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Pols taking credit for stuff they voted against has been another motif.
Governors to voters: The state of our nation is bleak, except under me
If you’d sat in the Wyoming statehouse as Gov. Mark Gordon issued his State of the State address last week, it may have seemed as if the end times were near.
Not only had the “misguided” energy policies of the Biden administration “cost our nation dearly these past two years,” the Republican governor said, but “this winter, there are families in America – the richest and most advanced country in the world – living under a very real threat of freezing in the dark.”
“Leaner times appear likely,” he said. “Economic uncertainties,” he added, “may conspire against us.” But Gordon did have one exception to the Armageddon he was describing: He and his state were doing a bang-up job.
“The state of Wyoming,” Gordon said, “is strong, and her future is bright.”
Across the nation in this season of inaugural and State of the State addresses, the sense of looming catastrophe is seemingly everywhere. In New Jersey, Gov. Phil Murphy, a Democrat and chair of the National Governors Association, suggested the “notion of the American dream is harder to achieve for too many people.” In Idaho, Republican Gov. Brad Little pointed to “flashing red lights in the economy” and accused Washington, D.C. of “driving America towards an economic cliff.” And in South Dakota, Republican Gov. Kristi Noem saw misery coming both from Washington, where “our Cons utional freedoms are under assault,” and in grocery stores she said she’s visited in recent months, where she said about a quarter of the shoppers she’s seen in line have had to put something back because they couldn’t pay for it.
The remarks may reflect both the Republican instinct to play up down times with a Democrat in the White House and the Democratic instinct not to boast too hard under the same cir stances. But they also come at a time when inflation has begun to recede nationally, the job market remains robust and unemployment is at a 50-year low. Like the seasoned pols they are, the governors made a point of offering some self-aggrandizing carve outs to their forecasts of doom.
Specifically, they — and their state alone — are doing it right.
“In a world increasingly marked by chaos, Iowa’s strength and stability stand out,” said Kim Reynolds, the Republican governor of Iowa.
Or perhaps the stand-out state is New Jersey, which Murphy said is “not just a model for our nation, but is leading our nation.” Or it’s Ohio, which Republican Gov. Mike DeWine maintained is having a “moment.” In California, Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, channeled Mark Twain: California “lights out the territory for the rest,” the governor said, “molding the character of the nation.”
Such swagger from ambitious heads of state is nothing new. But for years, the contrasts that governors drew with one another were largely on economic lines: boasts about job creation, unemployment rates, or businesses that they were able to lure to their state.
https://www.politico.com/news/2023/0...tates-00078099
Pols taking credit for stuff they voted against has been another motif.
> "...and the Democratic instinct not to boast too hard under the same cir stances."
Huh?
Check out what Numb Nutts Youngkin blocked:
Ford Lost a Multibillion-Dollar Deal Over Right-Wing Governor's 'Communism' Fears (msn.com)
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