Fat Lady Approaching for Dems July 23, 2010 Take yourself back to election night 2008. The scene is a huge park underneath the picturesque skyline of Chicago, with hundreds of thousands of citizens making a little history. President-elect Barack Obama and family walk onto the stage amidst shouts, tears, joy and a change you can [...]
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Summer of Democratic Discontent July 23, 2010 SAULT STE. MARIE — Mark Dobias, a droll, 54-year-old lawyer, has never seen a year when there was less enthusiasm about the race for governor — especially among Democrats. “It’s like being lost deep in a cold and wet cedar swamp in November with a wet matchbook and [...]
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Extremist Talk and Blithering Outrage by John Lindstrom Gongwer News Service April 2, 2010 What is the etiquette when one is in the dentist’s chair and the dentist is peering down one’s gullet, impervious and intimidating behind the mask, various sharp tools in hand, all the while muttering about “Obamacare taking over everything…won’t have insurance [...]
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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 [...]
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Can the CandidatesDo 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 [...]
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Experience Still Counts by Tim Skubick March 5, 2010 Everything you read these days about the political climate out there is bad news for anyone who even remotely resembles a career politician. The anger is palpable, as citizens are mad at Republicans and Democrats. End of story. Not so fast. In the latest TV7-Detroit Free [...]
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Call the Doctor by Jack Lessenberry March 5, 2010 As a young doctor working in Laos during the Vietnam war, Joe Schwarz spent a fair amount of time saving people in impossible situations. “One weekend I took off six legs of tribesmen who had stepped on land mines laid by the Pathet Lao and Vietnamese. [...]
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Blood on the Campaign Trail by John Lindstrom Gongwer News Service February 19, 2010 On Saturday, February 13, when they should have been otherwise engaged in buying flowers and candy for Valentine’s Day, friends and associates of former Governor James Blanchard started getting text messages telling them that Bob Bowman had decided not to seek [...]
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Politics after Cherry by Gongwer News Service January 8, 2010 For all his angels on the head of a pin, Thomas Aquinas is not easy to simplify, but he did speak of knowing by faith and knowing by reason. On Monday, January 4, Michigan Democrats knew both by reason and faith that Lt. Governor John [...]
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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 [...]
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