I am writing today to announce the closure of the Michigan Messenger. After four years of operation in Michigan, the board of the American Independent News Network, has decided to shift publication of its news into a single site, The American Independent at Americanindependent.com. This is part of a shift in strategy, towards new forms [...]
An abstinence-only presentation provided to numerous school districts in Calhoun and Eaton Counties in October of this year provided false and misleading information to students about HIV, experts allege.
Two county registers of deeds filed a class action lawsuit Monday on behalf of Michigan’s 83 counties alleging that the Mortgage Electronic Registration Services owes millions of dollars in property title transfer taxes.
Despite evidence of the impact of mercury on children and public health, Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette last month joined with 24 other state attorneys general in filing a lawsuit to scuttle new EPA regulations that would reduce mercury emissions from power plants.
Should elected officials be politically savvy or should they be all about business?
A majority of Michigan voters apparently wants them to be all about business.
A recent survey has Michiganders saying a business background was more important in an elected official than political experience.
The survey was conducted by Denno-Noor Research in partnership with The Rossman Group, a Lansing public relations firm that specializes in political issues.
The survey asked: “Which is more important in an elected official – business experience or political experience?”
Results show that 52 percent of Michigan voters said business experience was more important, compared to 33 percent who preferred political experience.
Continued -“Considering Michigan’s economic woes and the state’s budget mess last year, it’s not surprising that voters want a candidate with a little more real-world experience,” said Kelly Rossman-McKinney, CEO of The Rossman Group. “If these preferences continue it will be interesting to see if Michigan voters find more business leaders on the ballot in upcoming elections.”
But 56 percent of 18-to-35-year-old voters found political experience to be more important compared to 36 percent who favored business experience.
“While voters across the state indicated an overall preference for business backgrounds in their elected leaders, the poll shows that young voters have almost the exact opposite preferences,” said Denno-Noor President Dennis Denno. “Those numbers are significant in a year when young voter turnout is expected to top record highs.”
“Business experience trumped political experience across the political spectrum, but the results did reflect some interesting party preferences,” said John Reurink, president of MIRS, a news service that covers the Michigan government. “Democrats favored business experience, but only by about 6 percentage points – a pretty small margin.
“Republicans, on the other hand, were less divided: 60 percent valued business experience most in their leaders – 31 percentage points more than those who favored political experience.”
Methodology:
This survey was part of the Rossman Group/MIRS/Denno-Noor Quarterly Survey of the Michigan electorate. Six hundred respondents were surveyed between May 17 and May 21, and the participation was stratified based on census data and past voter behavior. A screen was employed to include only those participants who said they intended on voting, either at the polls or by absentee ballot, in the November 2008 election. The margin of error is plus or minus 4 percent.
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