W.'s Man in Michigan - Michigan governor and George W. Bush supporter John Engler

National Review, Feb 21, 2000 by John J. Miller

Engler took care of that problem in 1994: His wife gave birth to triplets (all girls). The state's Rust Belt economy also started to improve. The unemployment rate has been below the national average for six years. Engler also earned a national reputation as a welfare-reform leader, trimming the state rolls by two-thirds. He coasted to reelection in 1994 on the heels of a voter-approved school-financing package that included a major property-tax rollback. He won again four years later, easily besting Geoffrey Fieger, a foul-mouthed trial lawyer who once represented Jack Kevorkian.

If future historians write about a Republican revolution during the 1990s, they'll be referring to the GOP's strength outside Washington as much as to the 1994 takeover of Congress. In 1990, there were just 21 Republican governors. Today, there are 30. Engler, who is now third in seniority, has championed this group for years. Following the Dole debacle, he made it known to anybody who would listen that the next Republican nominee should be one of the governors. Shortly after the 1998 races, he decided that Bush was his man.

Since then, Engler has been a tireless Bush advocate. He joined Bush's 10-member exploratory committee last year and locked up endorsements from virtually every member of Michigan's GOP establishment. He also turned on the state's money spigot. Some $3 million of Bush's campaign treasury has come from Michigan, in large part because of Engler. The state party moved its primary forward to February 22. "We're the firewall," explains John Truscott, Engler's press secretary. "Bush either stops bleeding here or gets the big-state momentum he needs to pick up the nomination." Engler also sent at least one member of his staff to Iowa to help Bush in the caucuses, and his office is in regular contact with Austin on everything from speech drafts to issues research.

The governor has even come out against a school-choice initiative that will probably appear on the state ballot in November. He believes that a high-profile campaign over vouchers would boost Democratic turnout and thereby imperil the reelection of Sen. Spencer Abraham, endanger GOP control of the state House of Representatives right before congressional redistricting (watch out, David Bonior!), and make it harder for the GOP presidential nominee to carry Michigan. Engler certainly isn't against competition in education: Michigan students and parents now have extensive public-school choice, and more than 50,000 students attend charter schools. So his ironfisted assaults on the initiative have puzzled some longtime backers. But the fallout probably won't be great. "A lot of conservatives are willing to give him a pass on this one," says Lawrence Reed, president of the Mackinac Center, a Midland-based think tank that supports the initiative.

And it surely won't hurt his standing in the Bush camp. Which raises the obvious question: Who should get the vice-presidential nomination? "There's less of a need for Bush to go to the governors because he is one," says Engler. "He has our support. We view him as one of our own." Engler says there are many good choices in Congress or the states-he names John McCain and Pennsylvania governor Tom Ridge as possibilities- and then mentions a third category: former officeholders with extensive government experience but now in the private sector. He describes Dick Cheney without using the name.