Source: Politics<\/p>\n
If you\u2019d sat in the Wyoming statehouse as Gov. Mark Gordon issued his State of the State address last week, it may have seemed as if the end times were near.<\/p>\n
Not only had the \u201cmisguided\u201d energy policies of the Biden administration \u201ccost our nation dearly these past two years,\u201d the Republican governor said<\/a>, but \u201cthis winter, there are families in America \u2013 the richest and most advanced country in the world \u2013 living under a very real threat of freezing in the dark.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cLeaner times appear likely,\u201d he said. \u201cEconomic uncertainties,\u201d he added, \u201cmay conspire against us.\u201d But Gordon did have one exception to the Armageddon he was describing: He and his state were doing a bang-up job.<\/p>\n \u201cThe state of Wyoming,\u201d Gordon said, \u201cis strong, and her future is bright.\u201d<\/p>\n Across the nation in this season of inaugural and State of the State addresses, the sense of looming catastrophe is seemingly everywhere. In New Jersey, Gov. Phil Murphy, a Democrat and chair of the National Governors Association, suggested the \u201cnotion of the American dream is harder to achieve for too many people<\/a>.\u201d In Idaho, Republican Gov. Brad Little pointed to \u201cflashing red lights in the economy<\/a>\u201d and accused Washington, D.C. of \u201cdriving America towards an economic cliff.\u201d And in South Dakota, Republican Gov. Kristi Noem saw misery coming both from Washington, where \u201cour Constitutional freedoms are under assault<\/a>,\u201d and in grocery stores she said she\u2019s visited in recent months, where she said about a quarter of the shoppers she\u2019s seen in line have had to put something back because they couldn\u2019t pay for it.<\/p>\n The remarks may reflect both the Republican instinct to play up down times with a Democrat in the White House and the Democratic instinct not to boast too hard under the same circumstances. But they also come at a time when inflation has begun to recede nationally, the job market remains robust and unemployment is at a 50-year low<\/a>. Like the seasoned pols they are, the governors made a point of offering some self-aggrandizing carve outs to their forecasts of doom.<\/p>\n Specifically, they \u2014 and their state alone \u2014 are doing it right.<\/p>\n \u201cIn a world increasingly marked by chaos, Iowa\u2019s strength and stability stand out,\u201d said Kim Reynolds, the Republican governor of Iowa.<\/p>\n Or perhaps the stand-out state is New Jersey, which Murphy said is \u201cnot just a model for our nation, but is leading our nation.\u201d Or it\u2019s Ohio, which Republican Gov. Mike DeWine maintained is having a \u201cmoment<\/a>.\u201d In California, Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, channeled Mark Twain: California \u201clights out the territory for the rest<\/a>,\u201d the governor said, \u201cmolding the character of the nation.\u201d<\/p>\n Such swagger from ambitious heads of state is nothing new. But for years, the contrasts that governors drew with one another were largely on economic lines: boasts about job creation, unemployment rates, or businesses that they were able to lure to their state.<\/p>\n The response to the coronavirus pandemic, the overturning of Roe v. Wade, and the ascendance of cultural wars in the Donald Trump era, has added another dimension, highlighting the power of governors and their divergent ideologies. The inaugural or state of the state address is now, more than anything, a place to shadowbox.<\/p>\n In her State of the State address last week, Noem, a potential presidential or vice presidential contender<\/a>, held South Dakota out as \u201cthe freest state in the nation,\u201d while New Hampshire Republican Gov. Chris Sununu, in his fourth inaugural address<\/a>, asserted that his state during his tenure had \u201cbecome an island of freedom surrounded by, frankly, highly taxed and highly regulated states.\u201d<\/p>\n Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination, cast his state as the place \u201cwhere woke goes to die<\/a>,\u201d to which Murphy, in his State of the State address, responded, \u201cI\u2019m not even sure I know what that means<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s not just the nation\u2019s highest-profile chief executives getting in on the crowing, either. It may be news to most, but Jim Justice, the Republican governor of West Virginia, is aware of \u201cjealousy\u201d about his state, \u201cbecause now, all of a sudden, we\u2019re the diamond in the rough that they missed.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re in a never-before-seen era of contrast between red and blue states,\u201d said Rob Stutzman, a Republican strategist. \u201cWhat state you live in has become a subtext for what your politics must be, and I don\u2019t think that was ever really true until the last six years or so.\u201d<\/p>\n Covid, he said, \u201chas thrown an accelerant on the way governors have presented their states. It became more a point of contrast \u2013 open or closed, mandate or no mandate, pro-vaccine or vaccine skeptic. There were very few governors who played it down the middle.\u201d<\/p>\n The governors\u2019 addresses have not been without some introspection about what could improve within their geographic boundaries. In Indiana, Gov. Eric Holcomb, a Republican, pointed last week to the relatively high rates of smoking and obesity in his state, where \u201cour life expectancy in Indiana has declined in recent years<\/a>.\u201d In Arizona, Katie Hobbs, the newly-elected Democratic governor, warned of \u201cpotential catastrophe that will happen in just a few months<\/a>\u201d if lawmakers do not address an education funding cap, while noting the state is facing a \u201cdrought unlike anything in modern times.\u201d<\/p>\n In New York, Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul, after a closer-than-expected election, warned that inflation was harming Empire Staters. \u201cAnd on top of that,\u201d she added, \u201chow do you pay the monthly rent, or the mortgage? It\u2019s just so overwhelming for our families.\u201d<\/p>\n That reality-telling may be a reflection of what audiences expect to hear in a year where some two-thirds of Americans say things in the country generally are off on the wrong track<\/a> and economists think a recession is likely<\/a>. But it is also the rhetorical prerequisite to what each governor really wants to say.<\/p>\n \u201cYou have to show people that you live in a reality-based world, or anything else you say isn\u2019t going to be taken seriously,\u201d said Julie Roginsky, a Democratic strategist and former top adviser to Murphy. \u201cThen you can position yourself as the messiah who\u2019s going to fix it.\u201d<\/p>\n And the head of state speech is where that positioning gets done.<\/p>\n “What we\u2019re doing in South Dakota is reverberating across this country and around the world,\u201d said Noem.<\/p>\n \u201cOhio is truly the state of opportunity in this whole country,\u201d said DeWine.<\/p>\n \u201cI believe we are the greatest state in this nation,\u201d said Hobbs.<\/p>\n \u201cOur state\u2019s success has been nothing short of extraordinary,\u201d said Little.<\/p>\n In some states, exceptionalism may simply be preordained.<\/p>\n In Washington, Gov. Jay Inslee said, \u201cambition and audacity are both embedded in our state\u2019s DNA.\u201d<\/p>\n Or as Newsom put it, \u201cIt\u2019s in our genes.\u201d<\/p>\n Mathew Littman, a Democratic consultant and former Joe Biden speechwriter, said \u201cthis is a relatively new thing, this battle between states.\u201d And it ignores the reality that many trendlines in America \u2014 how the economy is doing, or crime \u2014 are subject to national forces and broadly shared by states. In the end, Littman doubted how much most people care.<\/p>\n \u201cIt doesn\u2019t really affect anybody\u2019s day-to-day life,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n