As you probably know, Governor Snyder gives his State of the State speech tonight, two hours before President Obama gives his annual State of the Union address. We also know that America will get a new president exactly two years from today.
And there are those who have been speculating that maybe, just maybe, the State of the Union speech two years from now might be given by a President named Rick Snyder.
Long shot? Sure. But you might say -- hey. Who thought in January 2007 that the next President would be a black freshman senator whose father was a Muslim from Kenya?
True. Amazing upsets do happen. But I have been watching politics all my life, and I am here to tell you that there’s no way Rick Snyder is going to be the next President, barring some epic cataclysm out of a Tom Clancy novel. It isn’t happening.
And here’s why. If Snyder had been bitten by the presidential; bug, he needed to not run for reelection last year.
Why? Simple. You can’t run for president these days and carry out the responsibilities of being governor of a major industrial state. True, Bill Clinton was governor of Arkansas, but that was then an essentially part-time job in a small state.
Ronald Reagan and Mitt Romney ran only after each had left the governor’s chair. George W. Bush was governor of Texas when he was elected, but in that state, the lieutenant governor does most of the heavy lifting.
I’m aware of only one governor who was nominated and tried to campaign while trying to run an important state. That would be Michael Dukakis.
And we know how well that turned out.
These days, campaigns for President start years in advance. If you want to run, you need to raise huge sums of money. You also have to have something that makes you stand out from the crowd, a unique selling proposition, as they say in advertising.
Rick Snyder managed to distinguish himself from the pack in Michigan with his “one tough nerd” strategy.
But that would be far harder on a national scale. Snyder is not ruggedly handsome like Romney, nor does he have the golden voice and charisma of a Reagan.
No particular faction identifies with him.
He also lacks any kind of Washington, military, or foreign policy experience. He is not widely recognized nationally, nor does he have any one huge accomplishment to display.
If he had a slogan, it might well be “competence, not ideology.” Except … that was Mike Dukakis’ 1988 slogan. The two men are alike in many ways; both were technocrats who appealed to the mind, not the heart.
Dukakis, who was a much better speaker than Snyder, started far ahead in the polls, and ended up losing forty states.
That doesn’t mean Snyder doesn’t have a national future if he wants one. Were a Republican to win the White House, Snyder would be a prime candidate for cabinet positions like Commerce or Management and Budget, maybe Transportation.
But not President. Sorry about that, but that’s the way it is. And now it’s time for Lansing to get back to work.
Jack Lessenberry is Michigan Radio's political analyst. You can read his essays online at michiganradio.org. Views expressed in his essays are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of Michigan Radio, its management or the station licensee, The University of Michigan
