Dillon and Bishop Lead, Granholm Fails

Yesterday I heard on the radio (760 AM) Democratic House Speaker Andy Dillon and Republican Senate Majority Leader Mike Bishop. As they were interviewed by Paul Smith, they talked about the budget situation in Lansing and the problems there were to getting a budget passed. Both of them implied that the problems with Michigan- the budget problems and the government problems- are caused by a lack of leadership at the top. And they are right.

Michigan's budget problems are directly attributed to Democrat Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm and her lack of leadership and communication skills.

During the interview, Dillon said that the reason why Bishop waited so long to pass a continuation budget was because Bishop felt that Granholm would accept this budget and then veto the more permanent budgets the legislature was working on. He wanted to give the Governor a finished permanent budget and have her decide on that, fearing that by passing a continuation budget it would make the process of putting together a budget more contentious and bitter. He was right.

Dillon was also asked if Granholm would veto budget bills that the House and Senate both hammered out after long exhausting hours. He said he didn't think she would, but he didn't know- that she hadn't been involved in the process and what little involvement that the Democratic leader of our state had was wishy-washy, uncommitted, and weak. And that lack of leadership had introduced uncertainty and confusion into the entire process. And he was right.

The problems in our state are responsible in part because voters of our state took a chance on an inexperienced politician with few leadership skills. This caused uncertainty, lack of direction, lack of vision, and confusion to radiate through the entire state government. The weakness at the top of our state contributed to the weakness of our state.

This lack of leadership, vision, and the ability to make touch choices and tough decisions is playing out now at the national level. We have a President who runs the nation much like Granholm ran the state of Michigan, and he will run the nation into the ground due to his lack of leadership skills. Voters need to recognize the choices that they made that took us to this point in our state, and in the future, vote for strong leaders, of either party, who are willing to make tough choices and get things done.

Bishop and Dillon both are doing well in this process and should be judged highly- Granholm is doing poorly and should be judged poorly.