By Staff
Michigan Republican gubernatorial candidate Dick DeVos and Democratic Gov. Jennifer Granholm squared off last Monday in an hour debate at WKAR-TV in East Lansing. They meet each other again Tuesday on his home turf, Grand Rapids. The debate will be seen on NBC affiliates.
Many pundits gave the nod to Granholm, saying DeVos had no answers or plan. Like John Kerry, several times he said, "I have a plan for that," but never revealed what it might be.
One viewer described him as "an automaton spewing out illogical generalities." He was always on the defensive, responding with talking points.
DeVos seemed incapable of responding clearly and directly, yet he seeks an executive position where the ability to think on your feet in pressure-packed situations is critical.
Being able to clearly articulate your position and to respond to challenges is an essential quality for a governor.
Granholm has been more specific about her plan to replace the state's Single Business Tax revenue of $1.9 billion, which the Legislature slated for repeal at the end of 2007.
Republican Bill Ballenger called DeVos' performance the worst he's seen in 40 years of watching gubernatorial debates.
An EPIC MRA poll released Thursday showed Granholm with a 46-40 lead.
Fewer voters had a favorable impression of DeVos (35 percent) than President Bush (42 percent) in the poll.
Michigan has seen thousands of well-paying jobs cut and run as the Big Three automakers tried to shrink enough to survive.
Michigan's 7.1-percent unemployment rate in August was the nation's highest – a distinction it shared with Mississippi.
Gloom of this magnitude usually sinks incumbents – think Democrat Jimmy Carter in 1980 or President George H.W. Bush in 1992.
In any other year Granholm would be toast in the face of such a well-financed challenge by DeVos, the former Amway Corp. president.
Nationally, Democrats have been optimistic about their chances, given disenchantment with the war in Iraq and the Mark Foley page e-mail scandal, which could engulf the GOP leadership.
Republicans want to blame the economy on Granholm, who counters that their party controls Congress and the White House, which has been more anxious to meet with "American Idol" Taylor Hicks than the BIg Three automakers. She has said the federal government should craft a national health care and job training policy.
Daimler-Chrysler is cutting vehicle production and Ford Motor Co. plans to buy out 75,000 blue-collar and 10,000 white-collar workers.
Toyota, meanwhile, threatens to overtake General Motors as the world's No. 1 automaker.
Michigan's jobless rate was twice the current rate during the 1982 recession, but nobody today expects the strong rebound of then because the nature of manufacturing has changed so in the intervening years.
One in four manufacturing jobs left Michigan since the late 1990s, and it began under Gov. John Engler, not Granholm. She inherited a $4 billion budget deficit that has been closed by cutting spending.
She successfully lobbied Google to move its AdWords division and 1,000 jobs to Ann Arbor. Rather than go negative, her latest television ad talks about her success keeping Whirlpool in Michigan and saving 400 jobs.
It's pointless for the candidates to argue about who's to blame for the jobs lost.
We should be looking ahead and expecting to hear ideas from candidates on how we can retrain the workforce whose jobs have been lost and move forward.