Jennifer Granholm: Thanks, GOP candidates, for move to far right

Michigan has been ground zero of the pander festival — with the candidates trying to out-right each other in town halls from Grand Rapids to Detroit. The Detroit News’s conservative editor Nolan Finley lamented Sunday that the Republican candidates haven’t spent enough time on economic issues. He’s right.

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In the laboratory of democracy that is Michigan, we have seen how the strategic intervention to save the auto industry enabled our state to rebound economically. But the candidates cannot allow the words “It worked” to pass their lips. We have seen how critical it is to get kids to go to college. But Santorum believes it’s for snobs — and said he doesn’t even believe in a state’s involvement in public education.

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Of particular interest to this former governor is how giving block grants to the states to administer federal funding for things like education, health care and infrastructure would work when multi-jurisdiction businesses would have to deal with a 50-state nightmare of patchwork rules and regulations. But to hear these candidates talk, you would think that they want to eliminate the federal government entirely and create 50 separate countries. Then we would be Europe, wouldn’t we?

I recognize that, as a Democrat, I’m in no position to offer advice to Republicans. But hey, keep it up boys. The version of Republicanism you are offering is a gift to Democrats looking for recruits. The anti-gay, anti-woman, anti-immigrant, anti-Latino, anti-Muslim, anti-Europe (particularly the French and the Greeks), anti-labor, anti-poor, anti-99 percent and now anti-college graduate rhetoric enables us to eagerly welcome your castoffs into the Democratic Party — where inclusivity is celebrated and their contributions are welcome.

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