Op-Ed: George an underdog with gumption
Sen. Tom George, of Kalamazoo, has yet to generate the bucks and buzz of more prominent contenders for the 2010 Republican nomination for governor. But he has credentials and gumption.
By GEORGE WEEKS Sen. Tom George, of Kalamazoo, has yet to generate the bucks and buzz of more prominent contenders for the 2010 Republican nomination for governor. But he has credentials and gumption. Gumption was evident last week when he managed to reverse the arrogant decision of the Michigan Taxpayers Alliance, initially accepted by the state party, to bounce him from the Sept. 26 gubernatorial debate at the Republican Leadership Conference on Mackinac Island. It's bizarre that the party would give to an outside organization the power to determine who could participate in a party function. In excluding him, the anti-tax alliance cited time limitations and, essentially, George's failure to click with the media. After his eviction, George got on the horn to Republican State Chairman Ron Weiser and two GOP contenders, Congressman Pete Hoekstra, of Holland, and Ann Arbor businessman Rick Snyder. George said the three helped in the reversal. In fact, Snyder Campaign Manager M. Dane Walters wrote Weiser: "This upcoming debate and the Republican Party should not be perceived as exclusionary or preferential. Without assurance that Senator George has been invited, we will seriously reconsider whether Rick Snyder should participate as well." George was particularly grateful to Weiser in assuring that "fairness prevailed" at this early stage of the Republican primary fight, where George is a long shot to outpoll well-known and media-savvy contenders Hoekstra, Attorney General Mike Cox and Oakland County Sheriff Michael Bouchard. He lacks the resources and impressive staffing of the wealthy Snyder. George, 52, is a former state representative who was elected to the Senate in 2002, and is well qualified to contribute to the current debate on health care. He's a medical doctor; past president of the Michigan Society of Anesthesiologists; and past director of Hospice of Greater Kalamazoo. In fact, when I connected with him by phone Friday, he was in his scrubs waiting to deal with a couple of patients at one of the Kalamazoo hospitals where he practices when the Legislature is not in session. "I'm a doctor," he said, "I know health care." He also knows history, being past president of the Historical Society of Michigan and producer of the 1993 award-winning television documentary "Lincoln in Kalamazoo." So I was interested in his comments on Gov. Jennifer Granholm's ill-advised move to scatter the state's historical functions to the winds as part of her executive order to dismantle the Department of History, Arts and Libraries (HAL) at a claimed savings of $2 million. George says that the way Granholm configures the functions, the state's push for "cultural tourism" would suffer. While she has modified some aspects of her original action, George correctly says the current well-coordinated and effectively functioning operation of the Michigan Historical Center, which includes the Michigan Historical Museum and the State Archives, would "lose synergy." Michigan has a huge budget problem. But not so huge as to make history of history. Her order transfers some, but not all, of the Historical Center's functions to the Department of Natural Resources. The DNR is well set to administer museums. But the state archives? Richard Fidler, a board member of the Traverse Area Historical Society, contends that the Historical Center "would be sacrificed" in order to have more funding available for the proposed Michigan Center for Innovation and Reinvention at Michigan State University that emphasizes technology and science as favored by Granholm. He said: "Closing and moving historical resources from the present Michigan Library will not save the state money. On the contrary, it will cost the state more, not less, to support a new institution." Click here for the original article in the Traverse City Record Eagle.
Syndicated Columnist
Posted: 9/14/2009