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About 150 attend Speak Up, Speak Out; panelists analyze upcoming election questions

By Annie Harrison on October 19, 2010 11:35 pm in Campus Events, Politics / 2 comments

 
About 150 attend Speak Up, Speak Out; panelists analyze upcoming election questions
Mount Pleasant graduate student Michael Mezei talks to the debate panel about the Michigan Business Tax yesterday evening at the Bovee Center Auditorium. "I moved here from North Carolina seven years ago and you can see from there that Michigan is so divided. It is more obvious to see the division since I moved here."

Maxine Berman believes cooperation between both political parties will be the key to success following November’s election.

“People have become so rigidly liberal or so rigidly conservative and they view compromise as a weakness,” said Berman, Griffin Endowed Chair and Gov. Jennifer Granholm’s director of Special Projects. “This state needs to sit down, Democrats and Republicans, and come up with a new revenue structure.”

On Tuesday, about 150 people attended a Speak Up, Speak Out forum, during which Berman and other panelists discussed the possible outcome of the midterm elections.

The forum “Elections 2010: What do the Experts Say?” began with a series of campaign videos representing Democrats and Republicans at local, state and national levels. After the videos, the panelists gave their predictions for the gubernatorial race between Democrat Virg Bernero, Lansing Mayor, and Republican Rick Snyder, an Ann Arbor businessman.

David Jesuit, a political science associate professor, facilitated the debate.

Panelists besides Berman included former state Rep. Sandy Caul; Bryant English, Jackson junior and advocacy chair of College Democrats; Travis Faber, Battle Creek senior and first vice chair of College Republicans; and Chris Owens, an assistant political science professor.

Possible advantages

Berman said the race will be close, but the Republicans have an advantage because Barack Obama’s administration has faced a lot of criticism.

Caul said it is possible there will be a low voter turnout among students because of voter apathy after the highly publicized 2008 presidential elections.

“There were a lot of promises made and a lot of promises not kept,” she said.

Owens said there are a lot of independent voters who are still undecided, but Bernero would need 80 to 90 percent of undecided voters to win the election.

The biggest issue discussed during the forum was the economy.

Both Faber and English said their candidate would create jobs in Michigan.

“We’ve seen growth in this economy,” English said. “(Bernero) is for the working man.”

Faber was confident the Republicans will take the state House and possibly the U.S. House, saying “the Republican ticket all around is just fantastic.”

Mount Pleasant graduate student Mike Mezei attended and said he is frustrated with the gridlock in Michigan’s government. He is concerned the government will not be able to make compromises in order to solve tax issues.

“We have divided government,” Mezei said. “We’re not solving our problems.”

 

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  • Michmediaperson

    Let me first compliment the writer for putting it in the story that Berman works for Jennifer Granholm. She's the first journalist anywhere on campus that I think finally put the disclaimer in a story. Good job!

    So, Berman thinks the race will be close? This could be the biggest landslide in political history.
    Snyder up 20 points and 99 Democrat US House seats are in play. Obama has faced criticism because the guy is a socialist and didn't do what he promised during the campaign.

    Compromise? We're not compromising. Granholm is a socialist. Snyder is a capitalist. Granholm has put the state on the brink of bankruptcy. What's the compromise between socialism and capitalism. What's the compromise having a $750 million deficit instead of a $1.5 billion deficit?

    Ms. Berman, where was the compromise when you Democrats did Obamacare. The Dems were behind closed doors. No Republicans were invited.

    Snyder is playing it smart. Be nice until after the election. Then, if he is going to be successful, then he's going to have to be like Governor Christie in New Jersey and start going after the state and public service unions cutting jobs, payroll, benefits and pensions. Cutting programs and re-doing the business tax so employers can hire…..small businesses will start….and companies will be attracted to Michigan.

    Ms. Berman, Granholm has been an 8-year disaster. Look at our high unemployment. Look at the jobs that have left the state for Indiana, Texas and other Republican states.

    Any Republican compromising should be voted out of office. Statewide or nationwide. Michigan worked great when Ronald Reagan was running the country. It worked great when John Engler was Republican. We need to get back to that era.

    Caul was right. A lot of promises made by the Democrats and not kept. But, they were totally, unrealistic promises and college students were dumb enough to believe them. The dumbest came one day over in Saginaw or Flint when candidate Barack Hussein Obama said he was going to give FREE four-year college scholarship full-rides if you would teach public schools for X-years. Where in the world would any nut be able to find the money to do such a thing?

    Compromise on tax issues? There are no compromises. We need to cut cut cut cut taxes, public payroll,etc.

    By the way, Ms. Berman, Jennifer Granholm will go down as the worst Governor in Michigan history. Jim Blanchard looks like Ronald Reagan in comparison. Before leaving office, Granholm should personally apologize to all of us for the damage she has done, especially the number of residents who have lost their jobs. Had Granholm listened to conservatives on Michigan's business tax, she would have been highly successful. Look at conservative Republican Governors like Mitch Daniels in Indiana, Christie in New Jersey, Perry in Texas.

    Two weeks from today, a fresh new start in Michigan and the USA. We're firing a lot of left-wingers!

  • chipskeptic

    Here is the fun part. On the day after election day if you wander through the Political Science department, it will have the feeling of a morgue as if there was a death. Why? Because the Democrats got their butts kicked. Why would that matter? Well, because all the professors are lefties as much as they try to say it is not so, their actions reveal their truth.