Eight years ago on a frigid January first, the state's first female
governor engaged in a rollicking rendition of the oath of office with
her mentor Judge Damon Keith. As their voices rose in anxious
anticipation of those final words,"So help me God,", which came out
like the last verse of a Southern Baptist hymn, there was an air of
optimism.
Clearly new Governor Jennifer Granholm was no John Engler. Kinder
and gentler do come to mind.
But eight years later she was relegated to a supporting and
non-speaking role as she passed the torch to the new guy…the non career
politician who is on a mission to re-invent Michigan with his business
acumen.
She must have been wondering, if he could really do it?
And she must have been thinking, how things would be different if
she was starting where Rick Snyder beings with the "wind at his back"
as she has often described it.
Her replacement comes into office with the sense that Michigan's
sluggish economy may be finally coming out of an eight year
hibernation; he comes into office with a unified legislature under the
control of his own party. It may be a curse but still, any governor
would want to start with that. She never did.
He begins work with a new batch of legislative leaders who at this
read show no signs of being reincarnations of Speaker Andy Dillon and
Senate GOP Leader Mike Bishop. She fought them tooth and nail and was
often on the losing end
Even she confides it would have been nice to work with the likes
of Speaker Jase Bolger and Bishop's replacement Sen. Randy Richardville.
But what might have been, never was. So she as sat there for the
last time and listened to a speech that hit the same optimistic chords
that she struck eight years earlier.
Heck, Gov. Snyder even had the weather God's on his side. Three
of her fingers were useless days after her speech because it was so
cold.
Gov. Snyder could have hit a golf ball off the front steps of the
capitol in the 40 degree temperatures and blue skies that turned cloudy
as soon as the swearing in was over.