While the governor was rightfully going ga-ga over Google, the usually crisp DeVos campaign blew it with its child-like response. Circle July 11 on your calendar. It perhaps was a turning point in the race for governor.

By now, everybody has heard that Ann Arbor is getting more than 2,000 direct and spin off jobs because the Internet search engine, Google, is setting up shop there.

While most folks covered it as a huge economic story, don't kid yourself, politics was written all over this puppy.

For the first time in a long time, this governor had something to smile about. The Google get was a kick in the pants for her campaign that has been stumbling along with lackluster commercials, a lack of money, and no sign of momentum or life.

Contrast that to Dick DeVos who has spent more than $6 million making himself a household name while at the same time wiping out her 20-point lead and reducing the contest to a dead heat.

One successful day for the governor does not a victory make, but at least it's a chance for the governor to pump some oomph back into this race.

Google gave her the opportunity to put some meat on her previously bare bones statement that her economic recovery plan was also showing signs of life.

It was not the number of jobs that was important to her. It was the type of jobs.

“We hire talented and motivated college kids,” the Google leadership explains. Just the pool of young workers the governor wants to keep in Michigan to stem the brain drain to other states.

But while she was basking in the moment, the other side missed a chance to score some points at the same time.

Recall that challenger Dick DeVos has been going around the state claiming to be “just a business man and not a typical politician.”

Yet his tepid response to the Google announcement was old time politics to the worst degree; he just couldn't bring himself to pat the governor on the head for a job well done. And he could have.

Instead of congratulating the University of Michigan for landing those jobs, and not saying one word about Granholm, he could have said, “I've been telling you that I am not your run of the mill politician and to prove it, I'd like to thank the governor for a job well done on landing those 2,000 Google jobs for our great state. I know what it's like to put together a tough business deal and to compete with other states. Good job, Gov. Granholm and if I'm your next governor we'll do even more.”

State GOP Party Chair Saul Anuzis had the same opportunity but muffed it, too. He did observe that securing Google was good for the state, but he was hard pressed to comment on the governor's role in all this. For some reason he wasn't sure if it was a plus or minus for her because he didn't know what she did.

Man, if his buddy John Engler had netted those hi-tech jobs, you would have needed a crow bar to pull Mr. Anuzis off the ceiling.

Final tally on the Google story: Great opportunity for the governor; missed opportunity for the challenger.

-Tim Skubick is the longest-serving member of the State Capitol Press Corps, with 35 years of covering Michigan government and politics. His column appears in the Saturday Herald Times.

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