The Next Governor of Michigan

Good-bye Governor Granholm, since you were born in Canada, I take a small bit of comfort knowing you will never be President of the United States.

Whichever candidate wins the Michigan Governor’s race in November, they will be facing:

• a dwindling population (tax base)
• a budget that was stuck together with one-time stimulus dollars late last fall. The holes in Michigan’s budget may be harder to plug than that gushing well in the Gulf of Mexico.
• a business tax structure that is driving existing businesses out of state and scaring off new ones.
• a “Motor City” that is on the verge of becoming the nation’s largest communal farm.
• unions that maintain a choke-hold on businesses, education, and on Lansing.
• a “one-state recession” that has been ongoing since 2001 (some suggest it actually started in the late 1990′s).

So, who is running for Governor of Michigan?

For the Republicans:

• Mike Bouchard (Sheriff, Oakland County, and life-long resident of Southeast Michigan). For me, candidates that have spent their entire lives in the Detroit area, are too far removed from the rest of the state. Detroit is different in industry, in politics, and certainly in alliances.
  
• Mike Cox (State Attorney General, and life-long resident of Livonia – Southeast – Michigan. Endorsed by Mike Huckabee, but I disagree on this one).
• Tom George (Physician – anesthesiologist – part time for past 10 years; Michigan state legislator; Kalamazoo area. I am not familiar with Dr. George and am waiting for some answers from his campaign before making my final decision).
• Pete Hoekstra (US Congressman; from Holland, Michigan; endorsed by HSLDA and Newt Gingrich; riding his bicycle for 1000 miles through the state and working side-by-side with 100 Michigan residents at their jobs during the campaign. I met Representative Hoekstra several times when I lived in the Grand Rapids area. My take is that he is a good and decent person with conservative values. He is not perfect and does not profess to be, but is pro-life, pro-homeschool, pro-smaller government).
• Rick Snyder (grew up in Battle Creek; lives in Ann Arbor – graduate of the University of Michigan; former head of Gateway Computers – they had not quite 800 employees when he joined the company, but when he left in 1997, they had over 10,000 and had become a Fortune 500 company; campaigning as “one tough nerd”. Interesting economic and jobs plan. I am awaiting responses from his campaign about some issues).

For the Democrats:

• Virg Bernero (Mayor of Lansing; powerful allegiances to the auto industry.)
• Andy Dillon (lawyer in Detroit area; state representative; ties to big industry and Washington, DC)

Michigan’s primary is August 3rd. Michigan voters need to do a lot of studying to make informed decisions regarding which two candidates will face-off in the general election in November. I will be endorsing a candidate for Governor in the next week. I have already endorsed a candidate for US Congress for Michigan district 1 (the seat being vacated by Bart Stupak (democrat), and will be writing more about that later this weekend.

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