Snyder holds big lead in 'disappointing leaders' poll Paul Egan, Detroit Free
Press Lansing Bureau LANSING 'Gov. Rick Snyder held a big lead Thursday on
Day 2'of an unscientific Fortune magazine online poll of the "world's most
disappointing leaders. As of about 9:30 a.m., Michigan's governor had received
about 3,100 votes, which was more than six times the number of votes received
by the candidate in second place,'former Turing Pharmaceuticals CEO Martin
Shkreli, villainized for proudly making'huge mark-ups and profit margins on
life-saving pharmaceuticals. He had 471 votes. New'Jersey Gov. Chris Christie,
who made the list for his about-face endorsement of Republican presidential
candidate and reality TV star Donald Trump, was third with about 376'votes,
followed by Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, recognized for his inept response to
the fatal shooting of a black teenager by a white police officer. He had
288'votes.
Snyder made the Fortune list for his handling of the Flint drinking water
crisis. The magazine tagged him with the "Don't blame me, I'm just the Governor
award" for his March 17 testimony before a congressional committee in which he
heaped scorn on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, as well as career
bureaucrats in the state civil service. "Good fortune can quickly turn sour
after one bad decision, and repeatedly making poor decisions can only make
matters worse," the magazine said in in inviting readers to vote for one of 19
candidates. "These once-respected leaders have fallen on hard times after
making a few ill-fated moves. Others on the list include'Brazil President Dilma
Rousseff, who faces impeachment for allegedly cooking the government's
books; Sepp Blatter, the former chief of the corruption-plagued world soccer
governing body FIFA,'and former Volkswagen chairman Martin Winterkorn, named
for his role in an emissions test cheating scandal. It wasn't clear when
Fortune intended to close voting and crown the most disappointing leader. Snyder
spokesman Ari Adler said, "Gov. Snyder is focused on fixing problems, not
Internet polls," adding'"it is unfortunate that a major news publication would
ask its readers to vote on something like this and then give them incorrect
information on which to base their vote. He said Snyder "is the only leader
at all levels of government involved in the Flint water crisis who has been
willing to stand up and apologize, take responsibility for what happened on
his watch, and tackle the problems head on to fix what happened in Flint and
fix the system that caused it to happen. Snyder has rejected repeated calls
to resign over the lead contamination of Flint's drinking water, which a task
force he appointed said was primarily caused by mistakes in the Michigan
Department of Environmental Quality. Snyder says he wants to stay on to fix the
health, infrastructure and other problems in Flint. Contact Paul Egan:
517-372-8660 or pegan@xxxxxxxxxxxxx. Follow him on Twitter @paulegan4.