Gov. Granholm's Diary on dKos

MI-Gov Jennifer Granholm On dKos Here

by artichoke

Wed Sep 13, 2006 at 10:30:18 AM EST

FROM CLINT: I messed up the password for the Governor's account and then couldn't repost on my account, so I had to use this. My apologies. Here is the Governor.

Cross-posted at the G4G Blog and MichiganLiberal.com

I’m writing this diary after some friendly urging that I have read here and at Michigan Liberal, which was echoed at the recent bloggers caucus at our State Party Convention. Many of you have been posting about my re-election race and I appreciate that you have kept the blogosphere updated on the campaign.

Now that Labor Day has come and gone and we’re in the final intense months of the campaign, I wanted to come here and express my appreciation for your involvement. I also want to answer any questions you might have -- we had a great off-line conversation at the bloggers caucus and since everyone couldn’t be there, I’m coming to you. I’ll stay online for about an hour after this diary posts to answer questions and I’ll try to check back in later on as well.

Let me review the basics for those of you who aren’t from Michigan or are just beginning to get up to speed on the Michigan gubernatorial race. First of all, if you haven’t been keeping an eye on this one, you should. There is no electoral map of our country where we elect a Blue president with a Red Michigan. Although Michigan has been a Blue state in recent Presidential elections the margin has been thin, and the reality is that we are very much dominated by Republicans – right now, I am joined in our capitol by a Republican controlled State House and State Senate, Republican Attorney General, Republican Secretary of State and a Republican majority on the Supreme Court. (And we have a majority Republican congressional delegation.) That’s why, in the past four years, I’ve had to veto more bills than any Governor in recent history. Republican presidential contenders, including Mitt Romney who is from Michigan, are already starting to make regular swings through our state. My opponent, Dick DeVos, has almost unlimited financial resources, and he has presidential aspirations. I assure you that if he is elected Governor he will go to great lengths to “deliver” Michigan for a Republican candidate.

When I came into office in 2002, it quickly became clear that my predecessor, a Republican who held the office for twelve years, aided by a Republican legislature, had left the state’s economy a mess. I’ve spent the past four years cleaning things up. I’ve eliminated $4 billion of deficits and given us the smallest state government since the 1970s, but I’ve worked hard to protect important investments in education and health care, and I’ve stood up for Michigan workers as our state goes through a gut-wrenching restructuring of the auto industry. A lot of our problems, for better or worse, are due to things that are completely controllable on a national level, but that have been neglected by George Bush and the Washington Republicans. For example, Bush’s failure to enforce trade agreements have cost the U.S. literally hundreds of thousands of jobs -- hitting Michigan particularly hard. This failure is almost covered up by the great lack of competence that the Bush administration continues to exhibit in so many other ways, but nonetheless it is having a very real impact on American workers, again, particularly workers in Michigan.

The truth in this campaign, though, is that my opponent has a very long history of wholeheartedly supporting the people and policies that have caused so many of Michigan’s economic problems. Dick DeVos and his family gave over $600,000 to the Bush campaign in 2000, and in 2004 the DeVos and Van Andel families, who founded Amway together, gave almost $5 million to Bush and other Republican causes. DeVos has also given money to a whole litany of right wing groups that support outsourcing at the expense of American jobs and to the great benefit of a fortunate few. He has supported school vouchers, and he’s attacked Medicaid and a woman’s right to make personal health care decisions.

DeVos started running television advertisements in February, and he has spent over $20 million so far – the estimates are that he will spend over $60 million in this race. Incredible. But we are holding our own. Some polls, including Zogby earlier this week, have shown encouraging news recently, particularly given the disparity in TV time thus far. At the same time, DeVos has DeVos has ratcheted up his negative rhetoric, attacking me and my administration directly on a few different fronts.

As Governor, I’ve developed the nation’s most comprehensive and aggressive economic plan. We’re creating jobs right now by investing in roads and schools, and by helping our struggling manufacturers. And we’re investing $2 billion to diversify our economy through my 21st Century Jobs Fund -- more than any other state in the country, creatively using our tobacco settlement moneys -- so that Michigan becomes a center for the high-tech industries of the future, including life sciences and alternative energy. Although there is a lot of work still to be done, we are already starting to make progress -- companies like Google and United Solar Ovonic and Toyota and hundreds of other companies are choosing our state as the place to invest and create jobs.

While jobs are our immediate concern, I think that the real answers to sustained economic growth lie in our “human capital,” so I’m fighting for opportunity for all of our citizens: I’m investing in public education at record levels, and working to make sure that every student in our state has a $4,000 scholarship to college. Our goal is to double the number of college graduates in Michigan within 10 years. I’m working with the federal government to create universal, affordable health coverage in Michigan -- extending coverage to hundreds of thousands of uninsured people. On October first I’m raising the minimum wage to $6.95 an hour, and eventually to $7.40. Very soon I will sign legislation that creates a state-level earned income tax credit for the first time in Michigan history. We are making incredible progress here. I really believe that the Democratic Party should be looking to our state as a model for the policies and politics that we can run on -- and win on -- nationally. But first I have to get past my opponent in November.

OK, that’s my short primer on the state of my race in Michigan. I’m looking forward to reading your comments and responding as much as I can for a little while here.