Michigan seen as the state that could decide election

Published 1:09 am Monday, August 4, 2008

By Staff
Time magazine's Aug. 11 cover package points out that Michigan's ongoing economic doldrums make it desperate for change in Washington, but that doubts about Barack Obama leave this Democratic state a toss-up.
With 300,000 manufacturing jobs disappeared in the past decade, Ford just posting the worst quarterly loss in its 105-year history, General Motors still closing plants and more than one of every 20 mortgages in or near foreclosure, Michigan leads the nation with an 8.5-percent jobless rate.
Michigan has voted Democratic in every presidential election since 1988.
And Democrats usually reap benefits from elections dominated by economic concerns.
Yet Obama, who opened a campaign office in Cassopolis, led John McCain by four points in a state where Democratic leaders are "wildly unpopular" or, in the case of young Detroit Mayor Kwame Kirkpatrick, under indictment after an affair with a co-worker.
Gov. Jennifer Granholm's approval rating is 20 percent.
Time defines a "new battleground," affluent Oakland County (population 1.2 million; median household income $64,293, compared to $46,326 nationally), a once solid Republican bastion northwest of Detroit that has grown more Democratic – kind of the flip side of Macomb County's Reagan Democrats in 1980.
Mitt Romney grew up in Bloomfield Hills, which shouldn't hurt his chances of being McCain's running mate.
Oakland County is home to the Pistons, who play in Auburn Hills, and rapper Eminem.
Rochester Hills spawned Madonna.
Despite its wealth, Oakland County fees pain from Michigan's economic woes. White-collar engineers felt the most recent round of auto-industry cuts.
On paper, Oakland County should belong to McCain.
His politics don't emphasize the social conservatism that drove many Republicans from the GOP.
McCain is a known quantity, with Democrats and independents crossing over to vote for him in the 2000 primary to spite Gov. John Engler, who promised to be George W. Bush's firewall.
His straight talk stuck in some craws: "Some jobs that have left Michigan are not coming back."
He spent a visit with GM workers explaining why his adviser Phil Gramm dismissed concerns about the economy as a "mental recession."
Obama and his wife have visited Michigan five times since he clinched the Democratic nomination, stopping more in Oakland County than any other part of this state.
McCain stopped in Oakland County once during six trips to Michigan since mid-March.
McCain, a traditional fiscal conservative who emphasizes tax cuts, said July 7 he would "demand" a balanced budget. Eliminating earmarks to save $20 billion isn't going to get to $482 billion when at the same time you propose extending the Bush tax cuts and adding a $300 billion corporate tax-rate reduction.
Obama held an economic summit July 28 with guys like Warren Buffett and, from the Clinton administration, Bob Rubin and Bob Reich, who had been responsible for cleaning up after Ronald Reagan's elephant excesses.
They balanced the budget and created a surplus with the economic boom that followed a tax increase.
Obama doesn't even pretend to balance the budget. He wants to spend $21 billion per year on energy alternatives and belated infrastructure improvements, which doesn't sound like much in the shadow of spending $10 billion per month in Iraq.
It signals the start of a different conversation than the one Reagan began three decades ago.
"Government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem," Reagan said in his first inaugural address in 1981, eerily prescient about the future Bush administration.
The Bush era encompasses a chasm between the super rich and the middle class who became the working poor. Median family income fell an estimated $1,000 during the Bush years.
The Bush administration's disdain for governing shows up in neglect of infrastructure.
The American Society of Civil Engineers estimates we're going to have to spend $1.6 trillion over the next five years. Everything's falling apart at once.
The Bush administration is belatedly embracing diplomacy.
Some recent developments make more sense when you know Obama and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice regularly discuss foreign policy by phone.
Also, Bush seeks breaththroughs abroad to shore up his legacy.
Washington has dramatically corrected its foreign policy course.
I've noticed much less saber-rattling at North Korea and Iran, both "axis of evil" charter members. Rice's top diplomat broke with longstanding policy July 19 to meet face to face with Iranians in Geneva. That's a victory for realism over Dick Cheney neocon ideology.
Obama backed Bush's overture to Tehran and said, "The Iranians should take that gesture seriously." In Ramallah July 23 with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, Obama even endorsed Bush's and Rice's accelerated Arab-Israeli peace process and pledged to continue it if elected.
Bush's July 18 endorsement of a "horizon" for withdrawal for Iraq threw a curveball to McCain and his 100-year presence.
Even a symbolic troop drawdown before the election could raise Bush's approval ratings and help Republicans. They're even talking again about capturing Osama bin Laden. That would make a great October surprise.
The Barack star world tour is over and less than 100 days remain in this marathon.
No less a political strategist than Bill Clinton says the key to winning a close contest is psychological dominance, like Bush got into McCain's head in 2000, and much like Obama is now with his aggressive moves.
McCain must break through somehow besides juvenile, negative ads about lightweight celebrities such as Britney Spears and Paris Hilton, shake Obama off and sell his own vision.