My dear John (McCain) letter

This is just to say that you lost my vote over the last few weeks and Barack Obama won it.

Sen. McCain, I know I'm just a simple single mom, but I do live in Michigan, ground zero in the Electoral College battle.

This wasn't an easy choice. I was with you when only five folks showed up to your town hall meetings in New Hampshire last summer as you stood up for a compromise on immigration. I cheered when you told Mitten Staters that those cushy auto jobs ain't a-comin' back before you tanked in our primary.

And I defended you against the loony left's bizarre assaults on your military service. You are, indeed, an American hero, and one of mine.

But your attack-happy, outrage-driven campaign - which is inexplicably run by the slimeballs who slandered you on behalf of George W. Bush in 2000 - is beneath you. You cannot blame the bombastic ads and barrage of smears on wily subordinates; you are the captain of this ship and you refuse to turn it around.

And as you have seen fit to appease the far right more and more each day, down to your extremist VP pick, I'm struggling to see you as the man on white horseback who's come to save the day. You seem like you only want to win - at any cost.

"This campaign isn't about issues," your campaign manager scoffed last week. Well, I think that insults the American people. And it insults me as a voter.

Because I'd like you to know that I will be voting for Barack Obama on the issues. And the economy is No. 1 for my family. I like that Obama's comprehensive economic plan is rooted in conservative ideas on tax cuts, which need to be broad-based. You don't have many ideas beyond extending the narrow Bush tax cuts and calling your opponent a tax-hiker.

I'm sure the few making over $250,000 approve, but even you knew those cuts would be fiscally disastrous, which is why you voted against them. Our country can't sustain this kind of lopsided tax code, not while the middle class is losing net income for the first time in decades, the gap between rich and poor is growing and the Iraq war drains $10 billion from taxpayers every month.

And speaking of the war, like the vast majority of Americans, I want to see it end. Here's my compromise to you: Declare victory and get out. I have no reason to think that Obama and his stable of bipartisan foreign policy advisers will go about this in a hasty manner akin to how Bush got us into this mess.

But Sen. McCain, you are even further out there than the president, who sees the need for a timetable after more than five years of morass. Violence is down now, hallelujah. But our military is broken, with some soldiers doing seven tours of duty in Iraq. The surge cannot be sustained. Nor do we have the manpower to truly fight al-Qaida in Afghanistan or Pakistan, much less start to tangle with Iran or Russia.

Your bellicose foreign policy is not the reasoned realpolitik of President Bush the Elder; it will bankrupt our budget and make us more vulnerable to terrorism. No one knows this better than our enemies.

And I appreciate Obama's willingness to include insurance companies, seniors groups and doctors into reforming health care, which is ridiculously inefficient and expensive. Your hands-off approach won't help the Big Three or small business being sunk by off-the-charts expenses. You're unwilling to even help uninsured children by reauthorizing the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP).

I know the new conventional wisdom is that we need to change the country by going with the GOP, which has been in charge for most of the last glorious war-ravaged decade that's culminating in economic devastation.

And I know that because I, too, have reproduced like Sarah Palin and people care more about my mug shot that what I write in this column, that I am automatically obligated to vote for your ticket.

But I'm just an average gal from Michigan who plans to vote my conscience.

Our country has been at war in Iraq since my daughter was six months old and I'm tired of having to explain death to her. Before the Bush presidency, I paid $1 a gallon for gas in Iowa, and I know as well as you do that drilling won't bring the price down one dime. What I don't know is how I'll scrape up $300,000 to send her to the University of Michigan in 12 years.

Now you're telling me that you're the maverick again, although you're certainly not on the biggest issues of the day. You have little to offer me and millions of Americans in terms of real policy change. What you can provide is a compelling life story and a superstar running mate.

Well, Sen. McCain, you warned us all not to vote on style and slogans over substance.

That's why I'm voting for Barack Obama and Joe Biden.

Conduct unbecoming in McCainworld

During the last days before the Michigan primary, I stood next to Shane Farlin as he tentatively shuffled up the rope line at a John McCain rally in Battle Creek.

The U.S. Army specialist had lost his right eye in Iraq; his artificial iris was a glimmering American flag. I watched McCain's brown eyes lock on the 22-year-old's, seeming wholly unaware of the hordes waving signs and cameras all around him.

The former POW thanked Farlin for his service twice and listened to his problems with Veterans Affairs for several minutes. He gave him a top aide's cell phone number. I felt my breath catch at the intense exchange, where so much was left unsaid.

Farlin was clearly awestruck afterward, pledging to vote for McCain "without a doubt." I couldn't help but feel the same, especially after covering the focus-grouped affairs of Mr. Plastic, Mitt Romney, and the televangelist-smooth tent revivals of Mike Huckabee.

That was McCain at his best - refreshingly dignified and empathetic. He proved himself the embodiment of service to this country, a notion that has become disturbingly quaint in modern times.

Lately, however, we've been seeing McCain at his worst. When it comes to Barack Obama, he's petulant and personal, seemingly unable to come to grips that he's battling a cool wunderkind 25 years his junior who only recently set foot in the Senate. The same frustration is evident in hiss ever-loyal, bickering staff, starting with his surrogate son and speech writer, Mark Salter.

In a flash of that trademark candor, Johnny Mac would probably volunteer that his raccoon-eyed, unemployed blogger daughter, Meghan, meets the commander-in-chief test better than his rival.

That bitterness, which infected Hillary Clinton (and we all know how well that turned out) won't help him any with voters. Once a candidate seems to lose his mirth and perspective (Al Gore), it's a turn-off, often a fatal one.

Because as much as Americans claim to vote on the issues, personality often trumps all.

There's the non-stop drumbeat questioning Obama's patriotism (and the defensive, disingenuous denials) that's become the stomach-churning hallmark of McCain's campaign for the last few months. The goal is to make this election a referendum on Obama, not President Bush, because the Republicans can read the polls.

The attack machine is sharpest with surrogates like Joe Lieberman, the Democrat-turned-independent who seems gripped by a somewhat understandable cathartic need to stick it to the party that all but abandoned him in 2006.

This race is "between one candidate, John McCain, who has always put his country first, worked across party lines to get things done, and one candidate that has not," Joltin' Joe declared recently.

Sheesh. Hard to remember Lieberman actually encouraged that ungrateful, unqualified kid to run.

Obama rightly fired back in front of the Veterans of Foreign Wars convention this week:

"But one of the things that we have to change in this country is the idea that people can't disagree without challenging each other's character and patriotism. I have never suggested that Senator McCain picks his positions on national security based on politics or personal ambition. I have not suggested it because I believe that he genuinely wants to serve America's national interest. Now, it's time for him to acknowledge that I want to do the same."

But McCain wasn't about to back down, sniffing that Obama was getting "a little testy on this issue. ... Let me be clear: I am not questioning his patriotism; I am questioning his judgment." Then the Republican launched into his deceitful spiel that Obama doesn't want to win the war in Iraq.

The assault ratchets up in the blogosphere and right-wing media, of course, where reasoned intellectuals like Michael Savage gently raise if Obama is a terrorist. Oh, and he's black, if you haven't noticed. You know, like gang-bangers and Kwame Kilpatrick. Just sayin'.

McCain has done precious little to denounce any of this, shrugging, "You gotta have a sense of humor" about the latest smear book on Obama by white supremacist sympathizer Jerome Corsi. In July, McCain shelled out $19 million in mostly negative ads (only $7 million less than he raised) and he is indeed closing the gap in polling.

But at what price? Has he resigned himself to run a campaign that falls far short of the honor and statesmanship he professes just to win? Sorry, John, that ain't putting your country first. I'd say that's conduct unbecoming of an officer and a gentleman.

The erudite David Brooks paints McCain as a victim of circumstance, having little choice amid the media hoopla around the Chosen One. My dear Republican friends tell me Obama's a thin-skinned lightweight who's not up to the job. In other words, the ends justify the means.

That's all well and good, only they didn't feel that way in South Carolina in 2000 when Bush ran a vicious whisper campaign about McCain's black baby (his adopted Bangladeshi daughter) that effectively knocked him out.

Now John McCain proudly says he'd rather lose a campaign than lose a war. It's time to prove it by running a race befitting of his character.

For whom the center holds

When I was in Washington last week, I strolled over to gaze at the White House because it knocks me out every time.

A mom asked her blonde ponytailed daughter what the building was.

"That's where Barack Obama lives," the 5-year-old said matter-of-factly, before requesting ice cream.

I wondered if her confidence had anything to do with the fact that she doesn't get viral e-mails smearing him as a radical black Muslim, or read Daily Kos where posters want to try him for treason for voting for the FISA bill or any editorial page gasping about his unprecedented shift to the center.

In this lull between Obama securing the nomination in early June and accepting it at the Invesco Field in Denver in late August, his campaign is doing some soul-searching to find the right general election pitch. It hasn't been the smoothest transition in terms of messaging and fundraising - and the 24-hour news cycle hasn't been his friend.

Any misstep from the minor (like that tacky presidential seal) to the boneheaded (volunteers removing head-scarved women from sitting behind Obama at a Detroit event) is covered in breathless detail. I frequently open agitated e-mails from readers determined that the latest flap will be the end of him, although I never seem to receive them when John McCain confuses Sunnis with Shiites (again).

Want me to spill the beans on the super-secret pundit code? We don't know what will stick and what won't. We need a little distance to see if a gaffe will congeal into a pattern (the Howard Dean scream underscoring the unhinged persona theme) or if it will be a one-day story.

Not that this is not how campaigns should be covered, mind you. But it is the glossy, issue-free infotainment bent of cable news that drives perception and polls far more than the Economist's thoughtful analysis of the candidates' jobs programs.

There's no time for reflection in the frenzied rhythm of the election cycle, which goes something like this: Candidate's surrogate says something stupid; media and operatives feign outrage; surrogate apologizes; media declare this will kill the candidate's chances; the other candidate's surrogate picks up the baton the next day; the cycle continues.

And Barack Obama is usually at the epicenter of the storm.

That's because this election is all about Obama, as the kindergartner outside the White House can see. Even McCain knows that. His real hope is that "hope" will flame out and he'll be the safe, practical choice bolstered by his lifetime of service.

Now would be a good time for Johnny Mac to march into the vacuum. There are some promising signs, like his long-awaited economic speech Thursday in Michigan, home of 8.5 percent unemployment (go Wolverine State!). He's shaken up his campaign and made it more centralized, adding an office in the strategic location of Farmington Hills in vote-rich Oakland County.

But even during the primary, McCain's campaign was never on fire. Part of that is it's hard to whip up much excitement for any Republican during what's clearly another good Democratic year. But the maverick has failed to excite and inspire people like he did eight years ago, partly because he's ditched a lot of his core reform message.

Instead, McCain has morphed into the GOP standard-bearer (inviting unflattering comparisons to the bumbling Bob Dole '96 campaign). He's spent a lot of time talking up conservative judges and courting religious right leaders (some so radical like the Rev. John Hagee that it calls his judgment into question). He's also flip-flopped on the Bush tax cuts and unbelievably on torture, after spending more than five years in the Hanoi Hilton.

We hear little of campaign finance, other than to rightly criticize Obama's opt-out. His message on alternative energy is a quasi-lurch to the left, but it's ultimately unconvincing given his thin record on the issue and eagerness to jump on the gas-tax holiday and drill for the fun of it bandwagon.

While diehard McCainiacs have eagerly awaited his move to the middle, it's been Obama making a play for independents, while trying to blunt the right's traditional attacks.

His shifts haven't been that pronounced, to be honest, other than his blatant about-face on expanded government surveillance powers. But hell hath no fury like liberal bloggers scorned, so Obama is taking his share of hits right now. Welcome to the club, Barack - you've passed the IQ test and it's a good place to be.

His measured position on troop withdrawals in Iraq didn't translate well into sound bites, but means we'll be less hasty in pulling out than we were jumping in. And not supporting a mental health exception for so-called partial birth abortion - a procedure that should only be performed when the mother's health is in danger - is just common sense.

"The center cannot hold," poet William Butler Yeats once wrote. And while that's prescient in party politics and often legislation, campaigns contradict that maxim.

Modern presidential elections are determined by the center - that 40 percent of us who can't swallow the rigidity and pettiness of either party line.

If McCain continues to cede this ground to Obama, it's game over.

Puerile patriot games

PHILADELPHIA - Fourth of July has never really tripped my patriotic trigger.

Even as a kid, I found the star-spangled napkins, cookies and God forbid, swim trunks garish and empty. Most holiday barbecues I've attended over the years have featured good burgers, beer and the requisite fireworks and exactly zero discussion of America, Thomas Jefferson or the Declaration of Independence.

Now I get that I'm a history geek and most people are content on a rare day off to grouse about the Tigers' trades instead of debate whether property should have been listed as an inalienable right.

But I do deeply love this country. And it makes me a bit queasy to have such a disconnect with that on Independence Day of all days.

When I am filled with absolute wonder and gratitude for our still nascent nation is while reading tomes like Tom Paine's "Common Sense" or David McCullough's "1776," so I've spent many a Fourth with my nose buried in a book.

And there's nothing quite like stepping foot in defining landmarks to make our brief history hit home. So for the past three years, I've observed the birth of our nation at Fort Mackinac, the Richard M. Nixon Presidential Library and now the City of Brotherly Love.

Standing in the sweltering silver-swathed room where the Continental Congress adopted the Declaration 232 years ago today, I thought it wouldn't be such a bad thing if every American was required to spend the holiday at a museum or significant site before kicking back with a brewski. It isn't a substitute for teaching civics in school like in the days of old, of course, but it's a start.

Given the popularity of Williamsburg, Valley Forge, the National Mall in Washington, Salem, Mass., and The Henry Ford in Dearborn, there's hope yet.

What gives me pause, however, is that patriotism has become a hot topic in the presidential race when most citizens can't name five signers of the Declaration or when most did so (Aug. 2, 1776).

My first reaction when this cropped up during the Democratic primary was that this was one of those idiotic non-issues that would disappear in a few news cycles. With spiking unemployment, $4-plus gas and war in two countries (three counting Iran, according to Sy Hersh) who cares if Barack Obama dons a flag pin?

But then Bill Clinton weighed in about the glorious matchup between his wife and John McCain, musing, "I think it would be a great thing if we had an election between two people who loved this country."

And Michelle Obama's remark that, "For the first time in my adult life, I am proud of my country because it feels like hope is finally making a comeback" continues to be reverberate in the right-wing echo chambers online and on the airwaves as proof that she's an angry black woman who hates America.

In her less-than-finest hour, Cindy McCain attempted to furrow her tightly lifted brow and cattily responded, "I'm very proud of my country." Well, isn't that special.

I think first lady Laura Bush got it about right when she discussed the pressure of being a new public figure and said Michelle probably meant she was "more proud." It's refreshing to see a little grace in politics.

What this really comes down to is trust. That's what the Swift Boat ads were about with John Kerry - could we really trust his military record and his ability to lead the country in an age of global terror? Three years after 9/11 (and a year of his conflicted, lumbering campaign), we got our answer.

So do we trust the half-white, half-black, Hawaii- and Indonesia-raised son of a Kenyan Muslim and Kansan Christian? Is he American enough? Or is Obama the Other who couldn't possibly be entrusted to lead our nation?

That is the crass question. And in the blogosphere and viral e-mails, it's put in shockingly racist and bigoted terms.

In case you thought our politics couldn't sink any lower, the left netroots have started to strike back, questioning McCain's flag-waving credentials. This, of course, is one of his unmitigated strengths, as a storied Vietnam War hero Americans trust by double digits to better handle terrorism.

But bloggers like Julie Powers on MichiganLiberal.com are willing to swan dive into the cesspool and actually slander McCain's heroism.

"So John, how exactly does sitting on your ass in a POW camp for five years (and then returning only to cheat on your disabled wife and dump her for the Budweiser Barbie) exactly make you such a military expert?" asks Powers, who does PR for gay rights Equality Now group, which I doubt sanctions her inflammatory rhetoric.

OK, then, Jules. Let's throw your butt in the Hanoi Hilton, break your arms and subject you to psychological trauma even worse than reading your own posts and then we'll talk.

On this Fourth of July, I suggest we take a much-needed break from letting the fringes dictate the debate. And let's celebrate our country, which gives people the freedom to say whatever they want, no matter how asinine.

Mighty Mac adrift in Michigan

Four years ago, a gaggle of grandmothers emerged from a University of Illinois building, breathlessly chirping about a U.S. Senate forum.

A cerise-scarfed lady spotted a placard for a hopeful and asked if he was The One.

"That's not our guy," she was told. "Our candidate is the one whose name no one can pronounce."

I recall glancing at her "Obama for Senate" button. Good luck, this hard-bitten political reporter thought before hurrying back to the library to finish researching an obscure local history project.

Five months later, I watched Barack Obama unfurl his fabled '04 Democratic National Convention speech in which he deftly defined the "hope of a skinny kid with a funny name who believes that America has a place for him, too."

That was the first time I realized I'd underestimated Mr. Obama. Then came the Illinois senator's upset win in lily-white Iowa in January, 11 straight victories after Super Tuesday and knockout blow on the last primary night, June 3.

John McCain needs to learn that lesson - stat. The Vietnam POW clearly disdains Obama, a showboating whippersnapper out to steal his maverick mantle from under him. Pay your dues, kid, McCain practically seethes every time he spits out his name.

But there's another dynamic here - he clearly didn't want to face Obama. Lying below McCain's honey-coated praise for Hillary Clinton (and slams on the sexist press) was the stone-cold political calculation that she would shore up the right-wing base in a way he never could and be easier to vanquish.

Which is about right. Obama tops all the polls, even after Hillary bloodied him but good.

So one has to wonder if the Arizona senator was in denial about his inevitable opponent. Because what I want to know is: What was John McCain doing for the four months between when he clinched the GOP nomination and Obama sealed his?

And what's he doing now?

McCain had a tremendous advantage. And as far as I can see, he blew it - especially here in Michigan. It's a dream come true for a candidate to be able to define himself. To have the stage to yourself for months while your rival's teeth are being knocked in daily by a member of his own party is like a nonstop ecstasy trip for politicians.

Instead, McCain puttered around the county here and there and flipped burgers for Mitt Romney and other vice presidential wannabes in Sedona. His less than breakneck stump speed did little to evoke an image of gusto and vigor the 71-year-old needs to convey, especially to combat an oratorical Adonis who hasn't even broken a sweat after 18 straight months of barnstorming.

Since the Jan. 15 Michigan primary, McCain has done a couple of fundraisers and two events here, including a baffling May 7 speech on child pornography at Oakland University. On the list of top 1,000 issues for Michiganders, kiddie porn ranks about 1,263,000th.

The economy fills up slots one through 900 at least, as we've just hit 8.5 percent unemployment, a number we last saw when George W.'s daddy was in the Oval Office.

These are things the crackerjack Mitten State campaign team of Chuck Yob & Son should be telling McCain, but they're too busy hurling nukes at state GOP Chair Saul Anuzis to care. The Yob Doctrine dictates that it doesn't matter if you win or lose elections, but how many of your Republican brethren you can settle scores with by napalming them along the way.

McCain's campaign consists of two generic TV ads, as he seems utterly determined to lose Michigan at any cost. He won't even be back here until mid-July for yet another fundraiser.

In contrast, Obama, who completely ignored us for a year with our botched Democratic primary, has come back a-courtin' with a hundred red roses in hand on three different occasions in the last month.

"I'm so sorry, baby," the current Us Weekly cover boy croons to crowds, savvily hitting every sweet spot in the state from Troy to Grand Rapids. "I know the economy's been so bad. Let me make it up to you with John Edwards, Al Gore and $150 million in research pork."

As for the ground game, Obama is everywhere in the Great Lakes State, with 50 events last weekend from the U.P. to Downriver.

So there's little surprise that Mighty Mac sunk 8 points among independents in Rasmussen Michigan polls over the last month and he's trailing nationally, as well. He's flipped on offshore and arctic drilling and called last week's Supreme Court ruling upholding habeas corpus rights for Guantanamo detainees "one of the worst decisions in the history of this country."

How this crass pandering is supposed to snare Democrats and independents is beyond me.

Perhaps the strategy is to wait for Obama's star to combust over the Rev. Wright or some other ghastly gaffe. Phenoms can't last forever, after all. Slow and steady experience wins the race.

Which was pretty much what Nixon said about Kennedy in '60. And we all know how that turned out.

How Hillary failed feminism

For the first time in my life, I felt embarrassed to call myself a feminist.

I realized that as Hillary Clinton gave her narcissistic non-concession speech Tuesday, which should have marked the end of a historic campaign for women everywhere. But I want to send out my heartfelt thanks to her, Geraldine Ferraro, EMILY's List and New York NOW and Harriet Christian for doing what right-wing blowhards never could.

Lady Hillary sounded only slightly less sour and a smidge saner than dear Harriet, the Clinton supporter raving outside Saturday's Democratic National Committee's Rules and Bylaws Committee meeting made instantly famous on YouTube.

"The Democrats are throwing the election away! And for what? An inadequate black male?" Christian cackled, adding on Fox News that "99 percent of blacks don't even know why they're voting for" Barack Obama.

That kind of racism, once jaw-dropping, is now par for the course for cutthroat Clintonistas.

Harriet was only one of a motley crew of bitter white women screaming that Obama was a "socialist" leading an "anti-woman cult." All the blind rage about "massive disenfranchisement" was over Clinton losing four whole delegates (two, since they were halved) from my state of Michigan.

I kid you not.

But it's easy to say sayonara to reality when your candidate has. Most days, Hillz lavishes more praise on John McCain that Obama, whom she again declared less qualified than herself after he clinched the nomination Tuesday. Not that she would gracefully concede, as she probably banished calculators, as well as TVs in the Baruch College bunker she holed herself up in.

How ironic is it for the wannabe feminist-in-chief to have adopted the persona of "Math is tough" Barbie?

Clinton seemed determined to string out her self-immolated campaign, make Obama sweat and ding him even more, until boatloads of her Capitol Hill colleagues told her to hit the road Wednesday. True to form, she was shocked, still expecting her loyal subjects to fuel a last-minute comeback, as is the Clinton birthright.

Hillary never could own up to her own failings in her campaign - the arrogance, absurdly bloated adviser salaries and lack of strategy after Super Tuesday. And she certainly could never acknowledge Baby Barack's strengths - superb organization, fundraising prowess and oratorical mastery.

No, it was sexism that got her in the end.

How is anyone buying this? Our heroine was the undisputed frontrunner as wife of a popular former two-term president who's run the party for 15 years, with a $109 million personal fortune to boot. The primary system was cannily crafted by cronies like the aptly monikered Harold Ickes to ensure a swift Clintonian coronation.

And when she started to lose, she viciously bludgeoned Obama, aided by surrogates like Gerry Ferraro whose race-baiting rhetoric resembled that of toothless Southern hicks in the Jim Crow era.

Perhaps even more disturbingly, Clinton's strategy came down to trying to nakedly engineer an Obama meltdown. She couldn't just pray for another Rev. Wright; she had to show all those "hardworking white Americans" the colossal error they were making to go with the Kenyan-Kansan (and mess with the queen).

So when she let fly her musing on Robert F. Kennedy's assassination, it was a telling glimpse into her Machiavellian psyche that seemed almost wistful, as though a bullet in Barack's brain was her only road to the White House.

It wasn't ideal, but she'd take it. Politics is a bloodsport, after all.

And somehow Obama, that "skinny black guy with big ears and a funny name," as he describes himself with the kind of self-deprecation Clinton is allergic to, defied all odds.

He went off script and beat her. Talk about historic.

As for Clinton, she mangled her moment in history. Feminism didn't fail her; she failed feminism.

The melodramatic hand-wringing ("Now we'll never have a woman president!") is ridiculous and an insult to talented female politicians across the country, many of whom pointedly backed Obama.

We will. It just won't be Hillary - not now.

Once upon a time, I counted Hillary Rodham Clinton a role model as a champion high school debater mulling law school. Having a first lady with a career was about three decades behind, I thought, never figuring out why she dropped the idea as quickly as her maiden name. In the end, I decided I hated money, hence my esteemed career as a writer.

And while I owe generations of women who came before me a debt of gratitude, I am profoundly tired of the identity politics wars that have decimated the left for a half-century. I am sophisticated enough to know the narrative of history is not gender (nor race); it is multifaceted and broad, terrible and triumphant.

If you don't get that, you don't get anything.

So when Clinton lauded herself Tuesday for launching a campaign that inspired parents to tell their daughters, "See, you can be anything you want to be," I tittered at her trademark vanity at first.

But she's right. May they grow up to be far more honorable leaders than she.

Obama checks McCain in Michigan

WARREN - John McCain left the door ajar in Michigan last week with a lackluster town hall - and Obama busted right through it with his own here on Wednesday.

Fresh off a walloping in West Virginia on Tuesday, Obama hit Macomb County to talk trade and jobs with those elusive Reagan Democrats. He'd obviously had a heart-to-heart with former U.S. Rep. David Bonior, the patron saint of organized labor who endorsed him last week and started a stampede of superdelegates.

By the end of the day, no one was mentioning the Mountain State and Michigan was on everyone's lips. It was a brilliant tactical move.

For the presumptive Democratic nominee, Macomb is the mother of all political symbols, crammed with blue-collar workers aloof to his charm and even hostile after the Rev. Jeremiah Wright scandal.

McCain blew his chance to shore up support in the Wolverine State on May 7 with a rambling speech on child pornography and human trafficking in Rochester Hills.

But Obama got that it's all about the economy, baby.

He ditched the soaring rhetoric, long speeches and stadium crowds for an invitation-only town hall meeting for 200 at Macomb Community College.

Obama obliterated Hillary Clinton's hokey critique that he's "all hat and no cattle," outlining detailed plans for jobs, energy, health care, manufacturing, trade agreements and education, like a $150 billion investment over 10 years in clean energy.

"People are anxious about the future and rightfully so," said Obama, his barely-blue sleeves symbolically rolled up.

He even gave a shout-out to Michigan's 21st Century Jobs Fund, saying we should "replicate that all across the country."

He won over folks like Dave Sahlaney, a 67-year-old shuttle driver who was just laid off from St. John Macomb-Oakland Hospital. The Warren grandfather of nine voted for Clinton in the primary and frankly says working-class and white voters have reservations about Obama. But he thinks the senator can win them over.

"He's a real straight-talker; he hits on issues that affect all Americans," Sahlaney said. "I'm disappointed he doesn't go personal with Hillary Clinton's attacks on him, but I respect him for it."

Then Obama capped it off with rock-star rally for 15,000 in Grand Rapids, where John Edwards, the highest-profile "hardworking white American" (as Clinton recklessly described her base) flashed his trademark toothy grin and endorsed him. Bonior's imprint was there again, as Edwards' former campaign manager.

"I felt guilty about not campaigning here," Obama grinned at the crowd, which started lining up more than 12 hours early. "... I decided that in my first full day in Michigan that I wouldn't be fooling around, the same old thing."

I couldn't help but think of Clinton mocking Obama's message of hope, back in February when people still took her and her campaign seriously.

"The sky will open, the light will come down, celestial choirs will be singing, and everyone will know we should do the right thing, and the world will be perfect," the empress brayed in a singsong tone.

And lo, that is indeed what appeared to happen to both Obama and Michigan this week.

It's ironic that Obama, whose name wasn't even on the ballot, is finally bringing a positive glow to the state, as opposed to the Democratic primary hatched by U.S. Sen. Carl Levin and National Committeewoman Debbie Dingell that only elicited ridicule. Maybe that's why Dingell appeared so dour in Warren, but it could just be because the state party's girl seems down for the count.

One thing is clear: If Obama wins Michigan after a yearlong absence, he'll have Bonior to thank.

Let's not forget that the frontrunner's last foray here was an admirable but combative speech at the Detroit Economic Club on the Big Three's obstinacy on fuel-economy standards. On Wednesday, Obama wisely pivoted, praising their strides in hybrids and vehicle quality while subtly slamming the Bush administration for throwing manufacturers to the wolves of the global economy.

Obama vowed to spend "every day in the White House fighting for you," ending his Warren speech on a note of humility: "I hope you guys will give me the chance."

His Michigan coming-out parties looked like Bonior checking Chuck Yob, McCain's co-chair who's consistently bungled operations here, starting with a 9-point primary loss. With the Democrats' mangled contest, the state was the GOP's to win, but Yob cares only about wooing the far right and West Michigan.

Obama, who sports the finest political operation since the Kennedys, didn't even bother sending three scraggly college kids to keep hope alive here. That was a big misstep, which will cost him some Mitten State delegates. All that changed last weekend with his drive to recruit 1 million volunteers, including an electric event in Detroit.

Bonior acknowledged Obama has ground to make up, but assured me "he'll be coming back on a regular basis." Smart man.

If it comes down to Bonior vs. Yob in Michigan, I'd bet the farm the state stays blue.

McCain's not-so-secret plan to lose Michigan

ROCHESTER HILLS - Say you're running for president and dropping by the most economically ravaged state in the nation.

Your Democratic rivals are too busy butchering one another to campaign here, much less notice 7.2 percent unemployment, record foreclosures and skyrocketing demand at local food banks.

So naturally, you'd give a speech on child pornography and human trafficking around the world, right?

It's not that John McCain's 20-minute indictment of these heinous crimes at Oakland University on Wednesday wasn't admirable.

But it was a speech you deliver outside the United Nations, not a few miles from Delphi world headquarters, which just emerged from bankruptcy after shuttering factories and slashing wages in half for many autoworkers.

In Michigan, it's the economy, stupid.

Republican after Republican I talked to, including McCain's most diehard supporters, were floored by the misstep. He has a great shot at winning the Mitten State thanks to a botched Democratic primary, but his advisers seem intent on blowing it.

Most of the 700 attendees stared at McCain with slack-jawed politeness before the town hall portion, in which they hungrily fired off questions about jobs, the Iraq war, fuel-economy standards and even his temper (to which he drolly shot back, "How dare you ask me that question").

My man McCain, whom I proudly voted for in the Jan. 15 primary, is not a born orator. He gives a tired, rambling speech with the same awkward punchlines ("The French now have a pro-American president, which shows that if you live long enough, anything can happen") he unfurled back in the start of primary season.

He also took a long layover in Panderville to appease a crowd more conservative than he, filled with party activists who voted for Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee and cried for days when Mighty Mac crushed them. McCain's lines about trial lawyers, conservative judges, victory in Iraq and nuclear power won cheers; his straight talk on global warming was met with crickets.

Even the barebones traveling press corps seemed exhausted and cranky, perhaps knowing the A-Team was having a blast covering the Hillary Clinton-Barack Obama smackdown. During the heat of the Michigan primary, I wanted to break out the popcorn as Time magazine columnists Joe Klein and Ana Marie Cox sniped over who got to cover McCain in Howell.

In Rochester Hills, the only person who looked like he wanted to be there was Michigan Co-Chair Chuck Yob, who held court at the jumbled affair for more than an hour before McCain arrived.

McCain has a window to define himself in Michigan. Democratic hopefuls have barely stepped foot here since National Committeewoman Debbie Dingell hatched her harebrained primary scheme that cost the state every delegate, a mess they're still trying to mop up.

He failed this week. He failed when he turned down the keynote address at the influential Mackinac Policy Conference this month to do a fundraiser in Grand Rapids. McCain's not going to get that many more chances before the Dems (finally) get their act together.

If you want to know why the virtually nonexistent McCain Michigan campaign is wheezing, look no further than Yob, a knee-jerk reactionary who miraculously hung onto his job after spouting off that women make fine secretaries of state "because they like that sort of work."

Yob and his boy, John Patrick, launched a boneheaded West Michigan strategy (their only strategy) that handed McCain a 9-point primary loss. Keep in mind that McCain won a stunning upset here against George W. Bush in 2000, back when his campaign was headed by the brilliant former U.S. Rep. Joe Schwarz.

The Yobs are completely tone-deaf when it comes to Oakland County, which will be the key to a McCain victory in November. Where was iconic County Executive L. Brooks Patterson on Wednesday? Senate Majority Leader Mike Bishop couldn't even make it back to his district because the event was scheduled at the exact same time as session.

That's who you want on stage, not state Rep. Jack Hoogendyk, R-Kalamazoo, the sacrificial right-wing lamb praying to break 40 percent against U.S. Sen. Carl Levin this fall.

What's best for McCain would be turning the Yobs loose to pursue their true passion, polarizing the party and making state Chair Saul Anuzis' life miserable (sorry, Saul, I'm rootin' for you).

When Chuckie was making noises about running for party chair in 2004, Attorney General Mike Cox adeptly surmised it would be disastrous because "he's more concerned with party elections than with beating Democrats." Cox went on to be McCain's state chair, only to quit last summer after chafing with the Yob West Michigan mafia.

What McCain should do now is aggressively court powerbrokers like Patterson, Bishop and U.S. Rep. Candice Miller to be his ambassadors in Southeast Michigan. And he should give his old friend Joe Schwarz a call and beg him to run the show again, since he's about the only credible moderate voice left here who could woo votes away from Obama.

That's just good politics if you're serious about winning Michigan. Your move, McCain.

Granholm adopts Clinton math, says MI key to her nomination

From my new Capitol Chronicles column and blog for mlive.com:

After Hillary Clinton's dual victories this week in Pennsylvania and at Michigan's district conventions, Gov. Jennifer Granholm said the Mitten State would be a key factor in her candidate winning the nomination.

"I think Michigan will be critical," said Granholm, Clinton's highest-profile supporter in the state.

On Saturday, Clinton won a quiet victory at the 15 Michigan Democratic Party (MDP) conventions, taking not just her allotted delegates but is likely to eventually gain a fair chunk of the uncommitted delegates the MDP officially said should go to Obama. Several labor members elected and uncommitted delegates reserved the right to vote for whomever their union endorses and most, especially the UAW, are thought to lean Clinton.

The rest of the 128 pledged delegates will be selected at the central committee meeting in May and Obama isn't expected to fare any better with the Clinton-friendly bunch.

Granholm was upbeat about Clinton's prospects for the nomination at a press conference about an overseas investment mission today.

"I think if you look at the popular vote, that's one aspect for the super delegates can consider in deciding who would be the strongest candidate in the general election," she said.

"If you look at all the citizens who have voted in the nation, she's got more votes by citizens," the governor added.

Granholm was on message. The Clinton campaign has been pushing the idea to the media, with some success, that after her 9-point win in Pennsylvania, she now leads in the popular vote. That includes Clinton's votes in Michigan and Florida, which she won, but the Democratic National Committee (DNC) stripped them of their delegates for holding early primaries.

The official tally is Barack Obama has 14,417,619 votes to Clinton's 13,917,393. With Florida and Michigan, it's 14,993,833 for Obama and 15,116,688 for Clinton.

What's most questionable about the Clinton camp's accounting is that Obama wasn't on the ballot in Michigan, although "uncommitted" was. The MDP officially said all uncommitted delegates should go to Obama. However, Clinton math doesn't give him any of the 238,168 "uncommitted" votes. Counting those, Obama bounces back in the lead, 15,232,001 to 15,116,688.

"Even if you gave him all the uncommitted, she would still be ahead in the popular vote," Granholm said.

When she was corrected by reporters, Granholm acknowledged, "I may be wrong," adding she was looking at RealClearPolitics.

When asked why Clinton should be allowed to claim votes she didn't campaign for, Granholm said, "She left her name on the ballot." Clinton did reassure New Hampshire voters last fall that the Michigan primary wouldn't count.

Granholm also blamed Obama for not consenting to a revote in Michigan, saying it wasn't fair to voters.

"And it's all nice to talk about the delegates and the super delegates and the party poobahs who are making decisions, but the people who actually voted and there was an effort to give people another chance to vote. Now is that fair?"

Interestingly, she cast Clinton as the champion of democracy and implied Obama was trying to win on procedural grounds. The roles have been flipped for most of the contest, as Obama does lead in delegates, states won and the popular vote and Clinton would have to win via super delegates or a convention fight. There's great consternation amongst Democrats, and not just Obama backers, that a Clinton win would subvert the democratic process.

Granholm said she didn't think the nomination would be decided until the last primaries on June 3.

The governor again called on the DNC to count Michigan's votes and seat the delegation. She said she did expect the delegation would be seated (Chair Howard Dean has committed to that, however vaguely) and thought the decision would come before the August national convention in Denver.

"Nobody wants to see a fight," Granholm said, flashing a grin at the media, "except for you all, probably."

Susan J. Demas on NBC, NPR, Newsweek, RealClearPolitics sites

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Michigan is becoming Clinton's secret weapon

Susan J. Demas
The Detroit News

If you punched your ballot for "uncommitted" in Michigan's Jan. 15 Democratic presidential primary to back Barack Obama, your vote might have essentially gone to Hillary Clinton anyway.

While all eyes were locked on Pennsylvania for the last six weeks, Clinton was quietly amassing delegates in the Wolverine State. And she was rewarded this past weekend with a significant victory at the district conventions.

This development naturally has been overshadowed by her big win Tuesday night in Pennsylvania. But the race for the Democratic nomination wasn't decided then and won't be by the remaining contests -- not North Carolina, Indiana or even Guam -- because the real fight is over delegates. And Michigan remains a key battleground.

On Aug. 25, Clinton will march into the national convention in Denver stronger than most people realize, thanks to her aggressive ground game in Michigan.

Buoyed by party elder support, Clinton seems likely to capture more than 60 percent of the state's 128 pledged delegates, according to an analysis by the Michigan Information & Research Service. Including the 28 superdelegates, which lean heavily in the New York senator's favor, she could win upward of 70 percent of delegates, provided that they're seated with full voting power.

That depends on the Democratic National Committee, which punished Michigan for leapfrogging the primary schedule. There is no deal yet to seat the delegation. But the Clinton camp is working overtime to ensure the elected slate is sent. Keep in mind that Clinton won 55 percent to uncommitted's 40 percent since Obama wasn't on the ballot. He has pushed for a 50-50 percent delegate split, but that proposal hasn't gained traction.

It's becoming apparent that Obama should have consented to a revote here. He certainly wouldn't have lost by 15 percentage points or more; polls have pegged the pair in a dead heat. But Obama seemed spooked that Clintonites put forth the plan and the money, so he quashed the do-over last month.

Now Obama is paying the price in delegates, starting with the Michigan Democratic Party's 15 district conventions on Saturday. The Clinton battle plan was flawlessly executed with an eye toward a contested convention. Their delegate roster is crammed with big names like former Gov. Jim Blanchard and Lansing Mayor Virg Bernero.

"We wanted to pick people who would be loyal to Hillary, who would commit to her through multiple ballots," Blanchard says.

Michiganders for Obama, a ragtag group of new volunteers, triumphed in turnout Saturday but were steamrolled by the Clinton machine. Obama has proved to be a master of organization, but he made a tactical error not to plump up his skeletal apparatus in Michigan.

As a result, he will almost certainly fall short of the 36 uncommitted delegates selected. Volunteers argued that only Obama supporters should be uncommitted delegates, but they were outmaneuvered. About half of the uncommitted delegates reserved the right to vote for Clinton, depending on whom their unions eventually endorse.

While union officials flatly deny they're in the tank for Clinton, Obama supporters point out that United Auto Workers Legislative Coordinator Nadine Nosal was elected in the 8th District as an alternate Clinton delegate. That underscores the fact that Obama's speech to the Detroit Economic Club last year, calling for higher federal fuel economy standards, went over with labor leaders like a lead balloon.

In May, the party's labor-heavy, Clinton-friendly central committee chooses the remaining 45 delegates, setting up a scenario of more uncommitted delegates switching to Clinton.

Given her narrow path to the nomination, Clinton and her aides have argued that pledged delegates are fair game to flip. Although they've since backed away from such statements, the Michigan delegate conventions show the Clinton delegate strategy is being set into motion. What this could mean is four very interesting days in Denver. Although the odds still favor Obama -- who leads in delegates, the popular vote and states won -- he has to be a bit rattled over two losses in one week.

If Clinton comes out on top in a floor war, we might well look back at the Michigan mêlée as the turning point.

Did Clinton Forces Infiltrate "Uncommitted" Delegates at Michigan Dem Convention?

by Susan J. Demas

Buzzflash Guest Contribution

If you voted "uncommitted" in the Michigan primary to support Barack Obama, your vote might have essentially gone to Hillary Clinton anyway.

The Michigan Information & Research Service (MIRS) has learned that some of the 36 uncommitted delegates chosen at Saturday's district conventions say they're staying uncommitted and not backing Obama. That seems curious, because there are only two candidates left in the race and those backing Clinton could have caucused for her.

Michigan Democratic Party (MDP) Chair Mark Brewer gave those exact instructions to those attending the 15 sites. But Obama supporters say they might not have been heeded to give Clinton even more than the 55 percent of delegates she won on January 15.

This could be a harbinger of what is to come. A MIRS analysis of superdelegates shows most favor Clinton (See "Advantage Clinton In MI Super Delegate Hunt," 3/19/08). The central committee will choose another 45 pledged delegates, and party elders are largely pro-Hillary. When all is said and done, Clinton likely will walk away with more than 60 percent of Michigan's pledged and superdelegates, perhaps more than 70 percent.

That is if the delegates are seated with full voting power. Negotiations are still ongoing with the Democratic National Committee, although it's not clear what the makeup would be. Obama has proposed splitting them 50-50. So there's a chance more chaos could ensue down the road, although MDP spokeswoman Liz Kerr said they'll cross that bridge when it comes.

Clinton, by and large, had the establishment on Saturday. Former Governor Jim Blanchard, who didn't attend the 9th District, but was elected a delegate, said the Clinton forces were well organized with an eye toward a contested convention. "We wanted to pick people who would be loyal to Hillary, who would commit to her through multiple ballots," said Blanchard.

There was Michiganders for Obama, an upstart group trying to organize but it was behind the curve since the candidate never campaigned here.

Some Obama supporters were especially suspicious on Saturday of the "unity slates" made up of members of the UAW, which hasn't endorsed a candidate. Attendees said there were shouting matches and massive confusion at the 9th District convention. UAW member Catherine Martin was elected as an uncommitted delegate and plans to stay that way until the union endorses.

State Rep. Aldo Vagnozzi (D-Farmington Hills), an elected Obama delegate, points out Martin was elected by an "overwhelmingly Obama crowd."

The problem is the perception that the UAW backs Clinton. Nadine Nosal, legislative coordinator for the UAW, was elected in the 8th District as an alternate delegate supporting Clinton.

The UAW flatly denies it's pro-Clinton. Nosal said the union put delegate candidates in both caucuses because it's neutral. As for the Obama supporters' criticism, she said, "I don't perceive it to be what they're saying."

The Clinton campaign has been unusually quiet about the Michigan conventions. Clinton and national advisers have said that Obama's pledged delegates are fair game to flip, although they've backed away from statements afterward. Still, Clinton is making an aggressive behind-the-scenes push with superdelegates and to massage the nominating process to ensure she gets the nomination, even if she's behind in the delegate count, popular vote, and states won.

The MDP hasn't released an official list of the 83 delegates and 15 alternates. Kerr said it hasn't been policy to do so in past years until a few days before the national convention.

The remaining 45 of the 128 pledged delegates will be selected at the central committee meeting in May.

Derrick Johnson is an uncommitted delegate from the 15th District who supports Obama and also is head of the Washtenaw County Board of Elections. He said he's heard from Obama backers in other districts who were concerned they were outmaneuvered by Clinton supporters.

"If you're uncommitted, our message is that you shouldn't be uncommitted now. There are only two people left. If you support Clinton, there's a process for her delegates. Uncommitted should be for Obama," Johnson said. "It wasn't a problem in our district, but I think we had a different culture there than in some others."

Vagnozzi said there were four times as many Obama supporters than Clinton backers in the 9th, which seems to fit the statewide pattern. But the MDP doesn't have attendance numbers yet.

When asked if that was surprising, given the fact that Clinton won the primary, Vagnozzi said, "I think it shows the election wasn't an accurate reflection. Obama wasn't on the ballot. Clinton was."

He said the most important thing is for the delegation to be seated, because a Democrat will never win the White House without Florida and Michigan.

Vagnozzi acknowledges that scenario doesn't favor Obama.

"It might, but it's much more important to seat Michigan than any downside to it."

Nosal said it was her "hope and prayer" that the Democrats rally around the nominee whenever that's decided. "We need to come together. We need to elect a Democrat -- I feel so strongly about that. Otherwise, we'll have four more years of what we've already had eight years of."

The sad, short political life of John Edwards

John Edwards stood before me, cradling an angelic 11-month-old popping a pacifier with the serenity only a father of four has.

His now famously $400-coiffed hair was shaggier then, his powder-blue Oxford collar unbuttoned and his cauliflower eyes less crinkled. There was an ease to the then-freshman senator on that sultry August day in 2003.

Speaking to a gathering of 40 university-types in a sprawling Iowa City backyard, Edwards relished his sunny, upstart campaign, much like Mike Huckabee did this time around.

The expert litigator didn't unfurl a fiery speech, as would become his trademark in 2008, nor did he spend much time on labor issues, save for his "son of a millworker" spiel. He deftly touched on the death of his oldest son, Wade, which propelled him into politics.

But in spite of his paper-thin political résumé (far skimpier than Barack Obama's), he looked presidential in a Hollywood sort of way. And he definitely had the kissing babies part down.

So I wasn't particularly surprised that he scored second place in the Iowa caucuses in '04. Nor was I by his repeat performance this year.

The difference was, after moving to the cornfields for a couple years, coming in No. 2 again was the death-knell of his campaign. I had my suspicions even back in August 2007 after talking with Edwards strategist Joe Trippi.

In the spin room after a Chicago debate, Trippi refreshingly didn't fall over himself to invent all the ways his guy won. He wisely said the field was winnowing to three, lumping Edwards and Obama together as the reform candidates.

When I asked if Edwards would hold a fundraising and organizational advantage over Republicans, Trippi replied, "Whoever the Democratic nominee is - whether it's Edwards or someone else - will inherit a much better operation."

When your communications guru stops painting you as an invincible superhero, you've got problems. Even Dennis Kucinich kept hope alive by adorably telling audiences, "When I'm president . . ."

There was a surrealist melancholy to Edwards' second run, as his wife, Elizabeth, wilted from a recurrence of incurable breast cancer. Both of them seemed itching for a fight - and who could blame them?

But for a former political Pollyanna, Edwards' newfound anger seemed off-key and his love affair with unions (after previously sitting on his hands in right-to-work North Carolina) came off contrived.

His worst moment came at that Chi-town debate, when a disabled steelworker who could barely stand at the microphone pled with candidates about universal health care.

"What's wrong with America?" Steve Skvara asked, neck pulsating in pain. "And what will you do to change it?"

Edwards blithely dispensed vague promises of reform, before proclaiming himself to be the true workers' candidate.

"Who was with you in crunch time?" Edwards grinned ingratiatingly at the crowd.

It was a truly chilling exchange, which his campaign didn't get, instead trumpeting the footage on YouTube. I wondered how a man whose wife has metastatic stage four cancer could respond that way.

After a string of dismal showings before Super Tuesday, Edwards quit. He never captured the limelight he felt he'd earned as a former vice presidential nominee, usurped by Hillary Clinton primping herself for coronation and by the superstar status of the silver-tongued Obama.

("We can't make John black; we can't make him a woman," Elizabeth Edwards had once scowled on the stump).

As the increasingly bitter Democratic brawl drags on, attention is turning to party elders to inject some sanity. But although a steady drip of superdelegates have come Obama's way, Edwards has stayed mum.

The conventional wisdom was that Edwards would endorse the frontrunner. They'd both ganged up on Clinton as the corporate candidate, who defended taking boatloads of lobbyists' cash because they "represent real Americans."

The golden boy hasn't and is now said to favor Clinton, whom he respects as a fighter, underscoring his resentment of Obama's successful healer-in-chief campaign.

The Edwardses are, not surprisingly, passionate about health care and prefer Clinton's blueprint to Obama's. This has always been a bizarre argument amongst the Dems, who all sport strikingly similar plans that are miles from John McCain's and the status quo.

There's a legitimate debate to be had over mandates (Obama doesn't have one for adults) but it's really just academic. Plans are just a starting point for negotiating with Congress (which Clinton blew big-time in 1993).

Four years after that Iowa City garden party, I'm still not quite sure who John Edwards is.

What is it that he wants? Does he want attorney general, terrorizing Wall Street a la Eliot Spitzer (sans the hooker mess)? It seems doubtful that he covets a second crack at veep. And he seems too restless to settle back down at the admirable anti-poverty organization he founded.

I don't think he knows.

He appears to be a man adrift in the face of losing his rock of 30 years. Grief and ambition drove him into politics. Sadly, it's now become a circular quest.

Clinton stacks the deck for re-vote

“Saturday Night Live” is clearly in the tank for Hillary Clinton, but here’s what you might not know: so is the Michigan Democratic establishment.

That’s the disingenuous backdrop to the frenzied debate over a do-over primary in the Great Lakes State after Clinton’s comeback last week.

She’s locked up Gov. Jennifer Granholm, former Gov. Jim Blanchard and Sen. Debbie Stabenow. And let’s not forget House Energy Chair John “The Truck” Dingell, whose wife, Democratic National Committeewoman Debbie Dingell, (not coincidentally) engineered the botched Jan. 15 primary to be Clinton’s firewall.

So much for that.

There’s also Michigan Democratic Party (MDP) Chair Mark Brewer, who swears on a stack of Bibles that he’s neutral. But everyone knows he was a big fan of fellow labor guy John Edwards and jumped to Clinton after he dropped out.

Who’s in Barack Obama’s camp? Rep. John Conyers, Teamster President James Hoffa and a smattering of state legislators, which means the Clintonistas hold most of the cards in the battle over a re-vote.

By now, the world knows Michigan’s primary was a bad joke straight out of SNL. Unlike Florida, Clinton was the only major candidate on the ballot; Obama and Edwards yanked their names off as soon as the Democratic National Committee erased the state’s delegates for brazenly flouting party rules.

Last fall, even Clinton called the contest meaningless.

She only mustered 55 percent against no one (a.k.a. “uncommitted”) in the race for zero delegates, which Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell cleverly spun on Sunday’s “Meet the Press”: “You run against uncommitted, that’s the toughest election to win.”

Yeah, right.

As it stands, Obama has stingily hung on to his 100-plus delegate lead, even with Texas (which he won anyway in delegates) and Ohio.

That means the Clinton camp needs to reset the electoral math equation to win. And voila! Michigan and Florida have reemerged as the battleground.

Problem is, Clinton still can’t catch up unless Obama nets zero delegates in some contests. Enter Blanchard, who proposes “all-or-nothing” primaries in the two states in a last-ditch attempt to give a Clinton nomination electoral legitimacy.

If you don’t like the rules, change ‘em. Worked for the Soviet Union.

Granholm has been less blatant, casting an eye to the federal bench or a cabinet post with either candidate, though her heart belongs to Hillary. (When Obama was on a winning streak, the gov notably was one of the first to glom onto the “dream ticket” scenario).

So Granholm’s thrown out the idea of a “firehouse primary,” a scaled-back contest on a Saturday.

Of course, it’s still murky how the Mitten State – which just hiked taxes to plug a $2 billion deficit – can afford another primary after shelling out $10 million for a worthless one in January.

One solution you’re not hearing about is a less-costly caucus – which the state party has traditionally held in presidential years. But caucuses have favored Obama’s hustle and organization, and thus have been deemed “undemocratic” by Team Clinton.

That surely will come as news to first-in-the-nation Iowa.

Sen. Carl Levin, who doesn’t have a dog in this fight and thus has moral standing, backs a mail-in re-vote. Sounds sensible, especially from a cost perspective, but there’s no way to snuff out the stench of becoming a banana republic.

The truth is, there aren’t any great solutions here.

But Brewer wants his delegates – he’s staked his reputation on this fight. The staunch Granholm ally is negotiating furiously, insisting the outcome will be fair to Obama, since the MDP, DNC and both campaigns all have to sign on.

Many Obama backers would leap at the chance to vote for him for the first time. But Brewer’s promises ring flat - kind of how the Arab world scoffs at the idea of the United States as an honest broker in the Middle East peace process.

Let’s be clear - nobody is pure in this. The Obamaniacs want their guy to win and some are willing bend the rules accordingly. State Sen. Buzz Thomas, D-Detroit, for instance, wants to split Michigan’s delegates 50-50.

The difference is, he’s in absolutely no position to make that happen. The Clinton cabal has stacked the deck.

What they don’t realize is ultimately, their strategy is a house of cards.

The most ominous sign for Clinton is her crushing defeat in Detroit, where uncommitted pulled 70 percent of the vote. Our biggest city – which is economically decimated and 82 percent black – already feels disenfranchised.

Clinton could irreparably alienate the party’s most dependable voting block - and racially explosive remarks by supporters like Geraldine Ferraro don’t help.

After all, how does a Democratic presidential hopeful ever carry Michigan? Stockpile big margins in Detroit to offset outstate returns.

Yep, Hillary can win this hand. But I’ll bet she still loses in the end.

Clinton tries to stack deck for contest

Susan J. Demas
The Detroit News

"Saturday Night Live" is clearly in the tank for Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton, but so is the Michigan Democratic establishment.

That's the disingenuous backdrop to the frenzied debate over a do-over primary here. Clinton has locked up Gov. Jennifer Granholm, former Gov. Jim Blanchard, Sen. Debbie Stabenow and U.S. Rep. John Dingell, D-Dearborn.

In Barack Obama's camp is Rep. John Conyers, Teamster President James Hoffa and a smattering of state legislators, which means the Clintonistas hold most of the cards in the battle over a re-vote.

Michigan's $10 million primary was a bad joke. Unlike Florida, Clinton was the only major candidate on the ballot; Obama and Edwards yanked their names off as soon as the DNC erased the state's delegates for brazenly flouting party rules.

Clinton only mustered 55 percent against no one (also known as "uncommitted").

Obama has stingily hung on to his more than 100-delegate lead. That means the Clinton camp needs to reset the electoral math equation to win.

Problem is, Clinton still can't catch up unless Obama nets no delegates in some states. Enter Blanchard, who proposes "all-or-nothing" primaries in the two states in a last-ditch attempt to give Clinton electoral legitimacy.

One solution you're not hearing about is a less costly traditional caucus -- which the state party has usually held. But caucuses have favored Obama's hustle and organization.

Granholm has proposed a "firehouse primary," but it is more expensive, is open longer and is held on a Saturday.

The Clinton team is trying to stack the deck against Obama for a second Michigan contest. But Clinton risks alienating the party's most dependable voting bloc, African-Americans -- the key to carrying Michigan in November. In that case, the Clinton strategy will become a house of cards.

Sisterhood is petulant

I hope he sent Hillary flowers.

John McCain's real triumph Tuesday wasn't snapping up the last of the 1,191 delegates needed to finally convince the dejected far right he's the Republican nominee.

No, it was the many gifts Clinton plopped into his lap, starting with that grating red phone ad she unleashed last week warning that cherubic children will die in their beds if Barack Obama beats her:

"It's 3 a.m., and your children are safe and asleep. But there's a phone in the White House, and it's ringing. Something's happening in the world. Your vote will decide who answers that call. Whether it's someone who already knows the world's leaders, knows the military - someone tested and ready to lead in a dangerous world."

Who could that be? The answer, dear Hillary, is obvious: John McCain.

Last time I checked, he's the one who can't hold his arms above his head because they were busted so many times by the North Vietnamese. After a more than five-year stint as a POW, he spent 25 years cultivating his foreign policy credentials in Congress.

When did Hillary ever have to pick up the (nonexistent) red phone when Bill was in office? Never. First ladies don't get national security clearance.

So while McCain was boogying down Tuesday, I hope he didn't forget the little lady who seems hell-bent on delivering him a bigger prize in November by mortally wounding Obama.

Of course, Clinton's still a lock to lose.

Confetti-strewn victory bashes over Ohio and Texas rock, but it's all about delegates - and she comes up short. Clinton didn't major in math or miracles (and we saw how well the latter worked out for Mike Huckabee).

So unless she twists the arms of superdelegates to defy the will of voters or makes a rotten backroom deal to capture Florida's and Michigan's invisible delegates, Clinton is toast.

If she does eke out a victory, it'll reek. The starry-eyed Obama kids will stay home - anyone who recalls Richard Nixon's 1968 win after the Chicago Democratic convention carnage knows that.

The crux of Clinton's case will crumble. Once she's on stage next to McCain, whose hair was shocked white in the Hanoi Hilton, all that nonsense of 35 years of experience will crystallize.

Clinton's a brilliant woman whose crowning glory is botching our best shot to fix health care. She'll make a wily Senate Majority Leader someday. Meantime, enjoy President McCain's picks for the Supreme Court.

It's Obama who ultimately will pay the price of Clinton's "kitchen sink" strategy - and she and her multimillion-dollar consultants couldn't care less.

If Barack loses in 2008, guess who makes another run for it in 2012? It doesn't take a cynic to figure this battle plan out.

Team Clinton is doing McCain's dirty work for him. But somehow I don't think Mr. Straight Talk would shade Obama's face to look darker in a menacing ad. I can't see him doing the Texas two-step on Obama being a Muslim like Clinton telling "60 Minutes," "There is nothing to base that on, as far as I know ..."

Wink, wink. Nod, nod.

Republicans like Bill Nowling are lapping it up.

"The big winner is John McCain," the state GOP spokesman effuses. "We're building a national campaign for the White House while the two Democrats fight amongst themselves over who will be the first to surrender in the war on terror."

As Clinton careens down the course to become the most unlikable presidential candidate in recent memory, she has her girlfriends screaming that you're sexist for noticing. Robin Morgan and Gloria Steinem are busy browbeating young (and older) women as "gender traitors" for backing Obama, as if the election is some fusty women's studies class at Bryn Mawr.

They never mention Clinton's feminist accomplishments in the Senate (there aren't any) - but assert the jarringly simplistic idea that women are morally obligated to vote for others with ovaries.

As an ardent feminist, it's hard to see my heroines caricature themselves. Their joyless rants feed into the worst Rush Limbaugh stereotypes and are just depressing.

In fact, Hillary Clinton's whole campaign is depressing. (As one Toledo college student told me last week, "She sucks at life.")

Clinton maintains she's a fighter, while paradoxically playing the victim to the press. She's goaded the national media into throwing punches at Obama between her own blows.

She's set the terms of the race from beginning to end. That's why few people dared suggest the Warrior Princess bow out after 11 straight smackdowns, whereas Obama would have been laughed back to the south side of Chicago.

Clinton's slimy strategy of character assassination worked perfectly for the Tuesday primaries and she promises much more to come.

Hillary doesn't mind winning ugly, because she's decided "it's time to put a woman in the White House." But it isn't about equality or the Democratic Party.

In the end, it's all about her.

Hoping against hope?

“I am not running because I think it is somehow owed to me. I am running because of what Dr. King called the fierce urgency of now.” - U.S. Sen. Barack Obama

TOLEDO, Ohio — I watched Barack Obama percolate through the throngs here on Sunday with a tremendous sense of foreboding.

People began lining up outside the University of Toledo’s Savage Hall at 3 a.m. - more than 12 hours before the magnetic Illinois senator was scheduled to speak - and the stadium was clogged to its 10,000 capacity.

A staggering 5,000 more people were turned away.

Amidst the swooning students, burly union jacks and bubbly chants of “Obama! Ohio!” there was a palpable electricity that I’ve never witnessed in the three presidential elections I have covered (or the eight I’ve lived through). No, it is something I have only read about, history nerd that I am.

This is the stuff of 1968.

It is the frenzy of the “fierce urgency of now” that Martin Luther King first spoke of at the 1963 March on Washington that would explode across the ‘60s - the last decade anybody really thought that anything was possible.

After hearing Obama’s commanding 30-minute oratory, there’s something funereal about John McCain sniffing about his “empty eloquence.” And when Hillary Clinton churlishly mocks her rival’s presidential plan as “waving a magic wand,” she comes off as a bitter battleaxe who slept through the ‘60s.

There’s no question in my mind that Obama will wrest the nomination from her. I believe he’ll win Michigan in the fall, though he’s never appeared on a ballot here.

If he makes it that far.

These are words uttered in hushed tones in campaign offices and in living rooms across America. These are words I don’t want to write.

But there is a reason, after all, why Obama was the first candidate this cycle to need Secret Service protection.

There is a haunting sense of 1968 in the air that has all the trappings of a beautiful tragedy. There’s the indefatigable, anti-war, upstart senator underestimated by the party bosses who hustled his way to become the frontrunner.

Obama shares Bobby Kennedy’s brooding visage that can dissolve into an improbably broad grin, as well as his soaring rhetoric. Obama’s is punctuated by his stratospheric intelligence and methodical, pragmatic approach to problem-solving, much like that of John F. Kennedy.

(Lest I be accused of having a crush on Obama, he is not nearly as accomplished as either Kennedy – he never launched a full-frontal assault on union corruption, wrote a Pulitzer Prize-winning book or was a war hero).

Everyone knows what happened to the Kennedys during that rollicking era of hope and rage, of sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll. And many more black leaders were gunned down during those last throes of acceptable racism – King, Medgar Evers and other pioneers.

I surely am a pessimist. But I talk to people who insist Barack Hussein Obama is a crack-smoking Muslim and routinely encounter those who say flat-out, “I won’t vote for a black guy.”

There remains a deep, virulent racism in this country. And I wonder how far we’ve come.

Race will be the undercurrent of a race between Obama and McCain. I have no doubt that McCain, an honorable man, won’t stoke the flames. After all, he watched his own presidential dreams shrivel up in 2000 when George W. Bush’s goons made robo-calls in South Carolina that McCain had sired a “black baby” (who was actually adopted from a Bangladesh orphanage).

The problem is, McCain’s hired many operatives who hatched the racist calls and others who designed the equally dishonest 2004 Swift Boat ads against John Kerry.

These folks aren’t exactly known for straight talk.

After three years of plotting against Clinton, the GOP is playing catch-up on how to best disembowel Obama. In the Wall Street Journal, Karl Rove painted a vivid picture of the senator as “lazy,” attributing his “trash talking” to days spent “playing pick-up basketball.”

Yeah, we get your drift. So did many shiftless African-Americans, leaving Republicans to whine that they just don’t know how to run against the Kenyan-Kansan without being called racist.

Never fear. Under our mangled campaign finance system (which currently doesn’t even have a functional Federal Election Commission) right-wing activists can launch their own smear jobs without leaving fingerprints.

Will that be the backdrop to some nut job whipping out a 9 mm to keep the White House, er, white?

I can see the macabre scene unfold, just as it did with RFK in that sweaty California ballroom on June 4, 1968. I can see a dour Hillary Clinton carrying on, claiming Obama’s legacy to no avail, as safe and steady John McCain wins handily in the fall.

And journalist Jack Newfield’s agonizing words would ring true again: “From this time forward, things would only get worse; our best political leaders were part of memory now, not hope.”

I hope not.