If you've been following the ongoing battle between Governor GretchenWhitmer and the state legislature over road funding, you may forgive me for taking the easy way out for this week's cartoon.
The whole process has just been so volatile! It's gone from "critical to resolve now" to "it's fine to talk about it later." From "we're very close to a workable resolution" to "we are not even in the same time zone on this." From "they are all a bunch of stupid stupid-heads!" to "I know you are, but what am I?"
I have no idea what the status will be when this is published, so I defaulted to a generic politician who accidentally tells the truth (he doesn't really care) — it may be an unfair exaggeration, but at least it's stable.
My biggest issue isn't with the politicians themselves but with their handlers. The advisers, the managers, the consultants, the pollsters, the party apparatchiks. I have this sense that maybe, just maybe if the governor and the legislative leaders could meet without their handlers, they could actually come up with a compromise solution. And that solution could be communicated directly without being filtered, packaged, sanitized, and spun.
I know. I know. If I believe that could happen, I might as well believe that our roads will magically fix themselves.
John Auchter is a freelance political cartoonist. His views are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of Michigan Radio, its management, or its license holder, the University of Michigan.
