Word: michigans
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This isn't the kind of problem most school chiefs in the U.S. have to worry about. A year ago, Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm gave Bobb, the former president of Washington, D.C.'s Board of Education, the task of ending the financial crisis that has devastated the Detroit public-school system. In the past decade, the number of Detroit public-school students has plummeted from more than 167,000 to 84,600, mainly because of the emergence of charter schools and the middle class's exodus to the suburbs. It could fall further, to 65,000 in the next four...
Most of the attention has focused on the prospective Democratic candidacies of Andy Dillon, speaker of Michigan's house of representatives, and Denise Ilitch, a scion of the family that owns the Little Caesar's pizza chain and the Detroit Red Wings hockey team. The Democrats, says Michigan political analyst Bill Ballenger, are "holding their breath and saying, 'This is going to be a dogfight...
Lanky and telegenic, Dillon, 48, is the son of a former judge. Trained as a lawyer, he worked as a steel-company president before winning a seat in Michigan's house of representatives in 2004. He built a fairly conservative record (he is Catholic and opposes abortion); his efforts to restructure the state health care system to sharply reduce costs endeared him to Michigan's business élite but infuriated unions, historically a key Democratic voting bloc. (See TIME's yearlong look at Detroit...
...Still, some observers are skeptical that Ilitch has the stamina and gravitas to endure a grueling political race. Apart from being on the Bing transition team, Ilitch has little political experience (she was also elected to the University of Michigan's board of regents), and her views on many social and political issues are largely unknown. In recent days, local news reports have presented her as the Obama Administration's preferred candidate, but she has reportedly donated money in the past to Republicans as well as Democratic causes and candidates. Fundraising is expected to be tricky in the current economic...
...conducted to gauge how the electorate's mood has shifted since Cherry's announcement. "For both the Democrats and the Republicans, so much is in the air," says Ballenger. Republicans are very aware that if they are to replicate Brown's Massachusetts success in their quest to win back Michigan's governor's seat, the party must aggressively court independents and conservative Democrats - who are also part of the base of support for Dillon and Ilitch. "The message," says Ron Weiser, Michigan's GOP chair, "has to be about the economy and why we're able to make the changes...