Maybe she should have added to her request this: “Pretty please, with sugar and honey on it?”

But she didn’t use the line that was often offered to children when you knew they should do something they were loathed to do.

So, it’s likely Gov. Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s plea for a two-week timeout to battle rising COVID-19 infections will fail to motivate the masses. And, by the end of the month, instead of a timeout from a record number of daily cases, mushrooming between 7,000 and 8,000 a day, Michigan will still be at the top of the heap, when it comes to the ugliest COVID-19 surge in the nation.

In case you missed it, it’s worth it to retrace what happened last week, because it reveals an interesting study in leadership — and, more importantly, follow-ship — when it comes to beating the coronavirus.

The last time the data on cases, rate of infections, and hospitalizations were this awful, it was just about a year ago, at the beginning of the pandemic. The governor looked at the numbers then and told everyone to stay home, don’t visit with anyone except immediate family, make only essential trips to the store, bank, or the hospital.

“We will bend the curve if everyone cooperates,” she said.

And, in that seemingly idyllic time, compared to now, most folks followed the leader, and the curve came down.

So, faced with the same numbers right now, why didn’t she lock the state down again?

She says things are different now. We have three vaccines that, given enough time, will start to eat away at those lousy COVID-19 numbers. The only questions are, how long will the eating take? And how many persons will die while we wait?

In an attempt to speed up the process, the governor phoned her pal in the White House and made the case for the administration to change course on how it determines which states get how much vaccine. The current President Joe Biden policy is to use population as the guideline. You got more residents, you get more shots.

The governor made the pitch to the prez that the guideline should be, which states have the worst surge? Those with the worst should get more doses.

She made the pitch.

Her “pal” shot her down.

“I’ll continue to fight for Michigan,” the disheartened Biden backer lamented.

That sounds nice, but, most likely, won’t produce more vaccines.

There’s another element that is different. Back then, like the virus, the lockdown was a novel idea, and, for a public that didn’t know squat about the illness, it was willing to swallow the medicine.

Now that same public remembers the lockdown and it’s a year later, with COVID-19 fatigue also running rough-shod all over the state, lots of folks are not eager to reprise that 2020 stay-at-home order, and would likely storm the Capitol if she went there.

Her plea this time is for a two-week halt to in-classroom learning, a halt to sports, and no more indoor dining at your favorite pub.

“Let me be clear: These are not orders or mandates or requirements,” she was eager to explain.

In other words, with fingers crossed and a mess on her hands, she was relegated to hoping the citizens would follow her suggestion.

But let’s be honest. Her mantra that we are all in this together betrays the fact they were are not.

When it comes to volunteering, who would expect that the same folks who have thumbed their noses at her mandatory mask law and other safety protocols are now, all of a sudden, going to get religion and do for her what they have refused to do for months?

Even if you sprinkle that sugar and honey on this, the governor may be in for a letdown in two weeks.