Snyder's State of the Snooze...er, State

Photo by Angela Cesere/AnnArbor.com

When I worked for Michigan Governor Jim Blanchard more than two decades ago, the annual State of the State Address was a big deal. The office was electric, different, special, a little more hectic. It was fun to learn what new programs would be unveiled, what successes would be highlighted and which special guests would be placed in the front of the House gallery to be acknowledged by the boss during the big event.

Since the division of the governor’s office in which I worked was located a block away from the Capitol in the Lewis Cass Building for four of five of the eight years I worked for Jim Blanchard, the Big Speech was also an opportunity to mingle with other staffers whose names, voices and phone numbers I knew but whose faces I didn’t necessarily see regularly.

It was always an exciting day.

If Governor Rick Snyder’s speech last night was any indication, the days of exciting State of the State speeches under the Capitol dome are long gone.

Courtesy MLive.com

I signed on to WKAR public television’s live webcast of the speech just before 7:00 and heard anchor Tim Skubick – who as “senior capital correspondent” has been covering these speeches and pretending they’re important “since Hector was a pup,” as my late grandpa used to say – point out that Snyder’s approval rating stands at around 19 percent, he’s wearing a red tie and his favorite term is “relentless positive action.” Then the whiny, nasally, off-putting chief executive began his grueling speech.

Snyder likes to posture as a non-politician, a tough “nerd,” the kind of Lansing outsider who eschews teleprompters and written speeches in favor of winging it with outlines. And it shows. I was surprised at how amateurish and rough it was. I’m not an expert on public speaking so I’m not sure if his pacing was off or he just had too many shots of Cognac to quell the butterflies before taking to the podium but it sounded more like a Saturday Night Live parody by an in-over-his-head rube than an actual speech by a competent, confident CEO.

After referring to Senator Minority Leader Gretchen Whitmer as the Senate Majority Leader, he proceeded to thank 93 or 94 others, including Lieutenant Governor Brian Calley and, last but not least, his family. (Apparently his wife wouldn’t let him wear the green necktie he wanted to wear as a nod to the Michigan State University Spartans, who lost a basketball game the night before to his alma mater, the University of Michigan, by one point. He’s one tough nerd all right.)

He thanked the men and women serving in the armed forces. He thanked the unsung heroes who work in Michigan’s agriculture industry and the general manager of the Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island and some guy named Captain John James of James Group International which is creating 50 new jobs this year as part of a port revitalization plan.

He thanked some other employer and Brian Calley again and a state representative and the foundation community and two more state representatives and I started to think he might thank me too so I listened for my name but to no avail. Maybe he heard I’m in Georgia at the moment.

He said something about the 1800s being the natural resources era in Michigan, or Michigan 1.0, and the 1900s being the industrial era, or Michigan 2.0, and the present being the era of innovation, or Michigan 3.0. I didn’t know if this was good or bad since math has never been my forté.

He pointed out that unemployment in Michigan dropped from 11.1 percent to 9.3 percent, its lowest level in more than three years, and that we added 80,000 private sector jobs in 2011. He warned that obesity is still a problem and we’re not doing a good enough job preparing our kids for college and careers and said that although Michigan’s bond rating hasn’t changed, it’s “moving in the right direction.” (How does something stay the same and yet move in the right direction anyway?)

He reminded us that Michigan is home to four of the top ten most violent cities in America – Flint, Saginaw, Pontiac and Detroit – but insisted that crime statistics have improved. (Detroit is now the most violent city in America, according to Forbes.) He said that tourism is okay but we really need more snow, and he knows from attending the recent North American International Auto Show in Detroit that the D is still the undisputed auto capital of the world. (I guess President Obama’s $80 billion bailout of Chrysler and General Motors in 2009 – which Republicans vilified – had nothing to do with this.)

He talked about exciting opportunities for mining in the UP and the timber industry in northern Michigan, revealed that he’s traveling to Europe and Asia soon to make the case that “Michigan is the place to do business in the world,” and said that according to the little-known Atlas Van Lines Moving Index, whatever that is, we stopped the trend of people moving out of Michigan in 2011. (Maybe they just can’t afford to hire Atlas Van Lines so they’re packing up the family van and selling what won’t fit?)

He referenced the fact that 323 public acts were passed in 2011 “but more important than quantity was quality” and reminded us that “Michigan is just like a family – in tough times, we have to find ways to live within our means.” He said we saw the fastest budget process in 30 years, which was a tremendous help to our local schools (although significant cuts in state aid to local schools probably weren’t), and that we were able to make the first deposit into Michigan’s Rainy Day Fund in seven years. (He didn’t share the amount of the deposit.)

He brought up tax reform, lecturing that a good tax system has three basic elements: it’s simple, fair and efficient. He said Michigan failed on all three principles, both for individuals and businesses, and that it sure is a good thing that we eliminated the Michigan Business Tax which was a job killer and just plain dumb to boot. (Snyder assured us that business people have already “gained confidence and taken action” as a result of this bold move.)

He also disclosed that he’s lost six of the ten pounds that he wants to lose, stated that autism needs to be addressed, told business leaders to hire more veterans, opined that our children are our future and announced that elder abuse is the fastest growing crime in Michigan. And he admitted that Michigan is “underinvesting” in our transportation infrastructure by $14 billion a year and a regional transit system in southeast Michigan is overdue by 40 years so he urged lawmakers to begin holding hearings on this important issue. (That’s just what voters want politicians to do: hold more hearings.)

The last thing I heard the governor say was that we need help from our federal partners to “create immigration opportunities to have individuals build businesses in Michigan,” pointing out that Dow, Meijer and Masco were all built by immigrants. (Dow and Masco are both Fortune 500 companies.) It was at this point – 34 minutes after the start of the dullest, strangest and most disjointed speech I’ve heard in almost half a century on Planet Earth – that I removed my earphones, stepped away from my laptop and joined my parents for dinner.

Senator Whitmer later panned the speech. “Accountants report, governors lead,” she said. “I heard a lot of talk tonight about goals, but shockingly little about real plans to move Michigan forward...other than blindly handing tax dollars over to corporate interests, he doesn’t seem to have any.” (To watch clips of responses by Senators Whitmer, Glenn Anderson, Steve Bieda, John Gleason, Vincent Gregory and Hoon-Yung Hopgood, click here.)

Maybe I’ll stay in the Peach State for a while.


Sources: Progress Michigan, WKAR, CNN Money.