Posted on 09/06/2008 6:13:34 AM PDT by pjsbro
If John McCain becomes the nation's 44th president, it may be thanks to Michigan -- a prize the Republicans think they can claim for the first time in nearly 20 years.
Sen. Obama is the one who might face an uphill battle. For starters, he chose not to participate in Michigan's primary in January -- a decision that now deprives his campaign of a ready-made network of supporters. (Michigan held its primary earlier than the national Democratic Party wanted, so Sen. Obama and several others stayed off the ballot in solidarity with the party.) At the same time, Sen. McCain plays well among moderate Republicans and independents who dislike George W. Bush, whom Sen. McCain beat handily in the party's 2000 Michigan primary.
Michigan also has some of the most complex race relations north of the Mason-Dixon line. "Michigan is a challenge for any Democratic candidate," says Amy Chapman, the head of the Obama campaign here. "Everyone thinks it's blue. But you have to work hard to make it blue."
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
Let's make this state as red as the faces of the MSM on Nov 4th!!
Good, this let’s me post a link to my new favorite ad featuring Obama & Kwame:
http://www.freedomsdefensefund.com/videos.html
We are all Wolverines and Spartans and Chippewas and Eagles and Broncos!
I don’t know. Michigan may be too far gone.
Is that ad actually running in Michigan?
I am not a Wolverine or Spartan and Eagles or Bronco. I am a Nitally Lion!
I am not on the ground in Michigan, but the polling certainly indicates that Fauxbama is in trouble there. This is a ready made state for him. Highly democratic, and large muslim representation, Fauxbama should be ahead by leaps and bounts, yet, every state poll I’ve seen out of it around dead even. This is very very bad for Fauxbama.
Anyone on the ground in Michigan want to give some perspective?
“Is that ad actually running in Michigan?”
Excerpt from press release:
“The ad is scheduled to run a saturated one-week schedule on cable news networks in Macomb County, Michigan.
“We chose Macomb County for very strategic reasons,” explained Zirkle. “We believe it is difficult for liberal Democrats to win Michigan without Macomb County and we know it is extremely difficult for a Democrat to win the White House without carrying Michigan. We plan to extend this buy as resources and donations permit.””
http://www.freedomsdefensefund.com/news.html
Virginia and colorado. Also New Hampshire.
Correction- Stuttering Barry says you're all Nitally Wolves, Nitally Spurters, Nitally Chipmunks, and Nitally Bunco Players.
Even with Todd Palin on their side, the Steelworkers Union is deep in Obama’s pocket. I’m not holding my breath with Michigan.
Michigan, with their lovely governor and outstanding mayor of Detroit, is giving the country a wonderful preview of what life would be like in Obama World.
To counter maybe Obama will do what he’s rumored to be doing in OH (please note this is a rumor only and from a McCain supporting Dem site):
“First, the intelligence received was that there are rumors that the Obama Chicago Machine will be using church buses to drive Illinois citizens (Obama supporters) into Ohio so they can register to vote.
On the same day they register to vote, they will be casting absentee ballots. Yes, Il. citizens will be casting absentee votes for Obama in Oh. As you know this is a swing state...and in some counties, this could turn the election.”
Cristi Adkins
www.Clintons4McCain.com
Macomb County is really being targetted this time. I read it’s the home of Reagan Democrats.
Very interesting and informative article.
thanks for posting it.
Unreal.
I actually am a Spartan!
I wish my old home state would go back to Republican but I fear they have gone past the point of no return and will try near-communism on their way to insolvency and destruction.
Is there a better example of what happens when Leftists/Democrats seize control than Detroit and New Orleans?
Is there a better forecast of the future of America if the American people should be foolish enough to empower these Leftists/Democrats sufficiently?
Is there a more obvious predictor of what Obama, Biden, and the rest of the Democrats would do if sufficiently empowered?
Write on...
This ad is running on cable networks in Macomb county (suburb just north of Detroit). However, the mainstream news stations in Detroit have picked it up and are airing it on their newscasts, free of charge, for all to see.
It was a great week in Michigan....the mayor pleads guilty and everyone gets to watch the inept governor on live streaming video holding her kangaroo court. Kwame throws everyone under the bus in his televised farewell speech and the democrats eat each other up trying to save their own hides.
Icing on the cake is John & Sarah paying a visit to Macomb county on Friday afternoon to an overflow crowd.
Same day registration is lunacy, a fraud enabler extraordinare. The casting of an absentee ballot is a public record item though, no? Someone in the Ohio republican party should be vetting the credentials and challenging them. And a few videographers wouldn’t hurt, either.
My mother (always votes dem) is wavering--I talked to her this morning and she is surprised by how many friends and relatives are supporting McCain here. There is hope :)
Missy
Hehehhe...WHAT the heck is a Nitally?? Also, I am sport deprived, so humor me here, is there a Pro Hockey team there in Mich? How come the mediaPUKES don’t have a OsAMAISMS list they they had for W?? Gawd, don’t know how much of this election I will be able to take. I’m considering an induced coma for the rest of this election and HOPEFULLY waking up to some EXCELLENT news on the 5th of Nov.....:)
I’m afraid that as long as the McNamara/Kilpatrick/Granholm Democrat machine is counting the votes in Wayne County, McCain has no chance.
Don’t you think Republican Attorney General Mike Cox should get off his dead butt and insist state authorites oversee the vote in Detroit in November?
I’m surprised that the article didn’t mention how the appeal of the barracuda hockey-mom will help the ticket in a state like Michigan.
Shades of “True Grit” which featured Rooster Cogburn and Mattie Ross entering the Indian Territory to go after “Lucky” Ned Pepper. We all remember that scene, with Rooster calling Ned Pepper out, then came charging in on horse back, reins in his teeth, blazing away with a pistol in each hand.
Mattie ended up in a well with a rattlesnake bite, but she survived after Rooster dragged her out.
Dang it...meant way instead of THEY....JAVA deprived here...:(
Well, it is only rumor, but I can’t see why a Democrat like Christi Adkins would be posting this at her site if there were not something to it. I’m hoping the OH Republicans are on to the same rumor with eagle eyes and ears.
Watch Macomb county polling - it will determine Michigan.
The map attached to the article is great it shows what the unions, the riots, the Democratic party and Urban Removal did to was the highest income per capita city in 1950.
People voted with their feet and left.
Several weeks ago, I had reason to visit a steel worker’s loading dock. (There are no folks at this manufacturing plant who work with or ever have worked with steel) A foreman was given to me as minder. He opened up a political discussion. I can’r imagine why.
He wanted to unload his guilt. He did not like Obama. Obama is a Muslim. on and on and on. Bottom line.... Obame is black and a good union man democrat has glommed on muslim as an excuse.
It's a battleground state pretty much every election. It has leaned a little bit Democrat so it's gone that way in very very close elections, but there's no reason an election with a bit different dynamics can't push it the other way.
Thanks for posting that video. I had heard about it, but not yet seen it. I’m sure the libs will be screaming bloody murder... conveniently forgetting how they orgasmically trumpeted any Pubbie with even the remotest connection to Jack Abramoff.
West Virginia is safe for Republicans. Iowa is most likely going Obama. I wouldn't put either among the top battlegrounds.
I think McCain may do better in Michigan than in Wisconsin. Obama is relatively weak in the Rust Belt and that is where McCain needs to push to win the election.
McCain is in good shape in WV and VA.
I'm sure that's not a news flash. My impression is that he can get them in a blowout campaign but if it's close, the unions will be a problem in Michigan. Do they still get the day off work on election day to get out the vote?
For the life of me I do not get Iowa any longer..... that aside, do not these union states look at their industries and see them in the hole because of the liberal stranglehold....? The very same unions they rely on have buried them... Uh GM, Ford u listening?
That may be true, but McCain is in very good shape in OH - PA - MI. He only NEEDS one to have a shot at winning, but Obama NEEDS two to have a shot.
Obama really backed himself into a corner by ceding the entire South. Not a wise idea to pin his hopes on Montana and North Dakota.
I call it 236-217 McCain, with Virginia(? have to look into this) - Ohio - Colorado - New Mexico - Michigan - Pennsylvania as tossups. The problem for McCain is that his two most likely victories are Ohio-Virginia, which would give him 269 EV and a tie, which is bad.
I’m not sure why you’re ignoring/not listing WI and IA in your mix. Both states were extremely close in ‘04 and ‘00. I know folks here understandably worry about Obama’s ground game in IA. Okay. But Wisconsin? There’s a reason McCain/Palin, the first day after the convention, went straight to WI and then MI.
I think Iowa flips Democrat this year and New Hampshire goes McCain. The polls in Iowa have been consistent for Obama, and the Upper Midwest is socialist enough to explain that.
If I had to pick only one state to list as a true toss-up right now, it would be Wisconsin.
In Michigan it will be Capitalism vs. Socialism.
Michigan's Dem. Governor Granhom has been practicing "backdoor socialism" for the last four years. She gives away taxpayer money via utility bill payments, non-educational support payments linked to job training programs, etc. She pays for it by deficit spending, then, when the budget must be balanced, she forces tax increases. The tax increases are on income and business, but business is hit especially hard. The fact that she spends the money and THEN forces a tax increase, is why I term it "backdoor socialism".
In Michigan, the Dems also engage heavily in public "investment". This means "We'll tax you and give the money to new business that state Democratic officials feel we should give it to." Which implies businesses that will create jobs but is actually a way to give power, money, and influence to Dem surrogates like state university presidents, and Dem supporters; money which can be used to bring in Dem owned business. It also harms Michigan companies who have been paying state taxes for years by providing capital to competitors. [Note that this is not capital from a purely government entity made up of ELECTED officials. This is money "filtered" through non-elected Dem powerbrokers].
Many in the middle-class in Michigan, hit by high unemployment and job retention concerns, have begun to accept and embrace the "government will take care of you" Dem approach. They don't look at the anti-business aspects of the socialist Dem programs, only at the "we'll provide" promises of the Dems. Michigan is a capitalism vs. socialism contest. McCain said yesterday, in Michigan, that he'll get government out of the way so that people can succeed as individuals. (Which McCain seems to assume everybody agrees is "the way to go") Michigan Dems say that people don't have to succeed; that government will provide. Of course, the Michigan Dem approach eliminates and drives away job-providing business but, as long as taxes can be raised (see Obama's plans), business doesn't matter.
The McCain challenge in Michigan really revolves around convincing Michigan voters (and not assuming they are convinced) that the classic Reagan philosophy, "Government isn't the solution to our problem, government is the problem", is the correct one. And, that the real source of Michigan's long-term problems is the anti-business taxation at the state level and Democratic legislation at the national level that undercuts Michigan industry's competitiveness nationally and in world markets.
What has been happening in Michigan has national implications: Michigan has been practicing "backdoor socialism", Obama and a Dem Congress will practice "frontdoor socialism".
McCain does not come off as a spoiled rich kid. His life story earns respect. The complains about McCain are only issues based. Palin is middle America. She'll get the volunteers on board. GOP volunteers aren't unions. They are often Right to Life members or NRA. The chickenhawk card can not be played on either of them.
What I would do now if I was McCain, is to set up an event in Grayling and bring Palin there. Grayling is a "bitter" small town that clings to guns and is well known for hunting and fishing. It's also home of the largest state run national guard base in the country. It is a slightly republican leaning area, but democrats have won there. Both of them will sell there.
It's what nobama calls a Nittany Lion (Penn State).
We need laws stating that no one can vote absentee without having voted in person in at least one previous election. Also need mandatory ID checks of all voters.
The party of fraud opposes all of that. No need to wonder why.
Chicago?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.