Supporters say Gov. Jennifer Granholm will smother a heap of scorching questions relating to Michigan's struggling economy when she delivers her fifth State of the State address in Lansing at 7 p.m.
"The governor will lay out her vision for moving Michigan forward," said Liz Boyd, Granholm's spokeswoman. "The governor has an economic plan, and she will outline the next steps of that economic plan."
Standing alongside a Democratic-controlled Michigan House of Representatives for the first time should make it easier to lead the state out of debt, said Justin Lindsay, president of the MSU College Democrats.
The Democratic governor also will unveil her administration's full budget proposal on Thursday.
"This year is unique from the last four because the state House of Representatives is now controlled by the Democratic Party as opposed to before when she had to do heavy negotiations with the people on the other side of the aisle," Lindsay said. "She'll probably be able to propose more legislation than she would have been able to in the past."
Granholm's job won't be easy — she'll have to find a way to diversify Michigan's manufacturing-based economy to fit with a technology-dominated global economy.
Jeff Wiggins, chairman of the MSU College Republicans, said he's looking forward to seeing how Granholm plans to replace jobs that have been lost since she took office, including the 2,500 jobs that pharmaceutical giant Pfizer Inc. cut a few weeks ago.
"I want to see how she's going to fix the massive job loss in Michigan," Wiggins said. "I want to hear what she thinks we should be doing because of the repeal of the Single Business Tax. I want the plan that she's had the last five years to be put into play.
"I want to see some results."
A large portion of Granholm's speech will be to outline a tax proposal, said Mark Grebner of Practical Political Consulting, 220 Albert Ave.
"She's going to use the speech to hint, suggest, urge that something needs to be done, and the thing that needs to be done is that some tax needs to be increased," he said.
Tonight's address will be the most important one Granholm has given in her tenure as governor, said Bill Ballenger, an American government professor at Central Michigan University and editor and publisher of the Lansing-based newsletter Inside Michigan Politics.
"The state has never recovered from the time she took office," he said. "Things have not turned around under her watch, and she continues to face the same problems every year.
"She's got to make some basic decisions about what she wants to do and then she's got to start selling them to the public."
