Politicians share one common trait regardless of their political predalictions:  Their inability to fess up to flaws.

        Like you need a list to prove it;  Nixon, Clinton, Kilpatrick, etc. etc.

        Breaking the mold is Gov. Jennifer Granholm, who without batting an eyelash the other day conceded that her lack of legislative experience before she became governor was "my biggest flaw.  That's been my biggest liability."

       Those who are not fond of Michigan's first female governor will pounce on this confession and say, "See, we told ya so."  But if are willing to set aside your feelings, she deserves a pat on the head for venturing where others fear to go.

       The truth is, being governor is a tough assignment if you come from the outside.  The learning curve is out of sight.

      Granholm, recall, never wanted to be a politician. She landed the state Attorney General's job on her first bid for office and four years later she was running the whole state and at times her inexperience was painful to watch.

      She reflects that being A.G. had "some aspects that are good" but she quickly adds, "legislative experience is even more important."

      If Granholm is correct than GOP candidates for governor Rick Snyder and Mike Cox, heads up.  They have zippo time in the legislative trenches.  Snyder btw tells voters his lack of political experience is actually a plus coupled with his business acumen.

      Oakland County Sheriff Mike Bouchard has it and State Senator Tom George does and West Michigan hopeful Pete Hoekstra has congressional time in grade.

      Granholm notes that her pal and Lt. Gov.John Cherry has the legislative grounding she lacked which is why she thinks he'd be a good replacement.

      Michigan voters will decide if she is right in less than a year.

     As long as everybody stays in their own lane, life in this town can be tranquil.  But alas when somebody wanders onto someone else's hallowed ground, you get a turf war.

      And we've got a dandy one unfolding right now.

       In this corner, Gov. Jennifer Granholm and in that one the state's farming community led by the Michigan Farm Bureau.

      Seems she wants the power to pick the director of the state Agriculture department and the other guys want the status quo which allows the Agriculture commission to do that.

      Granholm has at least one supporter, former Gov. Bill Milliken.  Back in the 70's when his administration was up to its eyeballs in the PBB controversy, cattle eating feed laced with that chemcial and then humans eating that meat, Milliken locked horns with B. Dale Ball.

      Ball was annointed by the ag commission.  Milliken wanted to fire him but couldn't.  Milliken lost.

      This governor is not in the middle of any such controversy but she's created another one by encroaching on Farm Bureau turf and the farmers are winning.

      Ms. Granholm figures, as did other governors before her, that it makes sense to give the chief executive the authority over appointments so that the buck stops at the governor's desk.

      One could argue that indirectly she has that power now in that she appoints the commission.  So if she wanted person "X" to run the department, she calls her appointees and tells them what to do.

      But governors tend to favor direct power over indirect but the state senate last week, undid what the governor hopes to do.

      Now the game comes down to democrats in the House.  Will they side with their governor or the farmers?

      Since she may lose this battle, the governor's folks are making noises about finding a compromise to end this little turf scrimmage, and it is simple, she picks the director with the advice and consent of the board.

      Done.

      

       The angriest mayor in the county, got his foot caught in his mouth the other day.

       Lansing Mayor Virg Benero, just off an impressive reelection effort, made a name for himself during the meltdown of the U.S. auto industry last fall with his fiery appearances, defending the car makers, on the cable talking head channels.

      Famous for sometimes engaging his mouth before his brain, Benero was asked to comment the other day on the governor's efforts to squeeze more job dollars out of the Obama administration.

     Without batting an eyelash, Benero blurted out that the first federal stimulus package had not worked in Michigan.  It was a provocative statement to have a democrat mayor take on the democrat president.

     Here was his first quote, "We haven't seen any stimulus.  So we're still waiting." 

     Does that sound like Benero believes the Obama program has born fruit?  

     Nope.

     So while on camera, the reporter asked if Benero believed the program was indeed a failure as his first answer suggested.

     Well, now that you put it that way, Benero began to back peddle.

     "Well I…like I say it's worked for Wall Street and less-so on Main Street."

     Less-so?

     Open mouth, insert foot.

     Just in case the president grants the governor's wish for more employment bucks, Benero does not want to say anything to offend the president which might result in Lansing getting nothing.

     But he just did.

    Mike Bouchard is no wimp. He proudly packs heat, is not afraid to use his hefty size to his advantage, so you would think he'd be the last guy to be an accomplished dancer.

    Ah, but he is.

    Watch how he dances around a very sticky wicket unfolding in the GOP primary for governor namely what to say about Mike Cox, a fellow candidate for gov.

    Cox is soaking up lots of free media, but not the kind you would necessarily want, over his role in investigating an alleged party at former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick's pad.  Cox concluded, "What party?" and tagged it an "urban legend" but apparently not everyone agrees although there is no proof to the contrary.

    So the issue on the campaign trail is the credibility of Mr. Cox.

    Your comments Sheriff Bouchard?

    "I'm just focused on my message," he laces up his dancing shoes.

    "So you are not going there?"

     "I'm not going there," he heads for the dance floor.

     "Why don't you want to go there?"

     "I'm focused on my issues," he taps away.

      He is pressed further and notes that if other candidates or voters want to comment on Mr. Cox, they are free to do so as he stands up for free speech just as long as he doesn't have to participate.

     "I'm not worrying about somebody else.  That isn't where my focus is," he goes on.

      Well  if that is the case, then Mr. Bouchard should be willing to promise that he will resist the temptation to exploit this story for his own benefit.

      He waltzed away from the pledge dredging up a line we never heard before, "I'm focused on exactly where I'm focused," he repeated redundantly.

      Points for staying on message but one final attempt, "Why not make the promise?"

      Here's why not:  "Because I'm bigger than you," he smiles

      Nuf said.

     A hunting we will go….come hell or high water.

     When it comes to tradition, if lawmakers were smart, they would leave it to the Fiddler on the Roof and not practice it themselves.

      For time in memoriam it's been the tradition in this town to take time off for hunting season and years ago, a hefty number of hearty souls in the house and senate actually went up North to hunt Bambi and her relatives.

      But that was then and now there is a school funding crisis, a stalemate on how to pay for education and a classic battle of government philosophies and last time anyone checked, there was no resolution…yet off to the woods they go.

      Get a load of this schedule, which of course is subject to change if public pressure were to materialize:  The house and senate are off this Monday and Tuesday and set to come back on Wednesday.  But word on the street is, there won't be any bills debated or voted on and so there is no good reason for anybody to show up.

      Then the senate is not due back until December first, second, and third and supposedly the house will be in as well.  And if conflict resolution is going to be "resoluted," it will likely be then because for the two weeks after that, the leaders report session days will be "tentative" which is code for "we don't want to come back, but if we absolutely have to, we will reluctantly hold session."

      What a great gig!

      You'll recall last summer, the full time Michigan legislature held a grand total of three sessions after July 4^th.  The pace was down right…lethargic.  And here we go again.

       The lip service lawmakers pay to putting the public first is just that. If they were really serious about this economic and school crisis, they would chuck all the time off, let the dozen or so who want to hunt go and the rest should  stay in town to at least give the appearance they are concerned.

       It surely doesn't look like that is the case right now.

       

    Back in the dark ages of political campaigning, the candidates would routinely issue "White Papers" which where in-depth statements on where they stood on a variety of issues from the environment to economics.

    "White Papers" went out when they invented the infamous TV 10-second sound bite.  Who wants in-depth?

     Apparently Rick Snyder does.  He's the non-politician running for governor from A2 and the other day, there it was a full-blown position paper on how to re-do the state budget process.

     His "Value for Money" concept is really a rehash of already tried and failed methodology for brining more order to spending state tax dollars.

     The touchtone of his "concept" is to allow common folk to pick the priorities.  It's the same idea House Republicans had several years ago

when POG or the Price of Government was all the rage.  The R's were going to reinvent the budget wheel and staged closed door focus groups with citizens  and in the end POG was a bomb. 

    Governor Jennifer Granholm also tried her hand at soliciting public input before she put her budget to bed.  It was a flop, too.  She wanted to pump up state support for higher education but at her town hall meetings, the folks wanted no part of that.

     So now comes Synder applying his business acumen and hoping that he can get it right where others got it dreadfully wrong.

     "Don't ignore the citizens," he glows.

     Nothing wrong with that, but let's be honest, what do they know about state services?  Everyone wants cops on the streets, firefighters on the ladders, free school and college for everyone and lots of guards to keep an eye on all the crooks behind bars.

      You don't need a focus group to figure out the obvious.  The problem with budgets is that there are nuances the public (1) doesn't care about and (2) wouldn't know how to nuance if their life depended on it.

      Regardless, high marks to Mr. Snyder for trying to bring a reasoned and in-depth discourse to the campaign.  But it did not exactly make a splash in the media which either ignored it or gave it a minuscule four paragraphs.

     It is a time-honored tradition in Michigan campaigns.  That does not mean it's a good one.

     You can set your watch by this:  Whenever an outstate republican is running for the legislature, someway, somehow,  Detroit will be used to win votes.  Pictures of former Mayor Coleman Young would routinely show up in those GOP TV ads and not in a positive light.

     In case you missed it over the years, there is a strong anti-Detroit sentiment everywhere north of 8 mile;  just ask the state's newest state senator Mike Nofs would should have known better.

     He is the latest practitioner to exploit Motown.  The ad he ran against his democratic opponent noted that Rep. Marty Griffin voted to fund Cobo Hall and continue the "corruption in Detroit."

     The ad was at best misleading. Is there corruption in Detroit?  Think Kwame Kilpatrick, however the Cobo deal had nothing to do with corruption and Nof's new boss in the senate told him so.

      Sen. Mike Bishop tells Nofs, "It is not the source of corruption.  It is actually a bright light in Detroit now that we can all rally behind."

       Nofs was unmoved and said, had he been there he would have voted against Bishop's bill noting that the two would not always agree on everything.

       "I would not have voted for it because it took money away from Jackson and Calhoun Counties for the next 15 to 20 years," Nofs explains in his own aw-shucks provincial manner.

        Detroit Senator Tupac Hunter was not amused with the Nof's anti-Detroit commercial.  "It was unnecessary; it was divisive and it was out of the old GOP play book…It is not the way to start" your senate career.

       That may be true, but Nofs won with 61% of the vote and in the end elections are not about doing what is right, but all about winning.  Too bad.