Jack Lessenberry

Once upon a time, universities were cloistered places, which deliberately shunned the down-and-dirty worlds of politics and the marketplace in favor of research, contemplation, and teaching.

That's never been totally the case in Michigan, however. What is now Michigan State was established for the explicit purpose of bringing "applied science" to the state's farmers and agricultural industry, back when that was the industry of Michigan.

But that's not usually been the case elsewhere. Professors traditionally earn promotion and tenure by publishing academic research and getting good teaching evaluations. Community service is seen as good, but is too seldom supported or rewarded.

Four years ago, Michigan politicians believed their presidential primary would be meaningful and influential. It was anything but. The state broke both parties’ rules by holding it too early.

Barack Obama’s name was not on the ballot, and it was won by two candidates who ended up not winning their nominations.

This year’s primary was supposed to be a big yawn. Democrats have only one candidate, and on the Republican side, this was supposed to be just a brief stop in native son Mitt Romney’s coronation parade. Except that’s not how it is working out.

Just over a month ago, I talked about an interesting controversy in the Plymouth-Canton Community School district, a middle-to-upper-middle area of western Wayne County.

The superintendent suddenly banned a popular novel, Graham Swift’s "Waterland", from the Advanced Placement, or AP English curriculum. "Waterland", first published almost 30 years ago, is a highly acclaimed book which has to do with storytelling and history, and which shows how everything is influenced by what came before.

They’ve been using it in Plymouth-Canton for years. But suddenly the book was pulled, and there were hints that the district was also going to ban Toni Morrison’s Pulitzer-Prize winning novel "Beloved."  Why? Well, it seemed one couple complained.

Some years ago, there was a scandal involving fiscal improprieties at Michigan Public Media, which operates this radio station. When the then-director discovered the suspicious financial practices, he immediately told the University of Michigan about them.

Then, though he was in no way implicated in the wrongdoing, he resigned, saying the irregularities happened under his watch, and therefore he was ultimately responsible for them.

That was a classy and appropriate thing to do. Now contrast that with the embarrassing mess in Michigan’s largest county. Wayne County Executive Robert Ficano is sitting atop what may be the biggest and most far-reaching scandal anyone can remember, and he refuses to even consider taking responsibility.

Last night we all learned that today would be the day when Governor Rick Snyder endorsed Mitt Romney for president.

This is a time-honored ritual, not all that different in some ways from waiting to see if Billy will ask Katie to the prom. But what nobody ever seems to ask is, what effect this all has?

I mean, will Joe Sixpack or Susie Salarywoman come home tonight, throw open the door and say, “Honey, did you hear the news?   Snyder endorsed Romney.  I guess that settles it for us.“

Of course not. Years ago, an old newspaper editorial writer said that when a newspaper endorses a candidate for President, it’s like wetting your pants wearing a dark suit.

It gives you a nice, warm feeling, and nobody notices.

Usually, journalists are sent press releases before political events, because the organizers want reporters to cover them. Monday, I got one about an event that was already over.

That would normally strike me as a trifle unusual, until I saw that it was from the Green Party of Michigan. They had a meeting last weekend in Bay City which they said was “charged with enthusiasm.“

What did they talk about? Well, among other things, quote “the unrest palpable among the lower echelons of society.” and the “once-dismissed voters who opted to eschew either,” major party nominee.

I instantly imagined a Monty Python routine with a politician saying, “My word, the unrest is palpable in the lower echelons.”

The headlines were horrifying yesterday for Mitt Romney supporters. One new poll had Romney trailing Rick Santorum in Michigan, Romney’s birthplace, by six points -- thirty-three to twenty-seven. The other poll was worse. It had Romney behind by fifteen points -- thirty-nine to twenty-four. Those are staggering numbers. And anything but the kind of Valentine the former Massachusetts governor expected to receive. How could this be?

Romney won the primary here four years ago, even though he soon lost the nomination to John McCain. Back then, almost nobody in Michigan had heard of Rick Santorum, a former Pennsylvania senator voted out of office in a landslide.

There’s a funeral today for best-selling author Jeffrey Zaslow, who was killed on a snowy Michigan road Friday morning. He had been at a book signing event in Petoskey the night before.

Zaslow, who lived in a Northwest Detroit suburb, left early the next morning so he could get home by the time his youngest daughter was out of school. But his car apparently skidded into the path of a tractor-trailer and he died.

This hit me pretty powerfully for two reasons. I knew him very slightly, and he was an extremely decent man. But we were also driving on that same stretch of road that same day, five hours later.

Yesterday, while everyone was focusing on the details of  Governor Snyder’s budget proposal, I was struck instead by something Lieutenant Governor Brian Calley said about it.

The state needs to “resist the temptation to go back to the old way because the old way did not serve us well.” And it’s impossible to disagree with that, whatever your politics or ideology.

Cast your mind back to the dreadful budget wars of the Granholm administration, when nearly every year we saw bitterly partisan battles which occupied the legislature for months, threatened government with shutdown, and resulted in unthinking, last minute solutions harmful to everyone.

Three days ago, it seemed that Michigan’s presidential primary would be regarded as kind of a sleepy afterthought. Mitt Romney’s campaign was once again relentlessly sailing on, after having demolished Newt Gingrich in Florida.

Since this was Romney’s birthplace, and had voted for him enthusiastically four years ago, he seemed unlikely to be seriously challenged here. Nor was he apt to get much momentum out of victory in a state where his father was an iconic governor years ago.

But that all changed this week, when Romney suffered a drubbing at the hands of Rick Santorum, of all people, losing a primary in Missouri and caucuses in Minnesota and Colorado, all on the same day. Suddenly, it seemed there might be a real race again.