As they blitz Michigan and two polls indicate their race currently is a statistical dead heat, Governor Jennifer Granholm and Republican Dick DeVos dance the SBT Tango to vastly different tunes on how best to repeal and replace the Single Business Tax.

Each performed in the northern Lower Peninsula last week. House Speaker Craig DeRoche (R-Novi), choreographer of the zap SBT version that DeVos favors and touted in Traverse City Tuesday, says the GOProad show will go to the Upper Peninsula "more than once" in coming months.

The SBT, adopted in 1975 to replace seven previous taxes, is scheduled to end December 31, 2009. True to her vows, Granholm in March vetoed the GOP-ruled Legislature's bill that would have repealed the SBT at the end of 2007. She wisely said it would be irresponsible to kill the widely criticized tax without determining how its nearly $2 billion in revenue would be replaced.

"The SBT is a job-killer that must go," DeVos said at a Traverse City Cherry Capital Airport media drop-in event that included DeRoche, Oakland County Executive L. Brooks Patterson (author of a initiative petition drive to abolish the tax), and local GOP lawmakers: Senator Michelle McManus (Lake Leelanau) and Representatives Kevin Elsenheimer (Bellaire), David Palsrok (Manistee), and Howard Walker (Traverse City).

Significance of the event was that prodding of DeRoche and DeVos produced at least an indication that Republican ideas on replacing the SBT loss could well jell this year - as well they should.

When I asked if his awaited economic plan would include a way to replace the SBT, DeVos said, "I am curious to see what ideas come up" from a DeRoche-ordered task force and other sources.

Asked whether he rules out offering a replacement plan or options before the November 7 election, DeVos said ,"I don't rule it out or in."

He should rule it in. He'll get hammered if he doesn't.

To his credit, DeVos vows that as governor he would "not shift the burden to individual taxpayers, instead, we will make the decisions necessary to reduce wasteful spending and give businesses the tools they need to grow and expand so our residents can get back to work."

In a surprise caper last week, Granholm "challenged" DeRoche and Senate Majority Leader Ken Sikkema (R-Wyoming) "to sign an agreement to both repeal" the SBT by the end of this year and craft a replacement that would not shift taxes to individuals or make deep cuts in vital services.

The two leaders understandably bristled at what Sikkema properly branded a "campaign gimmick." If things worked as they should in Lansing, the three of them would sit down and negotiate an agreement that they would try to sell lawmakers. It takes more than a signed agreement to produce legislative action.

An angry DeRoche called me Thursday to say, "I'm just a little more than miffed" at Granholm's "gall." As for his relations with Granholm, he said: "Right now, we don't get along at all."

An encouraging note: When I again asked DeRoche about SBT replacement options surfacing yet this year, he said, "I have not yet taken my boot off the gas yet" in quest for "a good, responsible, bipartisan" plan.

He said, "I want to be part of this. I want the ball...I'm leading from the middle on this, not the right. I can lead from the middle."

An interesting twist on the SBT issue is that Bob Kleine, who during the Milliken Administration drafted the SBT legislation, has been appointed state treasurer by Granholm (who on April 4 meet in Traverse City with ex-Governor Bill Milliken).

Kleine, who in various media venues earlier this year defended the SBT, has said he now agrees it should be repealed.

But will a Senate that is battling Granholm on the SBT confirm Kleine?

"It will be interesting to watch," says Senator McManus, a member of the Senate Finance Committee that will quiz Kleine about the SBT. "We have to see what the answers are."

As Oakland County's Patterson cleverly said in Traverse City: "Doctor Frankenstein is back to kill the monster he created."

Northern Numbers

On her Thursday visit to Cadillac, Granholm shrugged off an EPIC/MRAApril 3 to April 9 poll of 600 likely voters that had her in a 43-43 tie with DeVos, similar to a March poll by Marketing Resource Group.

Asked about the poll, she said voters aren't yet tuned in to the race. That's true, but pollsters correctly note that DeVos' $2 million-plus TV ad campaign, including unprecedented early airing above and below the bridge, is having an impact.

"She's in bad shape," EPIC/MRA's Ed Sarpolus said Friday on Public TV's "Off the Record" show.

One of Granholm's poorest job approval ratings was 36 percent positive/62 percent negative in the Traverse City media market, which includes the eastern Upper Peninsula. But as always, I caution that these regional sub-samples have a greater potential margin of error than the 600 statewide survey that gave her a positive/negative rating of 45/53 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.

George Weeks recently retired after 22 years as political columnist for The Detroit News. His weekly Michigan Politics column is syndicated by Superior Features.