Give the Mike Bouchard for Governor team an A+ on trotting out endorsements and the latest one caught everyone's attention.

        You know how you are in the early morning, all the gears are not engaged, so the headline on the Bouchard press release sounded like a huge development.

         It read:  Engler and Abraham Endorse Bouchard.

         Wow.  As that sunk in, it meant that former Gov. John Engler and former U.S. Senator Spencer Abraham were getting off the fence early and this was a mando get for the Oakland County Sheriff.

         Beware of misleading headlines.

         Turns out the Engler is really Michelle and the Abraham is really Jane and of course they are the respective spouses of John and Spence.

        So instead of stopping the presses, one had to stop laughing out loud over how the Bouchard guys faked out the political media in this town.

        As for the merit of the endorsements themselves, with all due respect to the female Engler and Abraham, it was a one day story that for some news outlets turned out to be no story at all.

        Here's  the harsh reality about endorsements:  They don't have the pop they had some forty years ago.  Back then voters who were union members or business persons looked in earnest for some signal from their leaders. An endorsement by a Doug Fraser or a captain of industry carried some weight.

         Now most endorsements have the impact of a left hook with a wet noodle.

         Lee Iacocca endorsed Dick DeVos.

         Barack Obama endorsed New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine.

         Bill Ford endorsed Rick (Michigan) Snyder for governor here.

         DeVos lost; so did Corzine and Mr. Snyder remains stuck in the 2% polling mud.

         So A+ to Bouchard for fooling us, but this Engler-Abraham endorsements is about as powerful as a Red Wing's power play.