After scrambling for six-and-a-half years, the Current cable channel is finally getting some attention.
That started last June when Keith Olbermann moved his talk show there; now Jennifer Granholm -- who had two terms as Michigan's governor -- gets the spot after him, beginning Monday (Jan. 30). Here's the story I sent to papers:
By MIKE HUGHES
Jennifer Granholm couldn't be blamed
for fidgeting, a few hours before the State of the Union address.
“I wish I was on the air now,” she
said.
She just missed that. “The War Room
With Jennifer Granholm” starts Monday (Jan. 30), a key step in the
makeover of the Current TV cable channel.
“When we launched 'Countdown with
Keith Olberman,' we saw the opportunity to really speak in a
politically direct manner,” said Al Gore, the channel's co-founder.
So now he has the full line-up – Cenk
Uygur at 7 p.m. ET, Olbermann at 8, Granholm, Michigan's former
two-term governor, at 9, with all three then repeating. Its debut
comes as the election year heats up; still, Granholm would have liked
to be on the air six days earlier, for the State of the Union.
For one thing, she knew President Obama
would point to Bryan Ritterby, a laid-off factory worker who landed a
new job (working on wind-turbine parts) after re-training at Grand
Rapids (Mich.) Community College. “That was our program, part of
'No Worker Left Behind,'” Granholm said.
For another, there's the comparison to
her own State of the State address in 2006. Like Obama this year, she
was up for re-election; both:
– Had low approval ratings. His was
46 percent, hers was 40.
– Faced competition from a wealthy
businessman – Mitt Romney and Dick DeVoss.
– Were stymied by a stagnant economy.
“We had a higher unemployment rate,” Granholm said.
The result? She drew 56 per cent of the
votes. “There are such enormous parallels,” she said, a fact that
she mentioned to Obama and his people. “I was saying they should
get a copy of my book.”
Or they could watch her show. “We're
going to do a studio that is a mock-up of a campaign-office war room,
without the pizza boxes,” Granholm said.
The first half or so of each hour will
deal with politics and elections; the rest with policy. Granholm sees
Michigan – wracked first by the recession – as key; “we're like
a lab for the rest of the country.”
Current started six years ago, as a
patchwork of pieces from viewers. It drew praise and awards for its
Vanguard documentary unit, but was unnoticed by most viewers,
including Granholm.
Then Olbermann moved there from MSNBC
last June. “I thought, 'That's an interesting thing? Why Current?
What's going on there?'” Granholm recalls.
Gore phoned, suggesting she do a show
to follow Olbermann. “That was completely out of the blue.”
Granholm and her husband, Dan Mulhern,
had already settled into the faculty at the University of California,
Berkeley. “He was very positive that I should take this,” she
said. “He said, 'Those are the shows you watch anyway. You're
always hogging the TV.'”
So “War Room” was set up, with a
studio in San Francisco. Contributors will include Gavin Newsom, Van
Jones, Laura Tyson, Maria Echeveste and Celinda Lake.
Those names are familiar on the left;
Current doesn't hide its leanings. “When Keith (Olbermann) turned
'Countdown' into a progressive show, there was a great thirst in the
country,” Uygur said.
This brings Granholm full-circle, back
into show business. Born in Canada and raised in the San Francisco
area, she moved to Los Angeles at 19 to be an actress; the closest
she came was being a Universal Studios tour guide, warning tram
riders of pseudo-dangers; “it was 'Jaws' back then.”
Then she took an alternate route –
Berkeley (majoring in French and political science) … Harvard Law
School (where she met Mulhern) … moving to his home state, where
she eventually became Michigan's attorney general and then its
governor.
Now, 33 years later, she's back in show
business – warning about political sharks instead of “Jaws.”
– “War Room With Jennifer
Granholm,” begins Monday (Jan. 30)
– 9 p.m. ET weekdays at Current TV,
rerunning at midnight
– Other reruns during the day; on
Jan. 31 and Feb. 2, those will be at 5 a.m., 8 a.m., 1 p.m. and 4
p.m.
– Guests on the opener will be Robert
Gibbs, former presidential press secretary, now an advisor to the
Obama campaign, and Elizabeth Warren (D, Mass.), a U.S. Senate
candidate and former chairman of the congressional committee on the
Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP).