OK, this is the match-up that people in the media keep talking about. Apparently the Dems are upset because Alaska's Governor Palin is considered hot and more than a little sexy by much of America. So they're now trying to market Canadian-born Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm as an alternative.
Playboy even has a poll on it (Granholm's getting stomped) and many talking heads and snarky leftist columnists are comparing the two. Most of them, predictably, are trying to make the claim that Granholm is allegedly smarter than Governor Palin because she went to Berkeley and because Obama's considering her for a US Supreme Court slot. Of course they overlook the fact that her meteoric rise to the governorship of Michigan came about through political patronage and little else, unlike Sarah Palin's. Yes, Jenny Granholm started out as Corporation Counsel for corruption-plagued Wayne County, Michigan (think "Detroit", folks), where she was basically a lackey for Ed McNamara, the man who also made Kwame Kilpatrick Detroit's mayor before he went to jail.
Jenny rode McNamara's coattails and used his influence to become Michigan's first female Attorney general, a position in which she basically did nothing other than pose for photos and hold press conferences while dramatically shrinking that office's staff of criminal prosecutors. Using that publicity and running against a former governor that no one wanted to see back in office (Jim Blanchard, folks...Michigan's version of Jimmy Carter), She replaced outgoing conservative Governor John Engler, inheriting from him a robust state economy and bulging state coffers. (Engler had saved Michigan from Blanchard's ruinous policies just as President Reagan had saved America from Carter's. Conservatism works wherever it's allowed to be implemented, folks.)
Jenny managed to narrowly win the governorship, a feat credited in large part to Kwame Kilpatrick turning out the Detroit voters--almost all of whom vote Democrat--in record numbers. It was just enough to push her over the top even though most of the state's rural population voted against her, proving once again that "Machine" politics is effective, and usually to the detriment of everyone but the machine.
But here's the part that most people who like to compare Granholm to Governor Palin overlook:
Under Governor Palin's leadership, Alaska's economy soared, and the people in that state enjoy somme of the lowest taxes and least amount of government regulation in the country. Through Palin's negotiations with the oil companies, the average Alaskan gets over a thousand dollars a year in Permanent Fund (royalty) payments in lieu of paying a state income tax. People in Alaska are keeping their money and actually getting paid directly as the rightful beneficiaries of favorable contracts negotiated on their behalf by their governor (Palin) and other elected officials. Alaska's unemployment rate is below the national average (9.4%) at 8.0%. Michigan's--one of the lowest in the country when Governor Engler was running things just a few years ago--is now one of America's highest at 14.1%. Good job, Jenny! Just keep taxing those businesses like you've done since taking office. The revenues are just flowing in from that scheme, aren't they?
So to those who want to compare the two woman governors, it's time to put the snark aside and focus on actual records. While it may by fun and serve a political agenda to mock Governor Palin and pretend that she's some sort of hick or buffoon, all while holding Governor Granholm out as the next star child, honesty requires an evaluation of their respective accomplishments, and that evaluation is more devastating to Granholm's image than anything that Tina Fey or David Letterman could ever say. You see, the facts paint a different picture. They show us two governors, one of whom--Jenny Granholm--was handed the throne in a state that was looked upon as a model for the nation, only to tank it in her first term, all while the other governor--Sarah Palin--clawed her way to the top on her own merits by promising the voters a government based in conservative principles. Governor Palin kept those promises and her state is one of the healthiest today, in stark contrast to the formerly healthy one that Granholm rode into the ground. And it begs the question: all other things being equal, where would you rather live and who would you rather have in charge if you had a choice? People are moving to Alaska today to take advantage of the jobs and the opportunities there. I haven't heard of anyone deliberately moving to Michigan--or even staying if they could get out--for a long time.
Take a bow, Governors Palin and Granholm. Your accomplishments and your legacies speak much louder than the political hacks and the late-night talk-show fools. And when you compare those accomplishments and legacies, suddenly Governor Palin doesn't look all that dumb, nor does Governor Granholm look all that bright.
You have hit the nail squarely on the head with this comparison. As a Michigan native and one of those still living here, I can tell you and your readers that the Governess has completely ruined Michigan's economy, while breathlessly telling us for the last 4 or 5 years that we were "going to be blown away" by her ideas and policies once they were implemented. What she didn't tell us was that it was our population and our jobs that would be blown away like topsoil in the Oklahoma Dust Bowl.
ReplyDeleteSome will argue that the financial disasters of the last year are responsible for all of Michigan's problems, but I will tell you that she was destroying our economy long before the financial bubble burst.
She may have all kinds of degrees and accolades, but from a practical standpoint Jennifer Granholm is a dolt of the highest order. You just have to look at the state of this State for all the evidence you need in that regard.
I have often said that Michigan under Granholm is a picture of what the United States will be under Obama [spit] if he is allowed to implement his leftist socialist agenda. We must fight this man now while the problems are (relatively) manageable, and not wait until the government behemoth is too big to kill.
Sometimes you have to listen very closely.. But, if you do, you can hear through all of the 'yaya' to catch a few bits of truth..
ReplyDeleteThanks for providing us those few bits today!! :):)
Yep....it should be a no-brainer for those who use their brains just which governor actually knows how to run a state. :)
ReplyDeleteI say Sarah is the better of the two.
ReplyDeleteI think Sarah Palin just needs more experience and has to do more "homework". So she might be a far better politician. But at her current state she really would have been a bad vice president.
ReplyDeleteNot for nothing did I jump at the chance to flee Michigan two years ago for sunnier climes. I lived in the western 'burbs of Detroit and saw first hand what a cast of clowns, buffons and criminals the political "leadership" of THAT cesspool has been since the sainted Coleman Young started running the city into the ground decades ago. Granholm, or "Jenny from the Block" as we affectionately called her is just a product of the sytem...much the way Obama is the product of the sleazy Chicago system.
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