Analysis
This article deals with a variety of issues. First, it cites the concerns from local Democrats that Gov. Granholm is not being aggressive enough in her campaign and even has the chair of the Kent County Democrats admitting that “He who has the most commercials, wins, in a lot of cases.” This issue is not really explored. Does more spending mean candidates will win elections?
Secondly, the article makes claims about Michigan’s economy and what has happened under Granholm’s administration, but the Press writer never sources the data or cliams made, such as “Michigan’s economic undoing has been in the works for years, as the state staked its future on low-skilled manufacturing jobs that have fled through automation and globalization. Some of the worst has hit on Granholm’s watch.” If the Press makes such a claim, do they need to support it with a non-partisan source?
The next part of the article talks about the amount of money spent so far, particularly by DeVos. They cite both campaign spokespersons, then Rich Robinson from the Michigan Campaign Finance Network and a Hope College professor. The last two points mentioned in the story have to do with PAC money spending and polling. The story does cite Ed Sarpolus, of EPIC-MRA, but there are no cited sources for the PAC money/issue ad money even though numbers are given for past and current groups like Partners for Progress. A good source for PAC money is state politics is The Institute for Money in State Politics.
Article Text
Sue Levy knows this bedrock truth of politics in the modern age: The most sophisticated policy arguments can’t replace a well-produced 30-second television spot.
“He who has the most commercials, wins, in a lot of cases. Unfortunately,” said Levy, chair of the Kent County Democratic Party.
So, it’s with some dismay — but no great surprise — that Levy has watched Republican gubernatorial candidate Dick DeVos’ poll numbers steadily climb and Gov. Jennifer Granholm’s once comfortable lead erode. The most recent surveys put them neck-and-neck.
As DeVos has bombarded the airwaves with effective messages emphasizing his business acumen, presenting him as a regular guy who drives his own car and subtly impugning the governor’s leadership, the Granholm campaign has observed an electronic blackout.
Levy has heard more than one Democratic loyalist ask: Where’s our candidate? Why isn’t she hitting back? Levy’s not worried. “She’ll be on TV when she needs to be on TV, and it will make a huge difference,” she said.
But pollsters who watch campaigns closely think Granholm may be making crucial tactical errors: not raising enough money, not thinking politically, not taking advantage of the bully pulpit her office affords to score points with the public.
The longer she waits, the greater the danger she could fall irrevocably behind.
National campaigns are littered with examples of candidates who hit early and won when the other side did not respond quickly. From Michael Dukakis and the Willie Horton ads to John Kerry and the Swift Boat Veterans, the lesson of recent elections has been that a failure to respond quickly and forthrightly can be a campaign’s undoing.
DeVos’ ads haven’t been attacks. But they have not been answered, either.
But for DeVos, it’s more than television time. His candidacy has been boosted by a lousy state economy. Michigan continues to be one of the only states losing, not gaining, jobs. Unemployment stands at a painful 7.2 percent, compared to the national average of 4.7 percent. Granholm has won some business, but factory closings and layoffs dominate the headlines.
Michigan’s economic undoing has been in the works for years, as the state staked its future on low-skilled manufacturing jobs that have fled through automation and globalization. Some of the worst has hit on Granholm’s watch.
The race tightens
Last August, DeVos was barely a blip on the radar. In a head-to-head matchup with Granholm, he scored 36 percent to 56 percent, with the rest undecided, according to the Lansing polling firm EPIC-MRA.
This month’s poll puts DeVos at 46 percent to Granholm’s 45 percent, with 9 percent undecided, a statistical dead heat.
Granholm’s camp is trying to put the best face on the numbers.
“The key is not to win an election in July, it’s to win an election in November,” said campaign spokesman Chris DeWitt.
The polls show exactly what DeWitt expected in a state that, though blue in recent elections, is nevertheless closely divided.
“Anybody who has followed Michigan gubernatorial elections, generally they have been very, very close,” DeWitt said. “We don’t expect anything different this time around. In light of everything that has occurred, there have been no surprises.”
Granholm simply has been outspent by DeVos, a multimillionaire heir to the Alticor fortune, who is contributing heavily to his own campaign, DeWitt said.
‘Setting the agenda’
Indeed, DeVos has saturated the airwaves. The commercials emphasize his experience as former president of Alticor. They don’t mention Granholm by name, but they present DeVos as a more capable alternative.
DeVos has spent about $4 million on the plugs, estimates Rich Robinson of the Michigan Campaign Finance Network, which tracks campaign spending.
“The interesting thing to me about the DeVos television campaign is there really doesn’t appear to be a budget,” Robinson said. “The consideration is more, ‘When do we have saturation exposure that might have diminishing returns?’ as opposed to, ‘How do we allocate resources?’ ”
The one-sided nature of the contest makes DeVos’ popularity tough to gauge. But by getting out of the gate early — the ads started in mid-February — DeVos has been able to capitalize on the state’s pocketbook jitters and present himself as a decisive leader.
“Early advertising is always about setting the agenda, trying to argue that we ought to be talking about this question and not that question,” said Doug Koopman, professor of political science at Hope College. “If for six weeks or three months the Dick DeVos question is jobs and the economy, pretty soon that is what the election is about.”
Which groups will join fight?
Granholm cannot counter DeVos dollar-for-dollar from her campaign account. But that doesn’t mean her camp won’t respond.
In 2002, the state Democratic Party spent more than $7 million on so-called “issue ads” — campaign commercials masquerading as policy debate — supporting Granholm. This year, a group called Partners for Progress — a so-called 527 group named for that section of the Internal Revenue Service Code — will help her in various ways. Documents show the Democratic Governor’s Association recently put $750,000 into the fund.
That money is not regulated, and the sources of it generally are not reported. Unions and other interests can pump as much as they want into defeating DeVos. DeVos can get the same help from, say, business and the Michigan Chamber of Commerce, though he is less likely to need it.
The Michigan Campaign Finance Network’s Robinson thinks the 2002 pattern will hold this year. “I absolutely believe that the greatest share of television on the Granholm side will be this issue advertising, and there won’t be any disclosure about who’s paying for it,” he said.
DeVos spokesman John Truscott expects Granholm to attack through unregulated funds. “We predict that when they come, it’s going to be very negative,” Truscott said. “They’re going to try to tear apart Dick DeVos, and that’s going to be their strategy.”
What voters see
The governor, like every incumbent, has an advantage DeVos does not: the bully pulpit of her office. There, she has fallen short, said Ed Sarpolus, of EPIC-MRA. She has failed to take political advantage of the media she can garner for free and neglected to raise money early, he said. He cites the governor’s “Cool Cities” initiative — the idea that the state’s urban areas need to be more hip to retain young people — as an example of off-key proposals that don’t address real concerns.
“There’s no drawing of a line in the sand, no drawing blood, no taking the Republican Legislature to the wood-shed,” Sarpolus said.
That failure accentuates DeVos’ unanswered charge that there isn’t a steady hand at the wheel. “The public sense is there’s no strong leadership in the office,” Sarpolus said.
The DeVos strategy goes beyond the money and TV time. The campaign also has revealed an aggressive side. Earlier this month, DeVos crashed the Governor’s Luncheon at Holland’s Tulip Time Festival and stole some of Granholm’s limelight.
Still, voters like Granholm. Her favorability ratings continue to hover around 55 percent — not the peak she saw at other points in her tenure, but not the trough the anemic jobs climate might portend.
Granholm’s strength is her ability to connect to ordinary folks, said Hope’s Koopman, a contrast to DeVos’ life. Her message should be: “I’m not this other guy who has never been able to be in touch with the average Michigan person.”
DeVos, meanwhile, is not likely to alter the message that has worked so well. The campaign will talk about other issues, Truscott said. But most will relate to the central theme.
“Jobs and the economy are absolutely the overriding issue,” Truscott said. “Virtually everything plugs into that.”
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