Tim Alberta: “To the untrained eye, Gretchen Esther Whitmer might seem like a pushover. With the suburban-mom hairstyle, the high-pitched giggle, the nasally accent straight out of ‘Fargo’ central casting, she looks like the type of person—OK, the type of woman—that Donald Trump would chew up and spit out.”
“But looks can be deceiving, especially when they are strategically deployed to deceive. Reared in the cradle of Michigan’s back-slapping establishment, Whitmer is the quintessential insider, one-part policy aficionado and one-part student of the game. She’s an old-style pol, known as much for impassioned partisan crusades as for her conciliatory three-beer summits. In Lansing, you cannot find anyone, Republican or Democrat, on the record or off, who does not admire the skills of the state’s 49th governor. Moreover, just about everyone likes her. She is genuine, secure, quick to give a hug or share a dirty joke. She is a mom, a sports nut, a lawyer, a politician with a perfect record of winning races and a long history of flustering opponents.”
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