The Kalamazoo Gazette-
Although we agree that Michigan is not headed in the right direction, we believe Granholm is working to correct that course and has made some significant gains, despite the obstacles that have confronted her.
Michigan's economy was in a tailspin before Granholm was first elected in 2002. The state budget was already in ruins, the victim of the declining economy and a series of tax cuts enacted in the 1990s that left state programs cash-starved.
She had a Republican Legislature to deal with. Although we believe conflicts between the governor's office and the Legislature were real, they also were overstated at times. The truth is that Granholm and the Legislature often worked cooperatively to avoid K-12 budget cuts, to support life sciences and high-tech sectors and to create the 21st Century Jobs Fund.
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Gov. Granholm has faced down a considerable amount of adversity in the last four years, and has done it with aplomb.
She has the experience and the smarts. She is pragmatic and not an intractable ideologue.
On Nov. 7, send her back to Lansing to finish the job.
The Muskegon Chronicle really calls it like it is. The amazing thing is Dick wouldn't even meet with them.
We want a real fighter for our state, and in GOV. JENNIFER GRANHOLM, we've got one. The Muskegon Chronicle endorses her re-election to another four-year term.
The Democratic governor has kept Michigan together in the face of an enormous inherited budget deficit and a single-state economic hurricane caused by the meltdown of the Big 3 automotive manufacturers. She has advanced strong, intelligent economic plans, like her Jobs Today, Jobs Tomorrow program and her 21st Century Jobs Fund, despite the machinations of a largely hostile Republican Legislature.
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These "social issues," which include a potential reintroduction of the vouchers fight, the teaching of creationism in public school science classrooms (a lamentable idea which DeVos favors and Granholm doesn't) aren't the only areas of public policy in which the gulf between the candidates is as wide as the Grand Canyon. The Legislature in its most recent term irresponsibly, and without consulting the public, eliminated the Single Business Tax, punching a $1.9 billion hole in the state's general fund budget with no replacement. DeVos favors returning only half that lost revenue, and -- incredibly -- promises even deeper cuts in the budget by backing more tax losses.
Only Granholm stands between DeVos and Republicans so far to the right on the political spectrum that they would drown state government in a sea of program cuts -- which they are too cowardly to identify before the election.
Granholm has the heart of a fighter. She readily appeared before our editorial board to take on the tough questions any candidate must face in a close election.
DeVos, on the other hand, refused to meet with us. Among the questions we would have put to him is why he didn't make his full tax returns public, like Granholm has. This is standard operating procedure for gubernatorial candidates to put to rest concerns of any possible conflicts of interest.
Oh, well.
The Ludington Daily News, earlier this week, praised her economic plan- and laid into DeVos for his secrecy.
Her plan for the state’s economic future is on the right track, including a strong component of retraining the workforce and promoting higher education. In the end it’s having the best workforce that attracts employers. A look at the Daily News Help Wanted ads tells us there are jobs available, but they require special training. They’re in the health care field or require some other form of post-high-school certification. Gone are the days of knowing there’s a job for your child at the local plant after high school. Workers in other states realized this more quickly than in the heavy manufacturing state of Michigan. The state’s unemployment disaster came to a head during her tenure as governor (with a Republican Legislature), but it has been decades in the making.
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Granholm is a champion of Freedom of Information. Conversely, DeVos failed to answer Michigan Press Association questions about FOIA, leading us to assume he either doesn’t understand it, doesn’t acknowledge it’s importance (he comes from a private business historically entrenched in secrecy) or is afraid to have his views known before the election, none of which are acceptable answers to this advocate for keeping the public’s information public.
And again, it's early. Any more come in today and I will update later.