Jennifer Granholm Quotes

We need, first of all, for there to be accountability, for there to be somebody who is responsible for enforcing standards and holding people's feet to the fire.

- Jennifer Granholm

I am so proud of Michigan's citizens for the kindness and generosity they have shown in assisting in this endeavor. It is truly heartwarming to see the compassion shown for those in need.

- Jennifer Granholm

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.

- Jennifer Granholm

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.

- Jennifer Granholm

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.

- Jennifer Granholm

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.

- Jennifer Granholm

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.

- Jennifer Granholm

A number of us had conversations with the Kerry campaign about what he was going to say about CAFE. What he told us was that he did not want to sacrifice jobs and that he wanted to work with the auto industry to achieve that goal.

- Jennifer Granholm

Mitt Romney privatizes the gains from his enterprises, but spreads the costs to the rest of us. Seems that 'free stuff' is in the eye of the beholder.

- Jennifer Granholm

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.

- Jennifer Granholm

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!

- Jennifer Granholm

If you are going to be progressive, then you have to make progress. And that sometimes depends on breaking a few legs.

- Jennifer Granholm

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.

- Jennifer Granholm

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.

- Jennifer Granholm

The civil unrest of recent days must come to an end, and the healing process must begin for the future of the community. We will provide assistance both in ending the violence and enabling the healing process in Benton Harbor.

- Jennifer Granholm

I think blaming the president for high gas prices is like blaming Rudy Giuliani for 9/11.

- Jennifer Granholm

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.

- Jennifer Granholm

We aren't leveraging this great economic engine, the strongest economy in the world. And yet we have this totally weak response. We import $500 billion a year more in products than we export.

- Jennifer Granholm

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.

- Jennifer Granholm

From a reality perspective, I'm sure part of that is true, but this is the largest blackout in U.S. history. If that is not a signal that we have got a problem that needs to be fixed, I don't know what is.

- Jennifer Granholm

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

- Jennifer Granholm

That's one of the most exciting things about Michigan's future. We need to, we must capitalize on our alternative-energy vehicles that we can produce right here.

- Jennifer Granholm

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.

- Jennifer Granholm

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.

- Jennifer Granholm

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?

- Jennifer Granholm

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.

- Jennifer Granholm

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.

- Jennifer Granholm

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?

- Jennifer Granholm

I was approached by friends who encouraged me to run for an open seat - attorney general of Michigan. It was a big risk.

- Jennifer Granholm

I love the protest signs protected by the First Amendment - some of them humorous, some of them passionate, some factual, some entirely incorrect - all of them free ideas.

- Jennifer Granholm

The problem with the auto industry is layered upon the lack of consumer confidence. People are not buying cars. I don't care whether they're or American cars, or international cars.

- Jennifer Granholm

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.

- Jennifer Granholm

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.

- Jennifer Granholm

Every single country that has an auto industry is stepping forward to help that auto industry. Why wouldn't we help this industry too, because it needs 3.5 million jobs.

- Jennifer Granholm

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.

- Jennifer Granholm

We need to be celebrating those who serve us rather than mocking them for the purpose of getting on TV and selling some books.

- Jennifer Granholm

It's that Romney is taking advantage of the government's 'free stuff,' too, and has been profiting from it handsomely for a long, long time - even as he rails about the 'free stuff' that the government provides other people.

- Jennifer Granholm

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.

- Jennifer Granholm

For most of the 20th century, we didn't just enjoy economic success in Michigan, we defined it. Our innovators and entrepreneurs created the world's most productive companies, and our unions made sure that productivity led to broad middle class prosperity.

- Jennifer Granholm

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.

- Jennifer Granholm

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.

- Jennifer Granholm

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

- Jennifer Granholm

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.

- Jennifer Granholm

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.

- Jennifer Granholm

Sometimes leadership is planting trees under whose shade you'll never sit. It may not happen fully till after I'm gone. But I know that the steps we're taking are the right steps.

- Jennifer Granholm

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

- Jennifer Granholm

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.

- Jennifer Granholm

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.

- Jennifer Granholm

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.

- Jennifer Granholm

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.

- Jennifer Granholm

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!

- Jennifer Granholm

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.

- Jennifer Granholm

So we just hope that all of these governors who are grappling will be able to provide the basic services to our citizens and not have to cut things that really are painful.

- Jennifer Granholm

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.

- Jennifer Granholm

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.

- Jennifer Granholm

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.

- Jennifer Granholm

We need to continue to make the case that Michigan is where you ought to be.

- Jennifer Granholm

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.

- Jennifer Granholm

I really want to be governor when I have a partner in the White House.

- Jennifer Granholm

If you are tired of partisanship over patriotism, you need to vote for a change in direction.

- Jennifer Granholm

I've, we have in this state, like many other states, we're experiencing an enormous budget deficit that we're trying to grapple with. But we will have progress despite the deficits.

- Jennifer Granholm

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.

- Jennifer Granholm

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.

- Jennifer Granholm

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.

- Jennifer Granholm

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.

- Jennifer Granholm

California has a beautiful coastline. It can be a rough coastline. The waves are huge. The rocks are steep. Same thing in Vancouver. It has a beautiful coastline. It's dramatic.

- Jennifer Granholm

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

- Jennifer Granholm

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.

- Jennifer Granholm

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

- Jennifer Granholm

Public service used to be the highest of callings, until people like Madame Voldemort vilified it.

- Jennifer Granholm

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

- Jennifer Granholm

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.

- Jennifer Granholm

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

- Jennifer Granholm

There is no reason why, with the huge potential for market out there in the world for fuel-efficient vehicles, we can't be the cutting edge for change.

- Jennifer Granholm

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

- Jennifer Granholm

As governor, when I visited our troops in Kuwait and Iraq, I served them Thanksgiving dinner. It was a small gesture compared to their sacrifice.

- Jennifer Granholm

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

- Jennifer Granholm

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

- Jennifer Granholm

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

- Jennifer Granholm

Less than a year after loading the company up with debt, Romney and Bain gave themselves bonuses four times bigger than the $8 million they had put into the deal.

- Jennifer Granholm

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

- Jennifer Granholm

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.

- Jennifer Granholm

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

- Jennifer Granholm

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?

- Jennifer Granholm

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

- Jennifer Granholm

Don't mistake niceness for weakness.

- Jennifer Granholm

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

- Jennifer Granholm

There's only so far you can go before you say enough is enough.

- Jennifer Granholm