POLITICS

Michigan: The Depressed State

The Wolverine State is reeling from a one-two punch on jobs and housing.

by Alexis Simendinger

Sat. Jun 28, 2008


Special SeriesSwing StatesThis is the second in a series of articles taking a close look at the swing states likely to determine the outcome of this year's presidential election. Next week: New Hampshire.

Michigan's Almanac Profile

Also in this series:
• Iowa: Where Politics Is Personal

Charles Baker is a Michigan Democrat who isn't sure he can bring himself to vote for Barack Obama in November, although he enthusiastically voted for Hillary Rodham Clinton in his state's Democratic primary in January. "I don't think he's qualified to run the country," he says firmly.

And what about Republican John McCain? Baker sounds even less enthusiastic: "Him and I can't come to terms. I don't like his ideas. I don't think he'll do enough for the state of Michigan. To me, it's been an eight-year battle downhill, especially in this part of the country."

Baker, who has worked for the same automotive parts supplier for 21 years, and his wife, Donna, live in Macomb Township, part of the Michigan region near Detroit that made the phrase "Reagan Democrat" important in pres-idential politics almost three decades ago. The Republican Party, with support from polls showing McCain a step ahead of Obama in Michigan throughout the spring, thinks that the Wolverine State could flip into the GOP column this year because of people like the Bakers.

Time magazine made the Bakers famous the month before Republican George H.W. Bush carried Michigan and won the White House. Then in their 30s and living in Warren, Mich., the couple was the focus of an article describing a swing voting bloc that accounted for 12 percent of the national electorate. They represented the white, working-class Democrats who had defected to the GOP for the first time in 1980 to make Ronald Reagan president. In 1988, Donna Baker was for Democratic nominee Michael Dukakis until she got spooked by his positions on crime and swerved to Bush. Her husband, then a nonunion foreman working for $8.80 an hour, continued to back Dukakis.

In 2000, the couple split their votes again, Charles Baker recalls. He supported Democrat Al Gore, and his wife backed Republican George W. Bush. Gore lost the national recount battle, but in Michigan he edged past Bush. Four years later, Baker joined his wife in backing Bush's re-election, but John Kerry narrowly claimed Michigan's 17 electoral votes. Kerry's winning margin was just 165,437 votes, down from Gore's 217,279. Baker regrets his Bush vote, he says, because the president has kept U.S. troops in Iraq and the economy has taken a nosedive.

Now 54, with two grown daughters and a 12-year-old son at home, Baker still identifies himself as a Democrat, while his wife "is thinking about McCain," he says. Baker wants a new president with ideas, experience, and the ability to deliver "a little more stability."

His own job security is a big factor, too: Baker now holds a management position with his company, thanks to an apprenticeship program he entered a few years back, but business has sagged and his shift of 32 workers has shrunk to 10. His company has frozen workers' wages for the past three years, and losing his job is not out of the question. "Anybody in this state that has anything to do with the auto industry who thinks they're exempt, they're crazy," he says.

When things appear bleak elsewhere in the nation, they can seem desperate in Michigan, which has hemorrhaged manufacturing jobs and been hit hard by the foreclosure crisis. But no one knows quite how the tough times will affect the presidential contest in Michigan. The Democrats would have great difficulty winning the White House without Michigan.

Despite the GOP's optimism that McCain might be Reagan's heir in Michigan--a flag-waving maverick who can attract independents as well as conservative or centrist Democrats--plenty of political observers believe that Obama can win a "change" election in the state, pitted against a 71-year-old longtime GOP senator who wants to follow the unpopular two-term Bush. Indeed, ever since Obama ended his wrestling match with Clinton and began showering attention on Michigan, he has inched ahead of McCain, some polls indicate.

"There are a lot of angry people in the state," says University of Michigan political science professor Ken Kollman, who thinks that Michigan voters may seek to blame "incumbents," but first have to decide which ones. Choices include unpopular Democratic Gov. Jennifer Gran-holm (who endorsed Clinton), or the seriously lame-duck Bush. Other targets include the GOP-dominated state Senate and the Democratic majority in the state House. And there's even Detroit's embattled mayor, Kwame Kilpatrick, a Democrat clinging to office by a thread in the midst of an ethics scandal.

"One of the things important to realize about Michigan is that it's a collection of company towns," Kollman said, mentioning such famous manufacturing names as Kellogg, Ford, and Steelcase, which helped to brand Michigan cities and shaped the state's identity. "And as these companies have troubles, people are angry."

Soaring oil prices have devastated sales of U.S.-made trucks and SUVs at a time when Michigan's automakers were already struggling. The Big Three are continuing to shed workers and close plants. Unemployment in Michigan, which is worst in the middle and northern counties of the state, jumped to 8.5 percent in May, 3 points above the national rate.

The economic downturn and the subprime lending mess hiked foreclosures, filling the largest cities and urban suburbs with "For Sale" signs and abandoned, blighted real estate. Average hourly manufacturing wages dropped more than 1 percent from April to May, while health care costs kept climbing. And the state's population, which is older, whiter, and more unionized than the U.S. population as a whole, has fallen nearly 3 percent in the past decade, as young people have moved away in search of better opportunities.

McCain is hoping to offset the turnout in Democratic enclaves in southeastern Michigan, particularly in and around Ann Arbor and Detroit, by attracting considerable support in western Michigan, where GOP strongholds include Kent and Ottawa counties. McCain launched his TV campaign in Michigan at the end of May, and Obama followed three weeks later. McCain has spent more time in the state, making a credible attempt to win the January primary that went to favorite son Mitt Romney, the former Massachusetts governor who grew up in Michigan and is the son of popular former Michigan Gov. George Romney. In recent months, Mitt Romney has been stumping in Michigan for McCain, who has a seasoned campaign team in place and is scheduled to return in July.

Obama is playing catch-up in Michigan. After the state opted to hold its Democratic primary earlier than party rules allowed, he took his name off its primary ballot. Clinton left her name on and won. "Uncommitted" ran second. After months of skirmishing by the Clinton and Obama camps, the Democratic National Committee reached a compromise allowing the state's delegation to be seated (at half-strength) at the national convention in August and giving Clinton slightly more delegates than Obama.

Neither Obama nor Clinton campaigned in Michigan during the primary season. After locking up the nomination early this month, Obama began mending Michigan fences by meeting there with Clinton supporters, union leaders, and the elected officials who backed her.

Obama's ads and speeches have reintroduced him to Michigan voters and have stressed his patriotism, Christian (that is, not Muslim) faith, and ideas about national security. In a state where the North American Free Trade Agreement is widely reviled, Obama is careful to talk fixes but does not condemn globalization and free trade. He touts a collection of government-funded proposals that he says would help Michigan residents pay for their food and gasoline, keep their homes, afford health care, and shore up their retirement savings.

"Grim economic news is nothing new to Flint," Obama said during a rally in mid-June, "and nothing new to Michigan." That message of empathy was intended as a form of rebuke to McCain's tough-love warning last January that "there are some jobs that aren't coming back to Michigan." Although McCain followed that verdict with assurances that education and retraining will open new doors, he recognized (when voters complained that his words were slaps not salve) the drawbacks to telling "people things they don't want to hear," as he put it during his initial burst of candor.

Beyond an unpredictable economy, the great unknown in Michigan may be how race plays a part in this election. "It's not a black-and-white thing, and I firmly believe that," said Jim Carabelli, a former Chrysler-employee-turned-landscaper who is serving his second term as chairman of the Macomb County Republican Party.

Carabelli predicts that Macomb will be the bellwether for the nation. "Barack Obama seems like a wonderful young man, and he seems to have some wonderful ideas," he added, "but that's just it, ideas."

Lansing businessman Joel Ferguson, who helped Jesse Jackson win the state's Democratic primary in 1988 and served as a campaign co-chair for Hillary Clinton in the state, joked that to win Michigan, Obama "is going to have to stay out of bowling alleys."

Ferguson believes that voters in his state did not support Clinton "based on race." But he readily points to the state's 2006 voter-passed ban on using racial preferences in college admissions as evidence that pre-election polls can be inaccurate predictors.

After recent meetings with Obama and his team, Ferguson came away believing that they have too much of a "Macomb County emphasis," meaning a desire to spend money to court and convert the doubters. He thinks that Obama should concentrate on turning out his core Michigan supporters and all the new enthusiasts he tends to attract, people who ordinarily might not vote. Ferguson adds that Obama should simply work to "overrun" McCain's numbers. In that way, Ferguson reasons, if race makes a difference, it might not be the difference in Michigan.

One of the big questions, judging from previous election results in the state, said Bill Ballenger, editor of the newsletter Inside Michigan Politics, is, will Detroit turn out? The state is less than 3 percentage points blacker than the nation as a whole, but Detroit is about 83 percent African-American. Obama will need Detroit, plus a demographically diverse cross-section of white voters to win Michigan.

Charles Baker suggested one way that Obama might lock up his Macomb vote. "I think Hillary would make him an outstanding running mate," he said. "I'm one of the ones that believed that Hillary would make a good president. He could use her longevity of experience, and someone of her quality."

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