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In and outs of the political campaigns, focusing on Michigan and Lansing, Tim Skubick will report regularly throughout the primary and then general election campaigns.

Sunday, October 10, 2010

Where's the Beef?

The object in a debate is to give the candidates a chance to explain
what they would do, but there should also be an attempt to break some
new ground in an effort to give the citizens more than just the
standard, pap sound bites we've heard for the last nine months.
GOP candidate for governor Rick Snyder was about one minute into his
opening remarks during the Sunday night debate when we heard, "I've got
a ten-point plan to reinvent Michigan?"
Yeah, so tell the audience something new or better yet flesh out
some of the specifics of that plan. You didn't get much of that from
him.
Mr. Bernero we learned for the umpteenth time is not from Wall
Street but resides, with the rest of the slugs in the world, on Main
Street.
To be sure in every debate there is a tug of war between those
asking the questions and those answering the questions. Generally
reporters do try to plow some new ground and generally the debaters are
more comfortable on the old ground and in the event Sunday night, the
debaters won.
It's not that the reporters didn't try. There were good questions on
how to fund the schools by cutting elsewhere. The audience is still
waiting for specifics on that.
Mr. Snyder again promoted his 6% flat rate tax as a replacement for
the Michigan Business tax, but is that enough to fill the hole in the
budget that eliminating the MBT would create? Never got an answer to
that, either.
Mr. Bernero doesn't even have a business tax to replace the MBT, but
you never found that out in the debate. His answer is, "I'll consult
with the business community on that." Wow. And the consulting will
come after the election, if he is elected.
In other words its another, "Vote me and trust me on what I might
do."
Part of the problem was the debate format itself. It strongly
discouraged any kind of dialogue between the two and more importantly
didn't give reporters enough leg room to do follow up questions.
That was a gift to Snyder who is not that strong on the back and
forth of debating although he did O.K. in this one. Bernero found
himself in a straight jacket, but managed to get in some digs, but the
audience must have come away wondering, "Where's the beef?
That's the one question nobody asked or answered.

3 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Once again Michigan is stuck with the same question/decision in an election.

Who is the lesser of two evils?

In my opinion the unknown is the most evil. Snyder is the unknown. Bonero has a track record.

October 11, 2010 at 7:04 AM 
Blogger MJaramillo said...

I watched your moderated debate between Mark Schauer and Tim Wahlberg and you failed to get Wahlberg to answer any question and he continuously talked over anything Schauer said in a robotic manner. It was very frustrating to watch.

October 13, 2010 at 4:54 PM 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I would LOVE to hear something about candidates from other parties, not just the democrates and republicans. Maybe they might actually answer a question. While I don't know enough to endorse them the Constitution sounds well worth checking out, less government sounds like it would also be better government. You are in a position to find out if they really better or just the same using a different name Mr Skubick

October 15, 2010 at 11:11 AM 

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