Michigan Illustrates the Value of Being Early

Wyoming's exercise in moving up the primary calender to have more of an impact upon the course of the nomination struggle may have been something of a failure, but if you want to see how that re-scheduling can have a big effect, look to Michigan. Republican presidential hopefuls John McCain, Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee are now campaigning in Michigan (Rudy Giuliani and Fred Thompson are in Florida and South Carolina respectively.) For the first time in a long time, Michigan's unique issues are being talked about by presidential candidates - and in much the same way that ethanol subsidies are preserved in Washington because they primarily come from Iowa, if the good people of Michigan choose the eventual nominee as victor of the party's primary tomorrow they may be looking for some payback come 2009.

Senator Carl Levin's support for moving the primary date forward seems not to have been misplaced - for the Republicans anyway. The DNC has stripped Michigan of all of its delegates and most of the major candidates have removed their names from the ballot (making tomorrow's Democratic primary rather pointless.) But the RNC only penalised Michigan with half its delegates for moving its primary into January, which the state party is confident they can regain before the convention. For once presidential candidates are giving Michigan the attention that South Carolina receives (though the fact that it's the second primary means it'll never have the same influence as New Hampshire.) Economics, particularly for the auto-industry, are important in Michigan, which fits well with the fact that the greatest emerging concerns for American voters for the upcoming election is the economy.

With an unemployment rate well above the national average (8% to the national average of 5%) the citizens of Michigan are particularly eager to hear what the candidates have to say about the economy and how they will reverse what Mitt Romney has called a 'one state recession'. And it seems to be provoking some differences between the candidates, particularly the two front-runners of Romney and McCain. Romney is pledging to bring the jobs that have been lost in Michigan back - the same jobs that have moved out of state and overseas. He's pledging to rebuild the auto-industry in Michigan pain-fee. McCain on the other hand is telling the people of Michigan that he can't bring the jobs already lost back to the state, but rather he can help them retrain to new jobs and become a hub for an alternative industry - clean technologies seems to be his biggest idea for what Detroit could get into next ("If Michigan has saved the world once in the last century, why can't it do it again?")

It seems to me that McCain has the more honest approach to the economic situation in Michigan. Short of whacking up giant protectionist barriers that make cheap cars and car products prohibitively expensive, and downgrading much of the automation that has eliminated the need for some workers entirely, the auto-jobs have mostly left Detroit. They aren't coming back, and I think Romney is being dishonest with the people of Michigan when he says that he'll bring them all back no fuss. I think Romney really needs a win in the state in which his father used to be a Governor (he won't refer to it as 'do or die' - but that's pretty much what it is if he's to remain viable and not the John Edward of the race) and I think he's lazily cutting corners to win support. McCain is straight talking as always - the jobs are gone, but the prospects aren't completely bleak for rebuilding the Michigan economy. Unfortunately, the Truth isn't necessarily as attractive as a lie, particularly when a hack like Romney is providing it.

Mike Huckabee's role in this state is not year clear. He's the third contender, who's vying for a victory in Michigan, but it still has yet to be entirely determined where his support base is. He's certainly going after values voters in Michigan, but is that necessarily going to be enough to put him over the top? It very well might in South Carolina, but I wonder if Huckabee wouldn't consider a win to be second place. Michigan is a good test of Huckabee's national power - it's more culturally representative of the rest of the nation than some of the other early primary states (not as religious as Iowa, not as independent as New Hampshire, not as conservative as South Carolina.)

Tomorrow's Republican primary is certainly going to be close. The latest poll has McCain and Romney statistically tied with 28% and 26% respectively. Huckabee comes third with 17% (though considering the 5 point margin for error, it's still pretty close.) Giuliani and Thompson aren't factors in the race - 5% each. The Michigan Republican Party has got to be happy about the results of their experiment in leap-frogging many other primary states - the candidates are talking about jobs, talking about manufacturing and addressing some of the issues that otherwise might get pushed to the side in a weighted rural early primary calender.