NYT: In Race for Governor of Michigan, Struggling Economy Is Topic A

In the Race for Governor of Michigan, the Struggling Economy Is Topic A
By MONICA DAVEY
Published: October 9, 2006


Governor Jennifer Granholm

....while elections in other regions have turned to matters like national security, the war in Iraq and Congressional scandal, Michigan’s races for governor and, to a lesser degree, the United States Senate are hinging this year almost entirely on the struggling economy and the question of who is to blame for it....

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Gov. Jennifer M. Granholm, an enormously popular Democrat when she took office four years ago, now faces a serious challenge from Dick DeVos, the former president of the Amway Corporation and the son of a co-founder....

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For a time, polls showed Mr. DeVos even or slightly ahead of Ms. Granholm, but more recent surveys suggest she has pulled ahead slightly. In a survey of 600 likely voters taken this month for The Detroit News and several television stations, Ms. Granholm was leading, with 46 percent saying they would vote for her, compared with 40 percent for Mr. DeVos; the margin of error was four percentage points. But of those polled, 12 percent said they were undecided.

Ms. Granholm, a former federal prosecutor and a former state attorney general, said she was pressing to diversify the state’s economy into fields like alternative energy, life sciences and domestic security; wanted to double the number of college graduates in Michigan within a decade; and hoped to change the way the state handles work force training for those without jobs.

And while Mr. DeVos has tried to blame Ms. Granholm for the state’s struggles, in an interview, she directed the blame elsewhere: to circumstances beyond her control (“No other state is the automotive capital of the world”); to the Bush administration (“He has sat idly by while the industry reels”); and even to Mr. DeVos, who supported the trade agreements, Nafta and Cafta, that she said had helped leave the Michigan economy in a wreck....

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/09/us/politics/09michigan.html