Snyder: Voters can go forward or move back

Or is he pushing the limit by putting his Democratic challenger within striking distance?

Over the past week, one statewide survey showed the Republican incumbent with a newfound 6-point lead over Democrat Mark Schauer. But within days another poll showed Snyder and Schauer in a near dead heat with one month to go until the November election.

In interviews with The Macomb Daily and The Oakland Press the governor addressed this and a number of other topics last week. He insisted his campaign is doing fine given the hurdles he faces in a statewide election.

“We’re more of a Democratic state than a Republican state. We’re a Blue State, according to most peoples’ definition,” Snyder said.

That’s certainly disputable, and it certainly wasn’t reflected in the governor’s landslide win in 2010.

The incumbent said that the massive flow of outside special interest money into the gubernatorial contest – about $1 million a week – has made the campaign volatile.

He defended election ads that link Schauer, a former congressman, to ex-governor Jennifer Granholm. As a state legislator from 2002-08, including two years as the Senate Minority Leader, Schauer is trying to downplay his role in Michigan’s “lost decade,” Snyder said.

“He was a member of the (Democratic) leadership and that’s pretty significant,” the governor said.

At the same time, the incumbent stated his re-election campaign has been hobbled by Schauer’s persistent claims that the governor cut $1 billion from K-12 education. That assertion is a “major lie” and has been discredited by several fact-checkers in the media, he added.

While political analysts say Snyder has been hurt by issues such as education funding, the new tax on retirement income, and the right-to-work law, he is also wedged between moderate voters who now barely support him and tea party loyalists who say he has abandoned the conservative line.

Snyder, who lists his top priorities as greater road funding and job training, continues to describe himself as a problem solver who does not see issues “through a partisan lens.”

If he comes up short on Nov. 4, Snyder will earn the distinction of the first Michigan Republican governor to lose re-election since 1948.

In a wide-ranging discussion with reporters and editors, the governor:

• Defended the state takeover of “failing schools” through the Educational Achievement Authority, saying that high schools that produce no college-ready graduates should not hide behind Michigan’s long emphasis on local control. “We’ve put a lot of resources into the (K-12) system and we need … to see better outcomes.”

• Explained he would not have paved the way for the controversial right-to-work law if labor leaders had agreed to drop their ballot proposal plans to enshrine collective bargaining in the state Constitution.

• Declared the Medicaid expansion under Obamacare, known as Healthy Michigan, has been a “huge success.” He added fellow Republican governors who have blocked an expanded Medicaid program paid for by the federal government in their state fail to realize the overall savings. “I don’t tell them they’re making a mistake but I tell them about the ‘value-add’ … It’s not hard math to figure out that who writes the checks may change, but aren’t you going to be better off if uncompensated care in the (hospital emergency rooms) is replace by preventative care?”

• Disputed claims by Democratic lawmakers that a renewed cap on charter schools is needed until all charters meet the same state standards for transparency and accountability as public schools. “I wouldn’t say the issue is too many charter schools. But we … should have the same standards for all schools.”

• Admitted that his so-called NERD fund wrongly withheld disclosure of donations from supporters, which prevented transparency. The fund, which critics called a secretive slush fund, was closed down in October, 2013.

“That was a mistake, in retrospect. We learned a lot.”

• Insisted pay raises of up to 90 percent for high-ranking Treasury Department officials was blown out of proportion by critics. Snyder said he recommended the raises but the approval came from the Civil Service Commission. More importantly, the governor said these specialists are paid up to $340,000 to manage billions of dollars in state pension funds. The UAW, one of Snyder’s harshest critics, pays their pension fund managers more than that, he said.

• Of a vote by the Legislature that undercuts a pair of ballot questions looking to curb wolf hunting in Michigan, the governor stated it is up to voters to decide. While saying he is not begging off of the issue, he added that you “have to set priorities.”