Tale of two campaigns

On July 12, I got this email from the DeVos campaign (yes, I signed up to receive their emails. Just keeping tabs on things ... )

Hi, I'm Dick DeVos and thanks for joining me in our quest to become Michigan's new Governor. Change takes courage but that's one of Michigan's prime assets. We're ready for bold, courageous and profound change.

If you look at every economic index that matters, where we should be first, we're last or darn close to it. It's shocking to me that we're at the top of the national list when it comes to bankruptcies, foreclosures and bad and unsafe roads.

Michigan can do better, we must and we will. I can turn our state around. But I can't do it alone. Nor can I win this campaign against Governor Granholm without you.

I think it's interesting to see that while DeVos makes claims about Michigan being at the bottom of economic indices, he gives us no figures. Instead he cites forclosures, bad roads and bankruptcies as things we "excel" at.

In contrast, here's this message I got on the same day from Governor Granholm's Fight Back campaign:

Republicans like to use a lot of tricky rankings to portray gloom and doom scenarios for Michigan’s future. Governor Granholm knows that there is a lot of work to be done to get our economy back on track, but she has also made a lot of progress – including the Google decision this week to build a new headquarters in Michigan. We are now ranked among the best states to do business in from numerous non-partisan sources:

- #9 ranking for most competitive tax burden in the country according to Laffer Associates State Rankings
- #8 most competitive business climate and #4 in Corporate Facilities and Expansions according to Site Selection Magazine in 2005
- #2 in capital investment in the country according to Ernst & Young in 2005

Yeah, I know that both of these are what campaigning is all about. But in my book, DeVos continues to be elusive. I doubt, in spite of the "big disclosure coming up" referred to in the video that accompanies this email, that we'll get any clearer picture of his "plans" for Michigan.