The annual correspondent's year end edition of Off the Record is up next.

Reflections on the stories that made headlines and impacted your lives around the OTR table.

Chuck Stokes, Beth LeBlanc, Zoe Clark and Bill Ballenger sit in with us as we get the inside out.

Off the record production of Off the Record is made possible in par by Bellwether Public Relations, a full servic strategic communications agency partnering with clients through public relations, digital marketing and issue advocacy.

Learn more at Bellwetherpr.com And now this edition of Off the Record with Tim Skubick.

A Pure Michigan morning as we're fighting to my out of town folks thank you for driving in in this lousy weather as we take off.

You don't have to drive in it.

You you don't have to drive.

Yeah, exactly.

You sit with a fireplace and, you know, a sassparilla.

December 20th is a date.

We're taping this, so let's go around the table.

What was the lead story, Chuck-a-roo of 2024.

Trump and MAGA's win back Michigan in swing states.

Bethy.

Miscues by the Democrat at the federal and state levels.

Yeah Election 2024 Trump winning Michigan but some some bright spots for Democrats.

Mr. Ballenger Topsy turv year ends badly for Democrats.

All right.

Okay.

This is sort of a the same thing, the election and all the others.

And now here's the tough part.

What's the second lead story.

I to tell you?

For a curve, 750,000 people converge on Detroit for NFL draft.

Oh, that's not bad.

That's not bad.

I'm sure Mike Duggan will appreciate that.

Well, riffing off of that, Duggan running as an independent.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

That's interesting.

Well, I did election 24 so I can do lame duck for my second.

All right.

Yeah.

Michigan Democrats slink out of Lansing after lame duck meltdown.

Okay, how about the lame duck has a broken leg?

Oh, it's more than just a broken leg.

Right?

So that's great.

But it is.

It is more than just.

Psychological problems as well.

But we'll get to that in a little bit.

Okay.

Since Chuck, you started out, the Democrats, well, how did they mess this thing up?

That's a good it's a really good question, which I don't think we truly know the answer to.

We got to go for it.

I think they had figured we will deal with all this in lame duck without any problems.

And then they got the lame duck and the roadblocks came in.

They I think they figure it was going to be a slam dunk and they would have all their folks in.

Line on the election stuff.

Beth, how did they mess up?

I think they weren't listening to what people were were really interested in.

They they misse the economic cues of how people were struggling and talked about macro level economics and how things were bette without really addressing issues that that people were really concerned about.

You know, a lot of their ads were abortion focus when in Michigan at least that that issue had been settled in 2022.

It wasn't having the same effect on people.

I think from from that point.

And then also like on a state level, just legislation wasn't moving that people really wanted to see.

They wasted months with in the House, at least without having session or without even having committee meetings where they could have hash out some of these issues.

It was it was jus a lot of missed opportunities.

I remember Jo Tate, the speaker of the House, saying, we're going to run on our record.

That was from the year before.

Okay.

Does he not know that the electorate has has a memory of about that long I mean, really?

Well, I think the other thing that, you know, we've all talked about is this idea of Democrats not having been in power in this complete control in 40 years.

Yeah, I remember at the very beginning of session, I think the first week of 23, asking Winnie Brinks the Senate majority leader, you know, Are Dems going to be able to to do this right.

She said, Well you know, I remember the quote well, we're a little rusty now.

Now, you know, little do we know exactly what what that would portend.

But I think what you saw in that really sort of amazingly robust first six weeks, three months of 2023 was the repealing right of monumental legislation, whether we're talking about prevailing wage, right to work, abortion laws and a few things of adding right.

Elliot Larson, LGBTQ rights.

But once they got through that list, it was sort of like, Well, what's the plan?

What what are the goals?

And they could never get an agenda together because you had this sort of intraparty interesting sort of fight between the more progressive wing, a lot of freshman Democrats coming in, not maybe understanding sort of the rules of what gets put up on the board.

Thinking they understood the system.

Thinking they understood and then Republicans under Matt Hall sticking together with the.

Wagons in a circle.

Just just saying we are going to work as a caucus, which again, let's remember, it's easy to do when you're the minority.

Much easier.

And I think some of it was they got caught up because it was a big political election year campaigning so hard in this state for Kamala Harris, trying to keep Michigan blue.

And they got so caught up in all that.

And I think they lost their focus and they concentrated on that, which obviously was a big thing to do.

But the details, as Beth said, the bills that the average person was concerned with, they were focused on Tim.

Remember a year ago, we applauded the cohesion and discipline of the House and Senate Democrats holding themselves together with these narrow 56-54, 20-18 margins in each chamber and ramming through all this legislation, this legislation, everything.

I mean, it was incredible.

And then what happened?

We forgot the special elections and the resignations of two members in the House.

They were stopped b the Republicans not giving them any support for four months, and they never recovered.

They were paralyzed.

The rest of the year.

They didn't get anything done.

The one thing they really had to do was pass a budget.

They screwed up the K-12 school budget and gave the Republicans ammunition.

They took safety money out of the schools.

Correct.

You've got to wonder, thi was an idea was they flatlined.

The foundation grant.

Yeah.

Which infuriated the superintendents.

Republicans use this in key districts around the state.

That's how they picked up fou seats, got control of the House.

And guess what?

Next year, paralysi the next two years, that whole.

And we will not go that far.

Yeah, well they.

May they Whitmer and the Democrats will have to make a deal with the Republicans on road funding because that was Whitmer's signature issue when she was elected.

And she still hasn't fix the damn roads.

And they've got to come up with a solution to that.

Look, th the the way that this lame duck is ending, it' going to be frosty come January.

You know, if lame duck had maybe possibly ended with some kind of agreement, I don't think any of us really thought that was going to happen.

There was a lot of sort of bubbling up, but it's going to be frosty come January.

I mean there is no love lost right now, but it will be really interesting, I think, to see what kind of Speaker Matt Hall is going to be.

I mean, watching, you know, this this boycotting of the past week, trying to stay on message, it is going to be really interesting to see divided government with Matt Hall as speaker.

Oh, Karen Whitsett thinks he's great.

She says he's a rock and he's already given the Democrats equal funding in the minority for next year which is really unprecedented.

One of the things on this economy, Chuck, the point that you raised i that the polling data was clear.

The Biden folks befor he got out of the race and Ms.. Harris picking up after him was times are good.

Look at the data.

Look at the data.

And then you went to Mr. Mrs. Joe Sixpac and said how things are at home.

Wow, my grocery bills, my eggs, my beer and how could they missed the connection of putting those two together that telling people things were good when they thought they weren't, was not working, know.

They weren't focused on the inflation related issues that touch every family regardless of what your economic income is.

But I'll be a little more optimistic that I don't think they're going to come to agreement on many things next year when Republicans take control of the House.

I do think that they're going to reach agreement on roads because I think each side ha a vested interest in doing it.

And I'll give Whitmer credit on this.

She has raised the bar on our expectation of what we want to see on roads.

We no longer debate whether or not we want good roads, we expect good roads, and we know that when we drive to Ohio or Indiana, they've got great roads.

So we're there now.

The details are going to be on how do they come to the funding mechanism that each side can live with.

But I think and I think she's made progress on the roads.

But I think Bill's right.

It's not totally fixed yet, but they'll come t some kind of agreement on that.

What were the optics of incoming Speaker Hall proposing a road fix solution?

Well the governor fill in the blank.

Yeah, I mean, you know, that was that was sort of a masterstroke by Matt Hall that he came out with a plan first and he was.

Going to do it.

He was going to sit on it until the new year.

Well, he he had good timing in that sense.

And then Democrats later on introduced an array of bills of uncertain options for funding and everything.

Yeah, I feel like the optics of that were that kind of what Trump is doing right now at the federal level of kind of taking the reins before you're officially in that position.

And I think the optics of that, the optics of Hall, you know, making friends with Karen Whitset and coming on to the House floor after this historic, chaotic adjournment.

I think that will stick with people for a while.

And, you know, a lot of a lot of folks have said like, you know, it's been there's 28 new members in the House.

It's that's that's what caused this breakdown.

But really, at the end of the day, it was a lawmaker entering her fourth term who was who who ground things to a halt in the house.

And I also think, you know, Hall, think he will work on on a road funding deal with Whitmer next year.

I think the question is what will be the price?

Because he is not going to do it for free and he's going to drive a hard bargain.

And I don't know how Joe Tate missed the queue on care.

She she has been controversial before.

So somebody somebody this is a.

Representative that went to Washington, D.C. and sat at the tabl with Donald Trump.

Donald Trump.

That's right.

That's right.

So somebody she's building her ea to see where she was on all of.

This, the Joe Manchin or Kristen Sinema of Lansing.

Yeah.

I mean I don't think any of us, though, even knowing all of that, had, you know, her basically hiding away in the incoming Republican speaker of the House office during a call of the House on our bingo card in 2024.

Let's talk a bit about the progressives who came in the group.

What was a 23 of them new what new lawmakers in the Michigan House Billy years ag when a freshman class came in.

What were they told by the elder states- persons in the house.

Keep your ... on the leather.

And keep your mouth shut.

Keep your mouth shut.

Now, how come the culture.

Ballenger this is PBS.

We can edit that out.

The word was sit in your seat.

Open your ears, keep your mouth closed and speaker and spoken to and you know now the culture changed.

Why?

Because, I mean, things are changing.

I was just talking about this last night.

I think what we are seein in Lansing to some respect, is is what we are also seeing like just throughout the country in workplaces, like there's just different vibes right now about the expectation of what you sort of want to commit to and work what you want to b a part of rules being meant to sort of be broken, institutions crumbling a little bit.

One thing to note too, that I think was really interesting analysis that I heard is think about also Joe Tate as leader who comes from a military background and a football background both of which are sort of these top down you know, do as I say, for U.S. players, players, but also you sort of take orders, right, Like there's a coach or, you know, someone above you who says this is what we're going to do.

And and many members, Democratic freshmen did not like that and really, in the en sort of rebelled against that.

These progressives kind of represented the elitist mentality that has taken over the Democratic Party at th federal and at the state level.

The Democrats have made a Faustian bargain.

They have stolen a core of Republican traditional support, the country club Republicans and bette educated, higher income people.

But it was a bad trading culture.

Republicans have gotten all the white, lower income, lower educated, working clas that the Democrats depended on for seven decades.

And that is a bad deal.

Only one third of the America public has a college education.

I actually think two in the House, at least.

Like I mean, this is going to be dissected, right, for many months afterwards.

But but looking at it, I think there was a bit of impatient impatience with those new members and especially as they had to run agai on a record that wasn't there.

So, you know, there were months last year where they didn't vote.

Then they lost two members and there were months where they were at a stalemate in the house.

Then they had months off to they wanted they campaigned on more progressive policies that they felt they were put in Lansing to accomplish.

And they weren't able to do it because there wasn't a session held.

And then when finally they had their chance in lame duck to push it all through, there wasn't the consensus there that needed to be because no work had been done beforehand.

Again, November.

Fifth changed everything.

If the Democrats would retain control of the House, you wouldn't have see what happened in the last week of this year in the lame duck session.

You wouldn't have seen it with the changed everything.

I'm sorry, but we're starting to see in politics what we've seen, particularly in southeast Michigan area in business, and I call it the Dan Gilbert factor.

You remember the old Detroit Renaissance.

Everybody would come in to a room and they would have all these millionaires sitting around trying to decide what they're going to do.

And they were taking the cue from either Joe Hudson or Max Fisher.

And then you had these young Dan Gilbert came in and said, you know what, We're going to change the dynamics and how we're going to d business in southeast Michigan and we're just going to get i done and forget all these multi meeting and everything else take charge.

And I think that's what we're starting to see is this impatience that you talked about.

The car drove 70 miles up to Lansing and put his nose into the legislative process.

And without Dan Gilbert, there's no no fault change.

That's right.

Is that a fair statement?

I also think that that's an area of budding frustration with these progressive Democrats.

Right.

The Dan Gilbert effect, the idea that corporations have a lot of sway within Lansing are getting a lot of money through incentive programs.

And that really ground on them.

And I think they they found some common ground with some Republicans on that as well.

This idea that get these corporations out of Lansing, get them out of our pockets at the end of the day.

Well, for some Really interesting bedfellows.

Well, economic development o Anit-economical development, the Progressive absconded with the old Republican line and, you know, picking winners and losers and, you know, a corporate well, they were for the business community years ago.

What happened there?

Oh, you're talking about Democrats or Republicans?

Well, I mean, the Republicans are really the party of small business more than anything now.

And they don't like corporate welfare.

They don't like winners and losers picking up.

They don't.

And they find common cause now with a lot of Democrat.

So the US Senate race.

Yeah.

Elissa Slotkin showed that it can be done.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean there were there were, there was I mean a number I think so this is a very bi and there are a number of bright little little bright spot for Democrats in election 2024.

Elissa Slotkin was one of them continuing Michigan's sort of streak of nearly 25 years of only sending Democrats to the upper chamber in DC.

And then we saw Stat Senator Kristen McDonald Rivet winning really what becam sort of Trump County taking over for outgoing Democratic Congressman Dan Kildee.

So but to Chuck's point and what we were talking about earlier, both of these candidates talke a lot about the economy, right.

Particularly Kristen McDonald Rivet.

I talked to her right after the election and they said, how did you do it?

Right?

And she said, because I talked about prices of things.

All politics is local.

Yeah.

And Elissa Slotkin I mean, I think part of it was just you look at the number of folks, Republican or maybe not even Republicans, just low propensity voter as we talked about who came in, simply voted for Donald Trump and then left the rest of the ballot empty, Didn't vote for Mike Rogers.

Right.

Point to that, muc to the chagrin of Mike Rogers.

Yes.

There were no coattails.

There was not a Trump coattail when it came to this US Senate race.

And we know how little.

I mean, look, she only won b 18,000 votes, for God's sakes.

Only need one.

I know.

What.

I'm saying.

You're sounding like it was a landslide.

I mean, she barely.

You know, just.

Deployed everything else i front.

Of me.

Let me say this.

It was certainly it was not a landslide.

But when you consider that Donald Trump that it's two statewide races.

Right.

And Donald Trump wins and she wins, That's what I'm saying is telling.

And someone said to me, if Election Day had been like two more weeks away, then Rogers might have caught her.

One of the things that I thought he did that was smart, but he did it so late in the game was the ad with his wife.

It humanized him in a way that had not been done throughout the campaign.

But what took them so long to bring her on?

Because I thought she was really good on camera and effective.

Slotkin was smart.

She ran a smart race.

She got out before everybody.

She got out early.

She raised the money.

She was not seen as this quote unquote, liberal Democrat.

And th ad that she did about her mother resonated with people in th health care system, especially now when we look at the feelings that are coming out and people here for.

Obamacare.

Here in America.

Another win for Democrats is picking up a seat on the Supreme Court.

Yeah, that's a big deal.

Yeah, they got a 5-2 edge.

Yes, but let's not look past the seventh Congressional District.

Tom Barrett flipped wha had been a Democratic seat in.

Right.

Right.

And guess what?

The Republicans have a thre seat margin in Washington, D.C. That seat is one of the three.

They constitutes their margin.

McDonald Rivett, Yes, she won, but that's a marginally Democratic district.

I know what I live in.

It's trending Republican, but it's not there yet.

And give Pete Hoekstra credit for whipping the Michigan Republican Party back into one party.

In a relatively incredibly short period of time.

And then he said All right, I'm going to Canada.

Yeah, let.

You tell me how it works.

Somebody get me Blanchard on the phone.

I told him, It's a great job.

You get free hockey tickets.

No, you don't.

You do not.

What kind of year did the governor have?

The book?

Oh, this was.

I mean, I would look for.

Let's take out lame duck.

I don't think you can.

Oh, well, okay let's do pre and post election.

How about that?

As you know, chair of the Biden and then Harris campaign co-chair, obviously incredible disappointment.

At the national convention.

But so what I'm say is like pre-election, right.

I mean, I don't think this governor has ever seen a year like this before.

So she just happens to have this book come out one month before the Democratic National Convention.

After Biden jumps out of the race.

I mean, it was.

She was actually accused of timing it.

And she said, well.

It came out it came out after the disastrous debate.

Yeah, right, right.

Before he had dropped out.

And so, you know, meanwhile, whil everyone is reviewing the book and I mean, like New York Times Atlantic, I mean, we're talking.

Big piece number four on the Amazon list.

Right?

So then Biden drops out and I mean, all the political oxygen suddenly i who's going to be the VP veep.

Right?

He had a great year right up until Biden dropped out of the race.

And then she began a long, slow descent.

Oh, ending and pretty much.

Getting a prime time slot at the DNC the night the third the last night right before Kamala Harris.

What did she do with it?

Well, this is it is wha does she get to do with it now?

Referee, I'm.

Not going to dive.

I'm going to say I think Gretchen Whitmer as a politician, had a great year.

I think Gretchen Whitmer as a governor was missing for a quarter of the year.

Well, she and I think objects to AWOL thing.

Okay.

You look at governors can wal and chew gum at the same time.

I remember Bill Milliken got criticism for going over to the Holland Tulip Festival right in the middle of a critical legislative session.

And he simply pointed out, h said, Skubick I do have a phone.

Okay.

I do have a phone.

I can communicate.

Yeah, but Tim, if you were talking to some of these Democrats in the midst of this lame duck session or even in the months leading up to it, there is frustration wit the fact that she wasn't there while these these debates were going on.

Would it have helped?

I don't know.

Things things seem to be on a trajectory that nobody could have derailed.

But I will say, like there was frustration in I mean, you've been on the floor when there are tough votes being had or in lame ducks, when when things are hitting the fan and you see the governors.

I mean, for me, my only experience is Snyder at the end of his term.

But you saw him coming on to the floor during lame duck several times to to tal to the caucus, to rally things.

It doesn't mean they always agreed with him.

They sent him a lot of bills that he vetoed.

But he was there.

And I talked to one freshman lawmaker and I was talking about that.

And he said I didn't even know the governors could come on the floor because he had never see the governor come on the floor.

So it is a free country.

You know.

It is.

It is.

So I I think it is true.

Right.

She can she can work from anywhere.

She can take calls from anywhere.

I get that.

We're we'r in a very modern time right now.

But I think there was frustration that she wasn't there in person when the legislature was struck.

And I just said to Beth point, I just I want to thank you for that.

Beautifully.

Right.

As a politician versus a governor.

And so what I'll sort of add to that, which is as sort of a national and then a statewide figure, the national figure was o Colbert was on The Daily Show.

Watch what happens live.

I mean, this one thing was on Late Night was profiled.

Right.

And that' where sort of the conversation the zietgeist Whitmer is sort of brand ambassador for the Democratic Party is but that's a very different world than the one that the Lansing press corp that lawmakers at state senators and, you know, lawmakers who wanted the governor to step up and maybe try to help and create some order were and those two worlds don't always talk together.

I was talkin to a national political reporter who was like, well, what's what's the vibe about Whitmer in the state?

I'm like, It's very different tha what is at the national level, at least right now during lame duck.

If you took all the previous modern day governors and put them all together on their national exposure that they got, there' one person who emerges and beats all of them, and that is Gretchen Whitmer.

You have never seen a michigan governor so much in the national spotlight.

Yeah, absolutely right.

And I think both Beth and Zoe have summed it up really well in terms of the sort of split in personalities and that we saw with Gretchen Whitmer on a national level in terms of her own personal persona.

She had a great year.

You can't go anywhere in America and say Big Gretc and people not know who the heck you're talking about.

But when it comes to when it came down to the day it was legislate one.

But when you talk abou running the state the day to day success in terms of a legislative, there are some miscues happening.

It is hard to do both at the same time.

January three, the data of the program with the governor will be on To answer your question, I won't.

See ya next week.

I got to get out of here.

Yeah, okay.

Everybod do well.

Okay.

Catch you later.

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Learn more at Bellwetherpr.com For more off the record visit WKAR.org Michigan public television stations have contributed to the production costs of off the record.