THE GRAND RAPIDS PRESS, Thursday, August 15, 2002
CHOOSING MICHIGAN: Most of the state's
governors came from elsewhere
Thursday, August 15, 2002
By Steven Harmon
The Grand Rapids Press
At Jennifer Granholm's victory rally last week in Lansing, hecklers
yelled at the Democratic gubernatorial nominee to "go back to Canada"
and "go back to Hollywood."
Although Lt. Gov. Dick Posthumus, the Republican nominee, denied any
connection to the hecklers, his critique of Granholm in the early
days of the campaign has been strikingly similar.
At his victory speech last week, he whittled her credentials down to
"Harvard, Berkeley and Hollywood."
And earlier that week, he said his background "gives me a better
understanding of the shared values of Michigan. I was born here. I
went to public schools here. I married here and my kids went to school
here. That's different perspective than someone born in British
Columbia, grew up in California and went to Berkeley and Harvard."
Posthumus earlier made light of the attorney general's Canadian origins
in a "bet" he offered when the Detroit Red Wings played the Vancouver
Canucks in the Stanley Cup hockey playoffs.
That attitude makes such Michigan transplants as U.S. Rep. Peter
Hoekstra, R-Holland, wince.
"America is about people from all over the world choosing to come
here," said Hoekstra, whose parents moved from The Netherlands to West
Michigan in 1956, when he was 3. "We've never made that kind of
distinction ... where the American dream is only available to those who
were born here."
Posthumus' focus on Granholm's roots have drawn attention to a
not-so-well known fact -- most of Michigan's governors have hailed from
other states, and, in some cases, different countries.
Republican George Romney, for instance, was born in Chihuahua, Mexico,
and raised in Idaho and Utah before arriving in Michigan in 1939 when he
was 32. After establishing himself as a top auto industry executive, he
was elected as governor in 1962, when he beat incumbent John Swainson,
a Canadian by birth.
Romney faced criticism for his Mexico roots, but only as a presidential
candidate in 1968. William Loeb, the late publisher of the Manchester
(New Hampshire) Union Leader, called Romney "Chihuahua George."
But Romney was eligible. Romney's grandfather emigrated to Mexico in
1886 with his three wives and children after Congress outlawed polygamy.
Romney and his parents, who retained their U.S. citizenship, returned to
the United States in 1912, the year Mexico erupted into revolution.
In the 19th century, another Republican governor, James McMillan, hailed
from Canada. Of Michigan's 44 governors, 32 were born outside the state.
Of the last 10 governors, only half were born in Michigan.
All of which begs the question of why Posthumus even brought up the
subject.
"It's an attempt to raise questions that won't ring true with voters
over the long haul," said Bill Rustem, of Lansing-based think tank
Public Sector Consultants. "This isn't the 17th century. People move. We
all know people who are living here who weren't born here."
Other Republicans have questioned the tactic, worrying it might hurt
among moderate Republican women they are trying to bring back into the
fold.
"It's not the way I'd do things," said state Sen. Glenn Steil, R-Grand
Rapids, the Kent County Republican Party chairman. "To criticize her
roots, I wouldn't."
The backlash has forced the Posthumus camp to shift its criticism from
her Canadian origins to the life experience she gained as an alumnus of
Berkeley and Harvard -- and when she took acting lessons in Los Angeles.
"They have very different backgrounds that have led them to difference
stances on issues," said Sage Eastman, spokesman for the Posthumus
campaign. "The fact that she spent much of her time at Harvard, Berkeley
and Hollywood comes to bear on her policy positions."
But even that tact may not fly. Former U.S. Sen. Spencer Abraham, now
the U.S. Energy Secretary, is a Harvard graduate, as is state Sen.
Kenneth Sikkema, R-Wyoming. And, if Republicans are going to try to
paint Granholm as a liberal, that also may not work, Rustem said.
"They tried that with Debbie Stabenow -- there's still a sticker on the
stop sign right outside our offices, "liberaldebbie.com" -- and that
didn't work," Rustem said. Stabenow defeated Abraham and now is a U.S.
senator.
Eastman disagreed, saying it is Posthumus' obligation to spell out how
the two differ. Pointing out Granholm's lack of long-term perspective --
she has lived in Michigan since 1986 -- is one way he can do that,
Eastman said.
"Nobody said that being born in Canada disqualifies her, nobody said
her college education is bad, it's just different than Posthumus',"
Eastman said. "He lived here, went to school, sent his kids to schools
in Michigan. He's been here when Michigan was in a deep recession and
when we had our boom times. That experience is a major factor in this
race."
Granholm did not see first-hand Michigan's worst economic times of the
early 1980s and the high property taxes that led to Proposal A, Eastman
said.
"And now, casually, she wants to tweak Proposal A," he said. "This isn't
about where someone's born. We can't change the fact that she was born
in Canada, but roots do shape your values, they have a very definite
relation to where you think the state should go."
Granholm, who has raised her three children in Michigan, says she didn't
choose where she was born and jokes that if she could have spoken with
her parents from the womb, she would have asked to be born in Michigan.
Granholm's campaign points out President Bush's Yale and Harvard
background, as well as his Connecticut roots prior to his election as
governor of Texas.
"Life experiences are important to who you are, but to say that just
because you went to Berkeley or Harvard disqualifies you is ludicrous
and small-minded," said Granholm's spokesman, Chris DeWitt.
DeWitt also ridiculed the notion that Granholm can't grapple with the
state's problems because she wasn't here in the early 1980s.
"She knows of the economic problems, she knows that environmental
protection has been sorely lacking over the period of time Dick
Posthumus has been involved in state government," DeWitt said. "They
keep trying to say she's not one of us, but it doesn't fly."