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.

History offers real fireworks on the 4th

Independence Day is one of those kick-back, crack-open-a-beer kind of holidays, so I could think of no better way to celebrate than with a jaunt over to the Richard Nixon Presidential Library in Yorba Linda, Calif.

After all, it's a day to commemorate our democracy, so why not visit the birthplace of the man whose imperial secrecy came closest to subverting that tradition in the last half-century?

As my editor says, I'm a nerd.

Of course, after strolling through the orange-tree-lined grounds, memories of the Watergate Hotel break-in, illegal wiretapping and enemies list seem to melt under the southern California rays.

Touring Nixon's snow-white boyhood home humanizes the image of a glowering, unshaven 37th president as it's meant to, providing a window into his austere Quaker upbringing as the second of five boys.

An accordionist, violinist and pianist, he made up for his lackluster skill with undying determination, which would become the hallmark of his political career, starting as an upstart congressman fresh out of the Navy in World War II. And it was that quality Nixon unfortunately took to a paranoid extreme in the 1970s in his quest for a second spell in the Oval Office.

Like all presidential museums, this one provides a glossy, official history, beginning with a Nixon-approved biographic film in which he serenely airs long-standing beefs with the liberal media and vote stealing in Illinois during his 1960 White House run.

Following the golden rule of public relations rehabilitation, the museum collection starts with laudatory coverage of Nixon's death in 1994, complete with tearful letters from schoolchildren around the globe ("Nixon's still the one.")

There are the usual pastel beaded first lady gowns, bumper stickers with now-implausible slogans ("Democrats for Nixon") and the formulaic Great Man historical synopses next to correspondence and photographs.

But the library also is a careful reminder of Nixon's diplomatic expertise in opening the door to China and establishing détente with the Soviet Union. One wishes he would have employed that talent far earlier in Vietnam, as he had promised, and spared tens of thousands of lives.

The final chapter of Nixon's brilliance and ambition gone awry is missing. A revamped Watergate exhibit opens next week, including newly released documents and analysis critical of the former president.

Although the section does not appear to be as extensive as the Gerald R. Ford Library's exploration of the Nixon pardon, it avoids the knee-jerk temptation to whitewash history. One wonders what the Iraq war exhibit will look like at President George W. Bush's future library.

Years ago, I was a history major lucky enough to live 10 minutes from the birthplace of Herbert Hoover in West Branch, Iowa. I know many of my neighbors didn't even know that gem of a museum existed.

After delving into Hoover's isolationist and individualist policies, I remained unconvinced he could have yanked America out of the Great Depression, just as I failed to be moved by Nixon's rebuff of Lyndon Johnson's Great Society programs. But I did walk away with a greater appreciation of both men and their motivations.

You don't get to pick your history. You can only learn from it — and you never will by only reading about those with whom you agree.

So it did my heart good to see so many families pour into the Nixon Library on the Fourth of July before heading to the beach or ball game. One silver-haired Marine held his hand over his heart the whole time. A mother struggled to diplomatically explain to her 9-year-old daughter why we still have to honor the only president to have resigned the office.

Democracy is messy. Our history is terrible and triumphant.

There are no easy answers. What's important is that enough people keep asking questions.