Jennifer Granholm Quotes

We are taking the steps necessary to be ready to send whatever assistance is requested of us, and we are preparing to receive citizens who seek refuge in our state.

As a state we are so uniquely positioned in so many ways. Our geography, our placement in the country, and our history positions us to be the state that propels energy efficiency as an industry.

There is a gentleness in Michigan that you just can't replicate.

Republicans are definitely pro-birth - they'll do everything they can to make sure that that baby comes out, regardless of how it got in, but are they pro-life? Can you be pro-life and vote to cut funding that supports the life of a child?

Bain also asked Kansas City for a $3 million tax break. The Bain executives were taking home $36 million in borrowed funds and were asking Kansas City to forfeit $3 million in public money for police officers, roads and schools? More free stuff!

In Congress, while the House's proposed defense budget calls for significant increases, it also cuts 11 billion dollars from veterans spending - including healthcare and disability pay. Be clear: we can't equate spending on veterans with spending on defense.

When you get to the extremes there is, sometimes, just the need where you have to stand up.

This is the place where anybody - like an African American kid raised by a single mom - can be president.

With respect to the environment in our state and our state's future - in addition to water which is very important here - I think it is crucial for him to make a sincere commitment to energy efficiency, fuel efficiency, by helping us to produce those cars of the future.

I certainly never thought I would run for office myself. If someone had suggested it, I would have laughed out loud.

California is beautiful to look at, but you can't be a part of it like you can in Michigan.

Obviously we want to keep the jobs we've got.

Every day in America, African Americans are reminded of their race in ways large and small. Every day.

If you don't have an auto industry, you will not be secure as a nation because you won't have a backbone like manufacturing to be able to put people to work in producing the means to you keep you secure.

Men and women have served and died to protect American democracy, but their sacrifice will be for naught if that democracy dies from the poison the Supreme Court has injected into our political organs.

The whole purpose was to say that it doesn't have to be a zero sum. It's not the environment or jobs. You can have both. You can help the auto industry achieve that if you have investment in plants.

We went to a small lake, Bass Lake. It was beautiful. It was perfectly still when we got there in the morning. The fog was lifting off the water. It was just magical. And we did catch some fish, 13 fish.

Now, we love our auto industry. But if we had worked harder on diversifying this economy long ago, then if one of the legs of the stool starts to get wobbly, at least you've got three other legs to stand on.

Our great history has been that people came to Michigan because you didn't have to have a college degree to get a good-paying job. Consequently, we have got a larger number of our population that right now are facing outsourcing, et cetera, without higher or advanced degrees.

I understand that Republicans-running-against-Obamacare-in-order-to-save-Medicare is a clever jujitsu. But how long will they play out that argument before they get back to the economy?

Well, clearly, for me in the immediate future, it is grappling, like so many other governors are grappling, with the economic woes of these states. We were all hoping to see some federal relief.

We have gasoline at $2 a gallon. If that doesn't drive demand, I don't know what will.

Do we want in this nation to lose the backbone of manufacturing in this country? Do we want to be a nation that doesn't want to manufacture anything?

The question is what will Mitt Romney do as president if his policy is simply to be hands off and let the government be made so small it can be drowned in a bathtub. In the 21st century global economy, no state alone has the ability to compete against China.

America is an idea. And it's the solemn responsibility of each 'temporary' president to protect and nurture that noblest of all ideas - with integrity. This man, Mitt Romney, has shown - not through his experience, but through his actions and words - that he is unqualified to carry out that responsibility.

America needs to be able to be energy-independent, and the electric vehicle, the battery technology is one way of getting there.

Our economic competitors ... are eating us for lunch, and we can get in the game or not. We can be at the table, or we can be on the table.

Rush Limbaugh, we expect nonsense from him. But the Vatican, that's another story. When the Vatican is so threatened that it launches attacks on nuns, well, you know what they say in politics, a hit dog hollers.

Thank you for the opportunity for the Democratic Party and progressives to reclaim the votes of the sane citizens of these United States.

I'm honestly perplexed about the distinction represented by the cervical wall. On one side, people should be prosecuted if they do anything to harm the fetus, but once on the outside, sorry kid, whatever happens happens. You're on your own.

How fantastic that the American ingenuity of NASA scientists got us to Mars. It makes me proud to be an American. I can't get enough of these images from when the probe touched down. These scientists are American heroes.

Team Obama continues to dominate new media, spending far more effort and money than Team Romney in targeted online youth outreach.

As the Republicans run to the crazy Tea Party right, they leave behind the huge mass of genuinely moderate and independent Americans that make up the majority of voters. The ones that used to consider themselves now-extinct moderate Republicans. They're up for grabs. And the Democrats have to grab them!

Bill Ford is somebody who wants to move American auto industry, to lead the nation in making us independent of foreign oil, of making the green vehicle.

To compete in a global economy, our students must continue their education beyond high school. To make this expectation a reality, we must give students the tools they need to succeed, including the opportunity to take a college entrance exam.

I have a problem with Mitt Romney. And it's big problem - one that extends beyond our ideological differences. My big concern is that Mitt Romney wants to become president for no other reason than because there's a possibility he can win.

Caring for veterans shouldn't be a partisan issue. It should an American one.

If you opened up every single potential drilling opportunity in the United States, it would have the effect of lowering gas prices three cents, maybe. And that's because, of course, oil is traded on a global market.

Voter suppression laws, overzealous filibuster use, you name it - the Republicans use every tactic they can to stop our democracy from actually selecting the person with the most support.

The most powerful recent innovation in government is when states aggressively use community colleges for retraining. In Michigan, where large numbers of workers were displaced from the manufacturing industry, we created a wildly successful program: No Worker Left Behind.

I have not made any suggestions about climate change. This is more about blending or shifting the conversation about the environment versus the economy. It's just such an old, outdated conversation.

I say Democrats should not be afraid to talk about the morality of life, of caring for children who are born. It seems the Republican obsession with being pro-life lasts about nine months. After that, it's each baby for herself.

We can't equate spending on veterans with spending on defense. Our strength is not just in the size of our defense budget, but in the size of our hearts, in the size of our gratitude for their sacrifice. And that's not just measured in words or gestures.

The Kerry campaign was a difficult one to be involved with, it is a real juggling act to set the tone and pace of these things accurately.

Republicans know that government spending creates jobs. They just want that spending to be funneled to their projects and districts ... and they certainly don't want to say it out loud.

Concentrating wealth in the hands of the few and deregulating financial institutions and practices lead to speculative bubbles that eventually burst - and that brings the whole country down.

What a tremendous act of generosity on the part of the donors who made this possible and what a tremendous opportunity for all these children in Kalamazoo public schools who can now go to college and chase their dreams.

Studies have shown that since women have had access to the pill and family planning measures, they have made huge gains in both wages and in careers that were dominated by men.

It may be tempting to look back and wring our hands over missed opportunities for change in the preceding decades. But, I'm not interested at looking in the rearview mirror except to learn.

I urge you to be bold. Life isn't changed from the balcony. Get onto the floor and dance, dance, dance.

If the person at the wheel refuses to ask for directions, it is time for a new driver.

We're on the cusp, on the brink, of enormous change in this country.

With Michigan's economic future on the line, we can't afford to have our 500 local school districts marching in different directions. Instead, we need a high standards, mandatory curriculum to get all our students on the road to higher education and a good paying job.

Often we women are risk averse. I needed the push. Now, more than ever, young women need more seasoned women to provide that encouragement, to take a risk, to go for it. Once a glass ceiling is broken, it stays broken.

Ceremonies are important. But our gratitude has to be more than visits to the troops, and once-a-year Memorial Day ceremonies. We honor the dead best by treating the living well.

When someone lives as a minority, they experience the world differently than those of us who live in the majority. We may occupy the same physical space, but we don't occupy the same psychic space.

Today in America we are no more 'post-racial' than we are 'post-partisan.' We have a long way to go.

We've got this proposal which has been languishing in the legislature, the Water Legacy Act, which is derived from a Republican task force on protecting the Great Lakes. Yet nothing has been done on it.

Whether it's their Sharia law and birther conspiracies or their unwillingness to buck Grover Norquist's no-tax pledge, the Tea Partiers have hijacked their party and carried it all the way to the right.

I actually prepared Vice President Biden for his debate in the last election. I played Sarah Palin. It's a little tough debating a woman.

When I was fresh out of law school, I had a burning desire to do something important, to have an impact in some way, but I didn't know what it was.

Those who devote their lives to serving our country, children, and neighborhoods are giving back. They have answered the call to serve.

There's more technology in your car than there is in your computer. It's got thousands of parts in it. It's extremely sophisticated, all that robotics.

Many original occupiers believe the political system has become so corrupt that even participating in it, engaging with it, corrupts the movement. I understand what they are saying. But often, change does come more quickly from the inside rather than the outside. My advice: try both. But don't try violence.

Those who purify your water, inspect your meat, and test your kids' toys, as well as a huge number of nurses, teachers, and our soldiers, are public employees. The firefighters who don't hesitate to rush toward danger while you run away from it - they are all public employees.

The Clinton administration brought 65 cases from 1995 to 2000 before the World Trade Organization. The Bush administration has brought twelve. Twelve cases. They haven't even been able to stand up for our jobs.