative action programs, to joining a Florida lawsuit this year against national health care reform over Granholm’s loud objections. Cox also has been vocal on efforts to stop Asian carp from invading the Great Lakes and has jousted on rate hikes with the state’s largest health insurer, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan. He’s become a favorite keynote speaker at tea party rallies across the state.

“For an elected official to go out on a limb shows a lot of character. He stands up for what he believes in…even if it’s not what the media wants or what’s politically correct at the time,” says Jennifer Gratz, who spearheaded the MCRI and now works for the American Civil Rights Institute in Sacramento.

But Williams characterizes Cox as “too aggressive, a bully” and ultimately an opportunist.

“I don’t know that he believes half the stuff he espouses, but he toes the party line,” his ’06 opponent says.

Cox has been known to butt heads with Republicans, as well. Sen. Bruce Patterson (R-Canton) was fundraising for gubernatorial candidate Dick Posthumous in 2002, which meant competing for scarce dollars with the upstart AG nominee.

“When we met, it certainly wasn’t love at first sight. In fact, we got off to a very rocky start,” recalls Patterson, who has since worked with him on energy and health care issues and endorsed Cox for governor. “We were like two alpha dogs arriving in a pack and sizing each other up.”

Perhaps these types of clashes are why even after almost eight years in statewide office, Cox might be best known for scandals, something he and his supporters complain is grossly unfair.

He launched his first TV ad this month, taking aim at U.S. Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R-Holland) for voting for the Wall Street bailout and Bridge to Nowhere.

“Elections are about people’s positions,” Cox argues. “You can call it a negative ad. The reality is that nothing is said about Pete personally. I take issue with his votes. That’s fair game in a democracy.”

Hoekstra leads in the most recent Rasmussen and EPIC-MRA polls, with Cox running third behind Ann Arbor businessman Rick Snyder. That’s something the AG downplays (“The election is the last four weeks of the campaign,” he shrugs).

In firing back against the spot, Hoekstra spokesman John Truscott was quick to bring up Cox’s baggage with the alleged Manoogian Mansion bash.

“The reality is people throw a lot of crap at me. I expect that,” Cox snaps. “My ads talk about votes. They don’t talk about rumors.”

Mike Cox holding a news conference. Campaign photo.

He pauses. “Look, the next governor is going to need a thick hide. I don’t want to sound hypersensitive.”

But the issue doesn’t appear to be going away. The Kilpatrick saga is back in the news with the former mayor battling to avoid jail time over restitution payments and attorney Norman Yatooma deposing Cox for a civil suit. U.S. District Judge Gerald Rosen has sealed the testimony, but that hasn’t stopped speculation that Yatooma may have uncovered dirt on the attorney general.

Cox is quick to remind people that his office is responsible for charging Kilpatrick in the 2008 assault of two police officers (“It was our case that brought him down,” he says). But he acknowledges there’s been fallout from his 2003 investigation.

“The politician in me says maybe we should have just waited three months after that initial investigation was done,” he says. “It’s like we approached it like we didn’t want to be Ken Starr with Whitewater turning into Monica Lewinsky. So we were thorough and the State Police carried on and they didn’t find anything different. It’s one of those amorphous blobs where people want to believe something happened. You know, people forget I’m a prosecutor. Ethically, I can’t charge someone without criminal evidence.”

Having once famously described the party as an “urban legend,” Cox has since backed off a bit. “Most people think there was some sort of a party. I don’t dispute that. I don’t really know.”

The state’s top cop is not concerned his affair will become political fodder, however, as it didn’t make a dent in his ’06 re-election bid. Nonetheless, Michigan Democratic Party Chair Mark Brewer seems determined to inject it into the ’10 campaign.

Cox has alleged that Fieger tried to blackmail him about his infidelity to stop the AG’s office from investigating the flamboyant attorney’s $453,000 effort to oust state Supreme Court Justice Stephen Markman in 2004. Fieger was acquitted of the campaign finance violation in a federal court. No charges were ever filed on the alleged blackmail.

Cox calls the affair “wrong and embarrassing,” and acknowledges his opponents might try to use the issue with social conservatives.

“I don’t know what the issue would be — that I’m not perfect?” he says. “I don’t know how they would tie it to what’s going on in Michigan today…If you think about it, if my wife and I got divorced before Geoffrey Fieger came along, there would be no issue. I mean, it wasn’t an issue for John Engler, for Ronald Reagan. In an odd way, the fact that we’re still married gives it legs, in a way. If we got divorced, people would say, ‘Oh, that’s just life.’”

Adds Cox: “It’s like my wife says, ‘If that’s the best they have, then they’re really struggling.’”

Patterson, who has raised $34,000 for Cox’s gubernatorial effort, admits the affair gave him “great pause.”

“He and his wife had a rocky time and I had a lot of empathy for her,” the senator says, but adds that he’s heartened by the couple’s closeness today.

Patterson says he has no qualms about the attorney general’s character, however. When his father, William, a stalwart Democrat, fell ill in 2008, Cox made a point to call him every couple weeks.

“[My father] was ebullient to talk politics, even with a damnable Republican,” Patterson chuckles. “It really was the factor that gave me a glimpse into what I think is Mike Cox’s soul.”

Battle plan
While his enemies and the press obsess about the gubernatorial horserace and his past flaps, Cox is all about the issues.

That’s the case the attorney general makes, meticulously highlighting his 92-point plan for Michigan, $2-billion tax cut and ideas to revitalize Detroit. He wants to chop the Michigan Business Tax in half for a savings of $1.3 billion and kill the income tax hike of 2007 (which already starts to roll back in fiscal 2012) for another $700,000. Cox argues that will send a signal to the rest of the country that “we’re big and bold and we’re changing for real.”

Cox waves off experts who question how to ax another $2 billion from the state’s $8 billion General Fund, arguing that his reforms will generate savings (“The media wrote a story when I released my 92 points last year and hasn’t covered it since,” he pointedly notes). Cox says Michigan’s outmoded tax and regulatory system has choked off its biggest city.

“It pains me that when I drive into my office in Detroit that there’s no rush hour,” he shakes his head. “Detroit is part of the storefront that is the state of Michigan. Part of my plan is about how the state is kind of like a store in this regard. It’s like we’re in this mall that’s called the United States and there’s 50 stores you can shop in. And you walk in our store and it looks like a piece of crap. It’s dingy and the door is beat up. And we have this reputation of being high-tax and overly regulated and hostile. But inside the store, we have this great skilled workforce.”

The U of M-trained lawyer underscores his devotion to substance over style with detailed policy responses, as he carefully gazes at what a reporter is writing down. (“I’m probably running way too long,” he apologizes. “Not pithy enough.”) He lets his spokesman play bad cop, trying to usher him out the door, but stays for 15 more minutes to discuss Michigan’s decade-long recession.

“Here we’re in the midst of this dramatic change in our economy,” Cox sums up. “In my neighborhood, it’s slowed down, but so many people’s jobs I know are in freefall. It’s always hard — people don’t enjoy change; it’s human nature…People don’t embrace change until they’re uncomfortable or worried. And people in Michigan aren’t comfortable; they’re worried. So I think they’re ready to embrace the changes we’ve probably needed for a while. That can be scary, but it can be a great opportunity for the state to get back on track.”

The truth is, Cox knows it will take a blend of political cunning and policy depth to triumph in both the GOP primary and general election. But that shouldn’t be a problem for a devotee of both heavy metal and Irish folk music.

Above all else, the grandson of Anthony McGuane relishes a fight. He’s been doing it his whole life — in the Marines, as a prosecutor and as attorney general. He never did get to leap out of an airplane while serving overseas, but that doesn’t mean he’s stopped thinking about it (“Maybe I’ll be like George Bush,” he muses. “Do it when I’m 80.”)

Or maybe he’ll jump if he’s sworn in as Michigan’s 48th governor — just to make sure his new job is exciting enough.

Susan J. Demas, a regular columnist and contributor to Dome, is 2006 Knight Foundation Fellow in nonprofits journalism and a political analyst for Michigan Information & Research Service.

Running Mates

by Tim Skubick
March 26, 2010

You are aware of the silly little game journalists play to see who can be first to write about a story. Be assured that this is the first time you will read anything about the GOP and Democratic nominees for governor thinking about running mates.

How absurd to even think about it. Heck, the primary for picking the candidates is a whopping 130 days away and the field is just beginning to fire up. Speculation on who will be second on the ticket is just plain silly.

Think again.

Betya each candidate in a private moment or two has allowed him or herself to drift toward that, if for no other reason than to have some fun contemplating the “what ifs” of this person or that.

A natural place to begin the search is with your opponents.

To be sure, often times primaries are such bruising events that the opponents inflict injuries on each other. And when all is said and done, the hard feelings between the contenders are palpable.

Nonetheless, after a grueling toe to toe and mano a womano battle years ago, victor Howard Wolpe picked opponent Debbie Stabenow for the Democratic ticket. This was no match made in heaven. To wit, they arrived at the announcement news conference in separate cars. But for political reasons he picked her, and the two proceeded to lose to John Engler.

So what about the 2010 race?

If Mike Cox wins the GOP nomination, the betting money is he may ask one of his opponents to join him. Whether the opponent would is another question. It is also unlikely Cox would end up as the running mate for somebody else if he loses the nomination. Some conclude he would bring too much political baggage to the ticket. The conclusion may be unfair, but it’s out there.

Pete Hoekstra is another case. Adding Oakland County Sheriff Mike Bouchard would make some geographical sense. Hoekstra is from “that” side of the state (West Michigan) and the Mikester is from over here (East Side).

Many in this town believe the only reason Sen. Tom George of Kalamazoo remains in the hunt is to prove he could be a running mate for someone. That would make sense, too.

Rick Snyder, whether he wants to admit it or not, would want some hands-on Lansing experience if he got the GOP nod. If the self-described non-Lansing politician ever hopes to find the bathroom, he’ll need someone to point him in the right direction.

Even Snyder has admitted he would consider hiring career politicians, although his campaign literature suggests they are toxic and to be avoided at all cost.

On the Democratic side, everyone agrees that Rep. Alma Wheeler Smith has enough time in grade to be Andy Dillon’s or Virg Bernero’s second in command.

A Dillon-Bernero combo or vice versa just doesn’t look very good.

Dillon is tall; Bernero is…well, let’s just say he’s not so tall. It would be a weird picture on the tube and might draw more attention to them for all the wrong reasons.

But let’s not forget one other combination — picking a running mate from the other party.

Could you envision a Hoekstra-Dillon ticket?

The two of them actually debated last week, and they were quite in sync.

Stop laughing. It could happen. And remember, you heard it here…first.

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)

Gutless In Lansing
Profiles in courage this ain’t. An example of pretty sharp politics, it is.

Faced with making a $255 cut per pupil, lawmakers who profess that education is their top priority are in a box.

The governor wants them to expand the sales tax to services to raise the funds to avert the cut. But in an election year, voting for anything that even smells like a tax hike is verboten. Yet those same solons run the risk of offending mom and dad back home if their little Johnny or Janey ends up in a classroom with 50 other pupils.

What’s a poor legislator to do? It’s a lose-lose, which lawmakers loathe-loathe.

Here’s what they will do: punt.

Quietly unfolding out of view is a scheme to place the sales tax question on the August ballot. And here’s the beauty of the move: if voters approve the sales tax change, the schools are saved. If the voters reject the sales tax and $255 ends up being sliced from every school kid, it’s the voters who are to blame and not the lawmakers.

“We didn’t cut education, you did,” will be the defensive rally cry of lawmakers seeking to save their own political necks this election cycle.

Pretty nifty, eh?

“I think lawmakers should have the courage to do this,” the governor advised the weary legislators the other day. Easy for her to say, she is not running for anything this time out.

But alas, she adds, if they can’t muster that courage, she would not stand in the way of allowing citizens to take the lawmakers off the hook.

So far there is not a consensus to take this escape route, but knowing these guys and gals, it’s only a matter of time before they do the math and pawn this puppy off on you.

Arf. Arf.

Explosive About-Face
For decades, when it comes to 4th of July time Michigan residents become instant lawbreakers, thanks to lawmakers who have banned really dangerous fireworks.

That means half the state travels across the border into Ohio to pick up the contraband, and everyone crosses the state line hoping the state cops don’t nab them en route to the family picnic.

But hope is on the way.

The continuing budget crunch is forcing lawmakers to get inventive, and here’s the latest scheme. Legalize those fireworks, force the seller to pay a fee, and the money would go — where else? — into a fund to cover the cost of local fire services.

It makes sense. Since the explosives are undoubtedly going to cause some grass fires or injuries, the local fire shops will need the extra money to respond to all the firework mayhem.

Chalk it up as another example of how far lawmakers will go to avoid a revenue increase. If dangerous fireworks were too risky in the past, why all of a sudden is it safe to light these things now?

Why? Because lawmakers don’t want to tax you, and if you lose a digit fumbling around with those M-80s and the like, that’s your fault, not theirs.

On a grander level, the concept of a user fee, which is what the fireworks fee would be, applies to road funds as well. But the backers of more revenue for the roads are still stuck in neutral, unable to muster enough votes to raise the road bucks the state needs.

Here again, it makes logical sense to let those who use the roads pay for the roads. Yet as noted in this space countless times before, when has logic ever been the touchstone of legislative decisions?

The road-building lobby is running out of patience as it remains clueless on how to break the logjam in this election year. The best hope now is for a vote after the November election, which means another construction season will come and go with the potholes getting bigger and the cracks in the freeway bridges getting wider. And, because Michigan can’t match the federal highway dollars it’s supposed to receive, that money will go to Ohio and elsewhere.

At least you won’t have to drive on poor Michigan roads to Ohio to get your fireworks…maybe.

Foot in Mouth Extraction
It’s trite but true: timing is everything in politics. And Richard Bernstein is like the White Rabbit in Alice in Wonderland — he is late…oh yeah, really late.

In case you missed it, last week the Democratic candidate for attorney general volunteered that there were many in the party, supposedly including himself, who had had enough of the United Auto Workers tossing its political weight around in the state Democratic Party.

“People are tired of being pushed around and told what to do,” the passionate Mr. Bernstein asserted.

It was a great quote and almost unheard of in the annals of state Democratic politics for someone to take on the UAW with such a direct verbal broadside, knowing that the union can influence who gets the nomination.

The comments sat out there for a week, untouched by other media outlets. Bernstein’s opponent, David Leyton, whom the UAW likes, finally weighed in by calling Mr. B.’s remarks “highly disrespectful” to the union leaders.

This prompted, out of fairness, an overture to the Bernstein campaign to assess what pushback, if any, it had suffered since the original comments.

An email dated March 17, seven days after the interview, arrived at 2:18 p.m.

“Richard is a union member,” it began. “He respects the UAW and the labor movement and will be a great partner to them if elected,” it went on.

There was no hint of an apology.

But something happened between 2:18 and 4:20, when a second email arrived with this: “I made a poor choice in words and I apologize if my remarks were off-putting.”

Yes, it was an acknowledgment that he was sorry for what he said on March 11.

But why did it take a week for him to figure out he made a mistake?

Had the apology come within hours or even a day of the original statements, it would have had some credibility. But it took the Bernstein gang one week to figure out it needed to remove the candidate’s foot from his mouth.

Hence, the apology looks more like an 11th hour political damage control move rather than a sincere and from the heart “I’m sorry.”

Maybe it took him a week to figure out he spoke out of turn.

Or maybe he still believes what he said; he just doesn’t want to stand by his opinion for fear it might cost him the party A.G. nomination?

What a Difference a Year Makes

by Tom Shields
March 19, 2010

Just a year ago, the pundits had the Republican Party on the verge of extinction. Time Magazine said, “Republicans have the desperate aura of an endangered species,” and speculated that they could sink to the level of a third party in a two-party system.

John Cherry looked like a prohibitive favorite for the Dems’ pick for governor, and the Senate Democrats were measuring Mike Bishop’s office for drapes.

What a difference a year makes.

Republican governors in Obama states like Virginia and New Jersey. A Republican senator from Massachusetts and here in Michigan, a landslide state Senate victory by Mike Nofs in a seat won by Obama and considered a safe bet for the Democrats in 2010.

As we enter the engagement period of the 2010 election cycle, the polls and pundits are all predicting a GOP year for Michigan and the nation. Our polls have seen a swing of almost 20 percentage points toward Republicans when asking Michigan voters which party does a better job of running state government (from -8 percent to +9 percent).

Many people who voted for change in 2008 did not get the change they were looking for in 2009. The voters are clearly supporting candidates who promise less government. The unorganized Tea Party movement is held together by its common opposition to increased government spending and higher taxes — issues that align them with the Republicans in 2010.

And though we are four months out from the primary and seven months out from the general election, each party’s candidate field for governor of Michigan seems to be almost set. Now seems to be as good a time as ever to handicap the race for the Governor’s Office.

Democrat Primary
The shift in the political winds has swept the best candidates out of the Democrat race for governor. After John Cherry, Bob Bowman and Denise Ilitch decided that 2010 wasn’t going to be their year, the Democrat Party is left with three candidates who, collectively, probably do not have 50 percent name I.D. or enough money in the bank to cover Rick Snyder’s monthly consultant bills. Our polls show “Don’t Know” clearly leading the field with 64 percent, followed by Dillon (18 percent), Bernero (9 percent) and Smith (7 percent).

One year ago, Andy Dillon was the one candidate for governor who Republicans did not want to face. They may get their wish as Dillon finds himself in political primary purgatory. He’s too liberal for the conservatives and too conservative for the Democrat Party hierarchy. His endorsement from the building trades will help soothe some fears from some Dems, but his pro-life beliefs and his legislation to control the health care benefits of public employees has already cost him support from the AFL-CIO and puts him on a crash course with pro-choice Democrats and the MEA.

Of course, the candidate benefiting from all this is Lansing Mayor Virg Bernero. Bernero is the true accidental candidate whose stock has risen as all the other candidates dropped out of the race. The ultimate political opportunist, Bernero seems to be benefiting from the mere fact that he’s not Andy Dillon. Though he’s down in the early polls, if he can cobble together support from the liberals, pro-choice women, the unions and urban voters, he could be tough to beat in the August primary.

It appears that the only way Alma Wheeler Smith is going to get some respect for her candidacy is by recruiting Aretha Franklin as one of her co-chairs. With little money and a small base of support, she is destined to play third fiddle in the Democrat primary.

Republican Primary
In the Republican primary, Rick Snyder, the tough rich nerd, is shaking up the field by dumping $3 million in the campaign — outspending the other three candidates by a 10 to 1 margin.

Our most recent poll shows this turning into a three-way race with Hoekstra (21 percent), Cox (21 percent) and Snyder (20 percent) in a dead heat, and Mike Bouchard stuck at 10 percent.

The shortage of funds in the state’s matching fund pool could have a significant impact in the Republican primary as the other three candidates struggle to match Snyder’s bankroll. If Snyder continues at this pace, he could spend $8 to $10 million in the primary — more than double what his three opponents will spend combined.

One of the key developments to watch will be the endorsement of Right-to-Life. Snyder doesn’t meet RTL endorsement criteria, and if they weigh into the primary, one of the other three candidates could be propelled to front-runner status.

While Snyder’s media blitz has him moving up in the polls, it appears that west Michigan voters aren’t ready to embrace the nerd and are sticking with Congressman Pete Hoekstra. The candidate with the smallest war chest has the strongest base of local support. Hoekstra needs to raise the funds to defend his base and expand it to win the primary. But for now, Hoekstra sits on his west Michigan perch, until someone knocks him off.

One candidate trying to do just that is Attorney General Mike Cox. While Cox and Hoekstra have been neck and neck in the polls for the past year, Snyder’s media buy seems to have cut into Cox’s support the most. But Cox has stockpiled some cash, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see him the next one out of the gate to run some advertising to keep pace. With money, political savvy, statewide name I.D. and Asian Carp, expect Cox to be in the thick of things in August.

Three million dollars and a cute ad campaign have bought Ann Arbor businessman Rick Snyder about 50-percent name ID and some early support. But it remains to be seen if the “tough nerd” campaign can hold the momentum for the long haul. Historically, wealthy business candidates like Dick Chrysler and Jim Nicholson have jumped out to early leads by spending early money — only to fade in the end. Snyder must put a little more meat on those nerdy bones to withstand the attacks that are sure to come in June and July.

The most puzzling campaign for the Republican nomination is the campaign team of Oakland County Sheriff Mike Bouchard and Secretary of State Terri Land. Both candidates have won statewide Republican primaries but have not yet clicked as the east/west team. Running fourth in the early polls may help them stay out of the line of fire when the real mud starts flying, but they need to come up with something to break out of the cellar and into the pack.

While it’s still early, primary money tends to flow to the front-runners. A candidate can lose in the early months and still be the first across the finish line in August, as long as the candidate keeps in position to win.

General Election
With 12 different potential match-ups for the general election, we don’t have room here to speculate on each race. But our polling shows each of the Republican candidates beating each of the Democrats by margins of 15 percent to 22 percent. The mood of the electorate and the general quality of the candidates certainly favor the Republicans in November.

The potential entry of former Republican Congressman Joe Schwarz as an Independent candidate could muck up the race. Our polling shows him pulling just 14 percent of the vote, with 8 percent coming from the Republican candidate and 5 percent from the Democrat candidate. In a close race, he could be the difference. But right now, it’s anything but close.

If I were a bookmaker, here are the early odds I’d give each candidate. But I’d wait until the first of August or November to place your bets.

GOP Nomination:
Hoekstra: 2-1
Cox: 2-1
Snyder: 3-1
Bouchard: 5-1

DEM Nomination
Dillon: 2-1
Bernero: 5-2
Smith: 15-1

General Election
GOP Nominee: 2-3
DEM Nominee: 3-1
Independent: 25-1

Tom Shields is founder and president of Marketing Resource Group (MRG), a Lansing-based political marketing and public relations firm.

Can the Candidates
Do the Job?

by John Lindstrom
Gongwer News Service
March 5, 2010

Herewith a point of argument that includes a prediction: if the professionals involved in government — that is, the people who work in and around state government, be they bureaucrats, lobbyists, policy analysts, reporters and others — were the only ones who could vote in the 2010 gubernatorial election, Michigan’s next governor would be John “Joe” Schwarz.

In fact, it is arguable that if those persons were the only ones who could vote in the election, Mr. Schwarz, former state senator, former member of Congress, former Republican candidate for governor, would win in a walk.

And in light of the surprising announcement Thursday night that former Genesee County Treasurer Dan Kildee was dropping out of the Democratic race barely more than a week after he got in, that prediction seems even more…predictable.

That prediction is not a knock, well not a hard knock, against any of the other remaining candidates running for governor: Republicans Attorney General Mike Cox, Oakland County Sheriff Mike Bouchard, U.S. Rep. Pete Hoekstra, Ann Arbor business executive Rick Snyder and Sen. Tom George (R-Kalamazoo) or Democrats House Speaker Andy Dillon (D-Redford Twp.), Lansing Mayor Virg Bernero and Rep. Alma Wheeler Smith (D-Salem Twp.).

But it is an expression of the frustration the professionals in government have endured, and the hope they have that whoever is elected governor in November knows what the hell he or she has to do and, even more importantly, how to get it done.

The field for governor should be set now. Others could still get in the race (and with Mr. Kildee’s exit some top Democrats might hope another name could emerge), but after the angst of the last several months that seems unlikely.

In the past two weeks there have been about a half-dozen major developments in the race: Mr. Kildee got in for the Democrats (to the relief of top Democrats worried about a Bernero/Dillon race), Mr. Dillon confirmed he was running, Mr. Dillon showed strength in new polls and so did Mr. Hoekstra and Mr. Snyder, and then to the surprise and some anguish of Democrats, Mr. Kildee got out.

The other development: Mr. Schwarz formed an exploratory committee for governor, to run as neither a Republican nor a Democrat. Until Mr. Kildee’s departure, Mr. Schwarz’s decision was probably the biggest surprise. Mr. Schwarz had been seen wavering on a possible independent bid. Earlier in the year he had said he was about 70 percent certain to run. By last week that had fallen to 50 percent certainty.

So his decision to establish an exploratory committee came as water in the desert for some people. There are lots of professionals eager to help his campaign, should Mr. Schwarz decide to run (which he has not yet).

Politics, and by extension government, is one of the few areas where professionalism is scorned by the public. Nobody wants his or her heart surgery performed by an amateur surgeon; nobody wants someone whose flying experience is limited to model airplanes piloting a 747 across the Atlantic; nobody wants a baker who has only made cookies with a Kenner Easy-Bake oven whipping up the daughter’s wedding cake; but nobody wants professional politicians trying to make government work. (Check out the reception Christopher Reeve’s character enjoyed when he defended professional negotiators in the film The Remains Of The Day, one of the few times the arts pay any tribute to the skill running a government can require.)

Yes, in a democratic republic we are all politicians because we are the government, and it is important to ensure that the viewpoints of all are included in the governing process. But there also have to be people who know how the law works, what the processes are, how to balance the books, how to make sure the cops show up when called and the inspectors find the nasty bugs whipped up in the peanut butter.

Talk to the people involved in government and it is striking how unenthusiastic they are about the candidates running for governor. They are not critical of each person’s intelligence. They worry somewhat about their different viewpoints, but they also know that whether from the right or the left, the person in charge tends to moderate, so eventually the new governor will lead more from the middle of the bird than from one of the wings.

But what the professionals worry about is: can any of these guys do the job? Can they figure out how to break down the partisan barriers that block so many things from taking effect? Can that person work efficiently — in other words, when he or she makes a pronouncement, will the bills or executive orders be ready to go in short order and not months? Can that person set an agenda and, as much as anyone can in a leadership position, stick to it? Can that person manage the different and sometimes competing elements of government so that the state advances by whatever measure one uses to determine advancement?

And can that person knock heads together when needed and still keep people talking to each other so resolutions are reached?

The fact that so many professionals, before Mr. Schwarz got in and Mr. Kildee got out, were interested in either Mr. Snyder or Mr. Kildee for governor should tell one something, at least about the other candidates. Mr. Snyder is backed by buckets of top business executives, who see him as a moderating influence outside of the bloodletting that goes on in government. Similarly, Mr. Kildee was seen as having effective governing cred that could have played well to the Democratic interest groups. But Mr. Kildee’s departure leaves the large middle ground of Michigan voters to consider Mr. Snyder. But Mr. Snyder is also a largely unknown quantity. The question remains, can he do the job?

Mr. Schwarz is a known quantity. He has become an independent because he disagrees with the direction (whichever direction that is) the Republican Party is heading. But he refuses to become a Democrat (in fact, Democrats tried hard to get him to switch parties and he declined). If Republicans now label themselves Reagan Republicans, Mr. Schwarz is a Lincoln Republican, a Teddy Roosevelt Republican, an Eisenhower and Rockefeller and Vandenberg and Milliken Republican. In other words, he is the kind of Republican many Republicans now reject by simply saying, “They weren’t conservatives.” (Maybe not, but boy could they govern.)

Nobody among the professionals has any doubt that Mr. Schwarz could do the job. Which is exactly why if the election were left to them, Mr. Schwarz would now profitably be measuring the drapes in the executive office for when he moves in next January.

But the election is open to all, and it is a fool’s errand to say who will win in November. The likely winner will come from one of the two parties, and right now the GOP has the edge. Everyone expects the primaries and the general election following to be so vicious that the public will feel comfortable voting only if the polling booths are in shower stalls. Right now, the thinking is that Mr. Schwarz’s presence could affect the outcome, but how is unknown. He could rob voters from both camps, so which benefits from his presence is a cipher.

And with a more limited Democratic primary, Mr. Schwarz might cut a larger figure in a general election, should he have the money needed to run a competitive campaign.

But he could also force the other candidates to do one of two things: try to measure up more to Mr. Schwarz as a knowing, competent candidate: or move farther to the fringe, pointing to Mr. Schwarz as one more example of the kind of politician trying to steal the public’s money and rights.

The one thing professionals hope for, and are worried about, is the election will come off as an amateur hour.

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.

Truth in Advertising

by Tim Skubick
February 26, 2010

When the Snyder for Guv guys were fact-checking their notorious Nerd commercial, they missed one huge error. The announcer claimed that business guy Snyder had a Ten-Point Plan that the typical career politician would not understand.

Turns out, every politician will understand. That’s because much of the Snyder blueprint contains some of the very same verbiage career politicians have been uttering for years.

The Snyder education reform paper, for example, contains such insightful revelations as, “The state needs to adapt by aggressively working to develop a populace that is better trained and prepared to compete in a global economy.”

Or how about this one: “Michigan’s high school graduates should be prepared to succeed at the next level of instruction and in their careers.”

To be fair, he does deserve credit for issuing a series of white papers on how he would change government. While others are searching for the pithy 10-second soundbite, Snyder is grinding out pages of here’s-what-I-would-do material. Good for him — and for you if you read them.

But frankly, there isn’t a ton of specifics on how he would do all this. Or as Walter Mondale wondered years ago, where’s the beef?

His campaign, which gets paid to defend him against critical media pieces, contends there will be more beef down the road and, get this, “the level of detail on most of these is something that candidates shy away from.”

The reason they shy away from details is that if you don’t give any out, you can’t be held accountable later on for not delivering on your promises.

For a guy who sells himself as a non-career politician, he sounds an awful lot like…dare we say…a career politician.

Snyder also glosses over stuff he apparently does not want to address. In the section on states that are doing well on education, he highlights Minnesota for making a “strong commitment to education and investments that have yielded formidable results” and his data is spot on. What he forgot or did not want to point out is that Minnesota has one of the highest tax rates in the country. Geez, someone running in a GOP primary sure as heck wouldn’t want to admit that a high-tax state was actually successful…unless, of course, he or she wanted to lose.

In another shot at career politicians, Snyder laments that lawmakers put off to the “last minute” finalization of the Race to the Top state legislation to qualify for more federal aid for schools. That’s an uninformed charge. Lawmakers wanted time for input from all the interested parities and did not want to jam any reforms down anybody’s throat. It’s called a democracy.

He also wants to “reverse recent trends of under-investing in universities…” Don’t we all, but where is the next sentence on how he proposes to raise the money to start the reversing?

In fact, you would expect that as a seasoned business guy he would be meticulous in costing out each of his recommendations and then explaining how he would raise the bucks.

But even he admits he did not do that, saying it was “premature” to figure out how to pay for this stuff. So, voter, it looks like you will just have to trust Mr. Snyder. Go ahead and vote for him, and if he is elected he’ll be glad to fill you in on the details later on.

The last guy who ran for governor and said that was Dick DeVos. And he, last time we checked, is still selling closet organizers.

Bottom line: Mr. Snyder gets high marks for issuing these documents, which do contain some food for thought, but his Ten-Point plan is not the grandiose blueprint for change that his commercial makes it out to be.

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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Darn Good Debate
The audience loved it. And rightly so. It had humor, dramatic differences were apparent, both guys demonstrated some passion, and no mud was slung or hostages taken. In other words, it was a darn good debate.

Credit Mike Cox and Pete Hoekstra with putting on a good performance in front of a bunch of independent insurance agents over in Grand Rapids the other day.

It did not start out to be a mano a mano meeting, but it turned out that way when Oakland County Sheriff Mike Bouchard and Ann Arbor Rick “The Nerd” Snyder both bailed out.

So for the first time, the media got a peak at the two front-runners in the GOP primary.

They both would go after state government employees to squeeze them for more concessions, starting with a scheduled 3-percent negotiated pay raise for unionized workers.

Kill it, A.G. Cox and West Michigan Congressman Hoekstra said. Then Hoekstra added, I’ll see your 3-percent cut and raise it by another 5-7 percent, for a grand total of a 10-percent cut in the take-home pay of state civil servants.

Cox says he’s already seeking a 5-percent rollback for those in his office, and he would extend that to everyone else if elected.

But then the sharp contrasts emerged.

• The federal bailout for the banks.

Cox would have voted no. Hoekstra voted yes, saying he had no choice because “no one knew what would happen” if Congress did nothing. “It saved the financial system,” he argued.

Cox, who did not have to vote, said the bailout was wrong regardless of what the consequences might have been.

• “Race to the Top” school reforms to win federal funds to help failing school districts.

Hoekstra would have vetoed the thing. Cox would have signed it.

“Race to the Top. Hell no,” Hoekstra declared, delivering the soundbite of the debate and bringing instant applause from the audience. He is loath to let the feds dictate education policy to the state.

Cox sees thousands of failing school kids in Detroit and elsewhere and he believes Race to the Top is a way to unfail them. Sure he was for local control, but this federal program he likes.

So the audience actually got to see some clear distinctions between the two. That’s what good debates do — which is something those gawdawful TV political commercials will never do.

Ditch the Blackberries
Ya gotta wonder how many of the players in this town are rejoicing that this is the last state budget cycle involving the Three Amigos — Jennifer Granholm, Andy Dillon and Mike Bishop. Enough already, some folks must be thinking, as the trio has produced tons of drama, rhetorical ruffles and flourishes, but not much cooperation as they provided “leadership” on deciding how to spend your tax dollars.

In fact, in 2007 they managed to pull off something that had not been done in recent history: an abbreviated state government shutdown. And here was part of the problem: much of the chatter between them was not face to face, but key pad to key pad via their text-message machines.

During the height of the march toward a government shutdown in 2007, the governor disclosed, she was texting her two “friends” at least six or seven times a day — and that number seems low.

Yes, texting is expedient.

Yes, texting beats smoke signals.

But what texting prevents is the ability to read the other guy’s body language, eye contact, pitch of the voice and a host of other non-verbal signals that could enhance the negotiation process.

The instant communication between two parties sometimes means the third party is left out. You probably had the situation where Bishop and Dillon were complaining how difficult it was for them to deal with her, and maybe she confided to Dillon that she and Bishop were not hitting it off. And by the time they sat down in the same room at the same time, all this back-channel back-biting had probably elevated the rancor between them so that grinding out a compromise was even more contentious and challenging.

Years ago, somehow, lawmakers and governors managed to iron out budget difficulties with no cell phones and no texting exchanges. They did it the old fashioned way, by meeting, talking and giving and taking.

Since the relationship between these key players is not so hot to begin with, maybe they can agree on something up front: let’s chuck these texting crackberries into the Grand River.

And since they are addicted to those things, it’s unlikely they’ll do it…but they should.

Blues vs. Browns
It’s one of those hush-hush sort of things in the law enforcement community; the less said the better. But there is no denying the fact that a turf war is always at the ready when it comes to state troopers, sheriffs and other local police officers.

Years ago the troopers’ union published a statewide survey that showed the state cops were more widely respected than any other agency in the state. The in-your-face stuff was not well received by others who wore a badge. But the story goes beyond that.

When it comes to crime fighting, the Who-Is-In-Charge and Who-Got-The-Bad-Guy first is a constant internal game between all the cop shops.

Now comes one that threatens to strain relations just a tad more as the governor has opened up a can of budget worms. She wants to save state trooper jobs by reallocating (a.k.a stealing) $2.2 million from secondary road patrols, which is money going to local sheriffs and others.

The secondary road patrol fund goes back 30 years and was the subject of a ferocious battle as the State Police tried to block state dollars from going to sheriff patrols. The troopers lost, mostly because the chair of the Senate budget committee at the time, Sen. Jerome Hart (D-Saginaw), wanted to help the sheriffs.

Gov. Jennifer Granholm wants to back her state troopers, and if the sheriffs lose out, so be it.

Not so fast, cries GOP Senator Valde Garcia, who chairs the law enforcement budget. He grasps the essence of this debate: “It pits the State Police against the sheriffs and local police at a time when they need to be working together.”

Garcia wants to avert trooper layoffs, recalling the flap last year when 120 troopers fresh out of trooper school found themselves, for awhile, fresh out of work. It was not pretty.

The problem for Garcia is a tough one: if not money from the secondary road patrols, where does he get it?

“I have no alternatives at the moment,” he confesses, but his search is underway as he hopes to avert another shootout between the cops in blue and the ones in brown.

Blown Away

by Tim Skubick
November 20, 2009

Out of the blue, the governor was asked what title she would use if she wrote a book about her tenure in Lansing.

How about Blown Away?

You’ll recall that was the line she used in one of her State of the State speeches as she gushed about how her economic recovery plans would eventually blossom.

“In five years you’ll be blown away,” she confidently reassured everyone.

Sitting at the anchor desk that night, one recalls thinking, “That line is going to be used against her by somebody down the line.”

And true to form, it was and still is — and in retrospect even the governor concedes the line was a mistake.

But those two words capture the essence of this governor, which will be part of her legacy.

You can almost hear her and Team Granholm behind closed doors brainstorming about the lousy state of Michigan’s economy and wanting desperately to say something positive. Being positive is in her DNA, and her troops, eager to please her, know it.

Everyone in the room believed that the seeds the governor was planting would result in a diversified economy long after she was gone. So wanting to strike that positive note, you could see them nodding in agreement that in five years, folks would be blown away.

Here was the rub, and this is what has plagued this governor from the get-go. There was no hard-nosed realist in the room to shake everyone to their senses, someone to stomp on the rose-colored glasses and urge everyone to get real. Far as we can tell, very few of her inner circle advisors have regularly challenged her, taken her on and pointed out the consequences of some of her decisions.

It is not healthy for any governor to have group-think, with everyone on the same page all the time.

Somebody should have said, “Governor, I understand your desire to say something nice, but this line is a ticking time bomb. You may feel good about using it, but it’s going to come back to haunt you. Some opponent is going to say, why do we have to wait five years? Why didn’t you do something before this so we don’t have to wait? Take the line out, now.”

If somebody in the room did say that, apologies to that person, but it’s highly unlikely that happened.

It is widely believed in this town that the governor does not like confrontation, although she has certainly had to confront it and deal with it successfully. But in the political sandbox, sometimes you have to throw sand in the other guy’s eye just to get your toy back and establish who is in charge.

Not wanting to hurt someone’s feelings is an admirable human trait, as is wanting to be uplifting and optimistic, but sometimes that desire gets in the way of reality, which in this case produced the blown-away line.

As for what her book title would be, the governor confesses she has none, but she says the content would focus on leadership in a crisis.

And for the first time, she concludes that her “biggest flaw, my biggest liability” was the lack of legislative experience before she became chief executive to cope with this never ending economic mess.

As for a chapter in her book on another political career, she promises: “I have no intention of running for anything again.” With the exception, she laughs, of a post on the PTA.

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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Farm Turf War
As long as everybody stays in his or her own lane, life in this town can be tranquil. Alas, when somebody wanders onto someone else’s hallowed ground, you get a turf war.

And we’ve got a dandy one unfolding right now.

In this corner, Gov. Jennifer Granholm. And in that one, the state’s farming community led by the Michigan Farm Bureau.

Seems she wants the power to pick the director of the state Agriculture Department, and the other guys want the status quo, which allows the Agriculture Commission to do the picking.

Granholm has at least one supporter, former Gov. Bill Milliken. Back in the ’70s when his administration was up to its eyeballs in the PBB controversy — cattle eating feed laced with that chemical and then humans eating that meat — Milliken locked horns with B. Dale Ball.

Ball was anointed by the ag commission. Milliken wanted to fire him but couldn’t. Milliken lost.

This governor is not in the middle of any such controversy, but she’s created another one by encroaching on Farm Bureau turf, and the farmers are winning.

Ms. Granholm figures, as did other governors before her, that it makes sense to give the chief executive the authority over appointments so that the buck stops at the governor’s desk.

One could argue that indirectly she has that power now, in that she appoints the commission. So if she wanted person “X” to run the department, she calls her appointees and tells them what to do.

Governors tend to favor direct power over indirect, but the state Senate last week undid what the governor hopes to do.

Now the game comes down to Democrats in the House. Will they side with their governor or the farmers?

Since she may lose this battle, the governor’s folks are making noises about finding a compromise to end this little turf scrimmage. And it is simple: she picks the director with the advice and consent of the board.

Done.

Bouchard the Dancer
Mike Bouchard is no wimp. He proudly packs heat and is not afraid to use his hefty size to his advantage, so you would think he’d be the last guy to be an accomplished dancer.

Ah, but he is.

Watch how he dances around a very sticky wicket unfolding in the GOP primary for governor, namely what to say about Mike Cox, a fellow candidate for gov.

Cox is soaking up lots of free media, but not the kind you would necessarily want, over his role in investigating an alleged party at former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick’s pad. Cox concluded, “What party?” and tagged it an “urban legend.” But apparently not everyone agrees, although there is no proof to the contrary.

So the issue on the campaign trail is the credibility of Mr. Cox.

Your comments Sheriff Bouchard?

“I’m just focused on my message,” he laces up his dancing shoes.

“So you are not going there?”

“I’m not going there,” he heads for the dance floor.

“Why don’t you want to go there?”

“I’m focused on my issues,” he taps away.

He is pressed further and notes that if other candidates or voters want to comment on Mr. Cox, they are free to do so, as he stands up for free speech just as long as he doesn’t have to participate.

“I’m not worrying about somebody else. That isn’t where my focus is,” he goes on.

Well, if that is the case, then Mr. Bouchard should be willing to promise that he will resist the temptation to exploit the story for his own benefit.

He waltzed away from the pledge, dredging up a line we never heard before, “I’m focused on exactly where I’m focused,” he repeated redundantly.

Points for staying on message, but one final attempt: “Why not make the promise?”

Here’s why not: “Because I’m bigger than you,” he smiles.

Nuf said.