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The Milliken Wit

Too often in today’s politics we hear insults and harsh words – the kind that make comity difficult. A Republican executive with a Democrat-controlled Michigan Legislature, Bill Milliken took a different approach and found results.

One observation about the political game in Lansing, Mich., is that the use of humor and the ability to make somebody laugh is not only often overlooked but too often underused as one element of getting stuff done.

A well-placed one-liner during a contentious debate can sometimes be the magic sauce that eventually leads to cooperation. Plus, laughter kicks up the oxygen level in the blood which helps the brain to focus more on the task at hand. God knows getting blood into the brains of politicians is a laudable objective and one way to get the people’s business done.

Hence, two visits here from back in the day on the humor front involving a former Michigan governor and former speaker of the state house.

Former Gov. William G. Milliken – AKA King William the Ethical, despite his often low-keyed demeanor – had a finely tuned sense of humor that would catch you by surprise.

During one news conference, a proposal to create a unicameral legislature in Michigan was making the rounds as it did from time to time and never getting anywhere. Milliken, who had roots in the legislative process and now as chief executive, was often frustrated by the lack of cooperation from his former colleagues, was asked to weigh in on the one-house concept.

With a dead-panned look and without missing a beat, he told the reporters, “Sometimes I think the suggestion goes only half as far as it should.”

In the throes of a dignified news conference, the media is trained to remain unemotional, but even the crusty old grey hairs in the press corps laughed out loud. Milliken apparently suggesting a dictatorship has some appeal.

The same Gov. Milliken years later was in no joking mood as a human health threat known as the PBB crisis engulfed the state. He and his administration were in unchartered waters, and no governor wants to be the captain of that ship where there is no playbook on what to do other than to wing it.

Farm animals all over the state were dying or giving birth to deformed offspring, all the result of the accidental mixing of a fire retardant (PBB) into what the farmers thought was cattle feed.

It was all-hands-on-deck for the beleaguered governor who confronted something even worse. Michigan residents had consumed some of the cattle meat and some were getting sick, too. (Eventually 90% of the state’s population was contaminated at some level.)

One strategy the governor wanted was to lower the permitted PBB blood level standards to make it easier to keep the fouled food off the grocery shelf.

But one agency stood in the way of that remedy. The state Agricultural Commission and its hire, department Director B. Dale Ball, steadfastly refused to budge on the governor’s request. Milliken and others thought that Ball was fronting for the farmers to avert more financial loses if the lower standards were imposed.

Milliken had been jaw-boning Ball to budge, but to no avail.

So, it was a despondent Milliken who walked out of his office on the second floor of the Capitol with a certain news correspondent with TV camera crew at the ready to pitch him this question.

“Governor: Do you support Mr. Ball 100 percent?” was the loaded inquiry to the governor as he scampered toward the stairway headed to his black Lincoln car in the Capitol parking lot.

Normally these walk-along and catch him as you can interviews are tricky. Normally, governors – and other politicians – ignore the questions and keep walking to get away from reporters tagging along hoping for a great sound bite.

In this instance however, Milliken stopped dead in his tracks just after the question was asked. It was one of those OMG moments and then this.

He immediately turned to one of his Michigan State Police (MSP) security detail members and handed him his briefcase.

“Roger, take this,” said Milliken, as he handed off the brief case like a quarterback tucking the football into his running back’s tummy.

Now the chief executive of the state of Michigan turns to the reporter and calls him out by name.

“You know some days I would just like to toss you over this railing,” Milliken offered, as the two stood at the top of the Capitol’s second floor stairwell looking deep down into the rotunda abyss.

The correspondent retorted, “Please do, governor. I need a good story.”

Nobody laughed at the moment. But dollars to donuts Roger and the rest of the MSP detail in the Lincoln had a good one moments later with the boss.

The reporter and cameraperson certainly roared with laughter as the exchange led the evening news that night.
B. Dale Ball eventually was not laughing because the resourceful governor found a way to get around the department director, without having to toss him over the railing, at least not physically.

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