Tim Skubick

Jeopardy! Game Take One.

“I’ll take political potpourri for $1200.”

Answer: Jim Brickley, Dick Posthumus, John Cherry, and Brian Calley.

Question: Name four Michigan lt. governors who ran for governor and lost.

Correct.

“Let’s take political popular wisdom for $2000. I’m feeling lucky.”

Answer: Garlin Gilchirst II.

Question: Who is the next lt. governor who won’t become governor.

In many circles it is affectionately called “the lt. governor curse” in that Messrs. Brickley, Posthumus, Cherry and Calley were buffo running mates with Governors Milliken, Engler, Granholm and Snyder. And each was well-prepared to step into the boss’s shoes and frankly each would have been exceptional governors. Only problem was the not-so-well-informed voters did not share that view. Why would they since being second banana meant a huge chunk of media and pubic attention automatically went to the governor who sucked most of the political oxygen out of the room leaving the l.g.s gasping for air and leaving the voters not knowing much about the running mates.

L.G. Gilchrist has been loyal at the side of Gov. Gretchen Whitmer for her two-term run. He helped to deliver badly needed votes out of Detroit when she ran the first time and he never hogged the limelight unless she brought him into it.

Asked if the popular wisdom in town was true that he can’t win, he stood tall, easy for him to do, and batted it away, “It’s absolutely false.”

Gov. Whitmer has addressed the l.g. curse without using that lingo. She notes that none of the previous l.g.’s won but did not apply that to her pal “the Deuce” as he’s known in some circles. But she didn’t stop there when reminded that every previous governor was loyal to his or her second-in-command by endorsing them.

“I’m not going to endorse,” she observed on camera for the first time.

“I have too many friends who are running,” she correctly reported and rather than hack off most of them by blessing somebody else, she is staying on the sidelines and letting the people decide.

Then she segued into what a great partner her running mate was and lavished him with all sorts of praise… just like all the other governors had done, in vain, before her.

“She talked to me,” Mr. Gilchrist reveals, but if he was hacked off by her decision, he gave no hint of that during his first statewide Michigan Public TV appearance to hawk his wares.

“I’m the only person serving in state office today, the only candidate in this race, the only person in the country who has the ability to be a software developer at a time when software is leading the world.”

He tells the voters he’s ready deal with AI head on for better or for worse as their governor.

On top of that, he reports he is no Lansing insider, which candidate Ms. Whitmer was when she ran with years of experience in the minority trenches of the state legislature under her belt.

“I don’t sound like the people in Lansing where the conversations don’t make sense,” the software developer tries to forge a path to victory by adding that voters “are not looking for the person who is connected to the most millionaires… I’m connected to working people,” he boosts, hoping some of those folks will hear him out.

He rejects the notion of the curse as well.

And give him the benefit of the doubt because no one has ever proven in the post election data that voters disliked the lt. governors.

However, there is one little item that is grounded in fact which may have a tad more credibility.

Each previous l.g. candidate ran after their governor/partner had been in office for at least eight years, giving rise to the notion of voter fatigue with the sitting governor and his or her political party. So when GOP governor Milliken retired, the voters switched to a Democrat for governor. When Democratic Gov. Blanchard ran again, the voters picked a Republican named Engler and so on an so on with Governors Granholm and Snyder.

There is no denying it, the voting pattern has been there for decades.

But is a “pattern” the same as an ingrained voting habit?

The gentleman who hopes history can be changed will help to answer the final Jeopardy! question.

Answer: Garlin Gilchrist II.

Question: Who is the new governor of Michigan… or not.