All week we have been examining the economic strengths and opportunities of what I like to call the “former Rust Belt” region.
While we are well aware of our problems and challenges, there are real opportunities for the Great Lakes region to lead our nation's economic resurgence.
We are uniquely placed to generate the educated talent needed to compete with China and India. Similarly, we are a region that excels in basic and applied research & development. These attributes will establish the energy independence, knowledge services, and life science technologies the United States needs to compete. Just as our Universities created the first Internet and search capability, we are hard at work on Internet2.
But there is another important reason why the nation should pay attention to the Great Lakes region. The battleground states that largely decided the last two Presidential elections were here in the Great Lakes region. We are poised to play a similarly decisive role again in 2008.
In 2000 and 2004, 8 of the 15 states with the narrowest margins of victory were in the Great Lakes region, constituting by far the largest share of electoral votes. These states include Iowa and Wisconsin where victory margins were less than 1 percent, and big electoral vote states like Ohio and Pennsylvania, that were decided by less than 2 percent of votes cast.
Now is the perfect time for leaders within the region to articulate a focused and effective agenda around what matters tangibly for Great Lakes states economic vitality. We are in a position to make sure real ideas, not just rhetoric, inform this wide-open Presidential contest, and the agenda of the next Administration.
For what some of these ideas might be check the
Brookings Institution report: The Vital Center, A Federal- State Compact to Renew the Great Lakes Region.