The GOP: Evolve or die

The party of personal responsibility is having an awfully hard time with that concept after the election.

Listening to Republicans nowadays is like booking time with a colicky baby. I haven't heard so much whining and crying since my daughter was 3 months old.

Oh, and have I mentioned they're angry? Really steamed, like savaging anyone who suggests they chill as godless socialists who want nonstop gay sex and baby killing for the next eight years (I think I hear my e-mail now). I look forward to adding them to my folder of paranoid messages that Barack Obama won't be inaugurated after all because there is *PROOF THAT HIS BIRTH CERTIFICATE WAS FORGED.* And the threats from Republicans that they just might be moving to Canada.

There's little time for self-reflection in a pity party. And right now, the right is rapturously licking its wounds, sounding more than a little like the Dems in 1980.

There's scant acknowledgement that Obama ran a stellar campaign and Democrats have clearly become the party for moderate voters. No one wants to dwell on the fact that Obama won by 7 percent nationally, when George W. Bush topped out at 3 percent in '04 after losing the popular vote in 2000. And please don't bring up that Obama won nine Bush states, some like Nevada and New Mexico by double digits.

Ignore the state-of-the-art get-out-the-vote drive that made W's look like amateur hour. And pay no attention to the 200,000 tearful supporters in Grant Park, the collective world adulation and reports that Obama could draw a record-shattering 4 million to his inauguration.

No, it's not so much that the Dems won this election, but circumstances conspired so the GOP lost. Really, how could Republicans win with the economy tanking, Bush's legacy and the malevolent media?

It's never their fault. The country is still with them, despite irrefutable proof to the contrary with the presidency and two houses of Congress going very blue.

The clinical definition of this, of course, is denial.

Republicans still insist Obama would have lost without Wall Street going into a tailspin. John McCain was leading in many polls until then, which they attribute to their favorite moose-shooting mama, Sarah Palin. That ignores the fact this was a post-convention bounce and the first time the Arizona senator had posted a consistent lead.

While the economy is surely a tricky issue with a Republican in the White House, the fact is that McCain both lost on this issue due to his wild mood swings and stunts, and Obama won it with his cool demeanor that settled voters' frayed nerves. He also connected far better to the middle class.

As for the current president, he surely was an albatross, which was precisely why right-wingers were whining from the get-go how unfair it was to tie Bush to McCain. Why? They knew it was a powerful message and worried it would work.

Of course, it didn't have to. McCain differs from Bush on issues ranging from global warming to campaign finance and has a much more bipartisan disposition. But by veering to the right to shore up the base, he made those Bush-McCain morphs seem plausible and unseemly.

And there is a certain irony in Republicans ranting that the president isn't a true conservative anyway, what with his big-government Medicare Part D and No Child Left Behind. Well, kiddies, most of you voted for them at the time. Talking heads used to screech that anyone who would dare question our commander-in-chief at a time of war should be charged with treason.

Bush's only real problem with the right is that his poll numbers plummeted.

And finally there's the media, or shall I say, the worldwide conspiracy to put Obama in the Oval Office. Look, it's a fact that Obama won a landslide in newspaper endorsements and won over a number of columnists, many of them conservatives like Chris Buckley.

I don't think this election with its nonstop horserace coverage was a high point for investigative journalism into either candidate, although Obama came out slightly ahead in this regard. There were more negative stories about McCain in general, but that's what happens when your campaign is wracked with infighting and you're losing.

But the idea that the media can determine elections is laughable. If that's the case, we wouldn't be hemorrhaging red ink, because everyone would want a piece of the all-powerful press. Our sales pitch would be devastatingly simple: We can make presidents, you know.
Here's the bottom line for Republicans: You lost. Own it. Learn from it. Stop focusing on what you can't control and fix the fundamental problem - you're not connecting with voters like Obama did. Your no-tax, social-issues-on-steroids message has grown stale.

Ronald Reagan hasn't ruled for 20 years and yet you're still looking back. Demographics can become destiny and you're losing badly with key groups like young voters, Asians and Latinos.

Change is hard for conservatives, for obvious definitional reasons. But the truth is, in the kill-or-be-killed world of politics, those who don't evolve - becoming stronger and leaner - die.

So far Republicans are resisting such heresy. Evolution is just a theory, after all.

Death of a maverick

The political autopsy of John McCain has already begun.

Four days remain, of course, and he could still pull this out. But even more than the daunting gap in swing state polls, it's the rabid infighting and utter gloom in Team McCain that's the dead giveaway that Nov. 4 will be a brief and bloody night for Republicans.

Two narratives have arisen as to why McCain will lose. His supporters claim that with a tanking economy and President Bush's record low popularity, McCain was sunk from the start. No other Republican could have made it a contest.

Less charitable folks say McCain has run a terrible campaign, plagued by bickering staff with competing agendas from the start. His message bounced all over the place (which sadly is inevitable when more moderate candidates compete in GOP primaries and then shift to the general election).

But it was the Wall Street meltdown proved fatal. McCain seemed determined to prove Barack Obama's charge that he was erratic (suspending the campaign, diddling around Washington, going to the debate anyway) and the impression has stuck.

There's truth to both storylines. But I think the ultimate reason is more organic.

McCain wasn't allowed to be McCain. He didn't run the kind of campaign he wanted, leaving him forever to wonder what if. What if I'd picked Joe Lieberman as VP? What if I'd run a clean campaign? What if I ran on the issues I valued most and palled around with the press?

In a way, McCain will probably regret this more than his actual defeat. Because there's nothing quite like compromising your core and going down anyway.

Let's make this clear. This wasn't a murder of McCain; it was a suicide. McCain is the captain of the ship and didn't have to hand the reins over to traditional GOP advisers like Rick Davis and Charlie Black nationally or Chuck Yob in Michigan. If he wanted to run like a true maverick, he should have kept his conscience, John Weaver, and hired Mike Murphy, who wasn't afraid to challenge him.

But McCain ran like a candidate afraid to lose from the get-go. It was only when he got back to basics in New Hampshire, tirelessly holding town halls in hamlets for a dozen people at a time last summer, that his campaign was reborn.

What ultimately greased his way through the inhospitable GOP primary season was that the far right was uncharacteristically fickle about its anointed candidate. Fred Thompson, Mitt Romney and even social liberal Rudy Giuliani duked it out while McCain stitched together a series of unlikely wins.

Once he grabbed the nomination, he floundered for four months, failing to campaign hard even as Obama and Hillary Clinton threatened to obliterate each other and take the party with them.

McCain clearly thought he'd face Clinton, whom he respected, and always viewed Obama as a cocky usurper. But his campaign allowed him to telegraph his disdain, which he most notably did with his sighs and eye rolls at the debates. Better advisers would have drilled Mac to be more happy warrior, less grumpy old man.

His contempt for Obama also allowed him to OK vile robocalls linking him to terrorism, run sinister ads questioning his patriotism and fall just short of calling him a commie at rallies. McCain can justify this to himself because Obama ducked town hall debates and broke his public financing pledge.

But the truth is that McCain is running the sort of bare-knuckle, whip-up-the-basest-elements-in-the-base campaign that Bush thrashed him with in 2000. The lesson McCain seemed to learn from that was that nice guys finish last. Better to sell out than sell yourself short.

Which brings us to his pick of Sarah Palin. Reports in the New Yorker and other publications clearly paint McCain as being irascible and demoralized when his advisers foisted Palin upon him. The senator wanted a truly bipartisan, national security ticket with Lieberman.

McCain was told in no uncertain terms that he would shatter the party, that pandemonium would reign at the convention with a far right exodus. Well, so what? The Dixiecrats walked out of the Dems' bash in 1948 and most formally seceded by the '60s. That helped the Democratic Party redefine itself as one dedicated to equality and human rights.

McCain would have captured the holy grail of independents and stolen away moderate and conservative Democrats.

Look at the GOP right now. The civil war is happening anyway. McCain could have been the leader of the new pragmatic, centrist party. He could have taken control of the party platform on climate change, drilling, gay rights and abortion for starters. Instead, it's even more radical than it was under Bush's tutelage.

Now McCain is being pilloried by the right-wing media for killing the party (ha!) while Palin is canonized and groomed for the glorious resurrection in '12. Good luck with that.

If McCain had followed his instincts, he still might have fallen short. But at least his political epitaph would have cathartically read, "I did it my way."

Grand Old Pummeling

Even if John McCain manages to pull this one out in a squeaker, that won't be enough to save the Michigan Republican Party.

That's because McCain's circus-like pullout from the Mitten State earlier this month instantly translated into a double-digit lead for Barack Obama. No one, even Mac's most diehard supporters, thinks a comeback here is possible, unless Obama does a suicidal Detroit campaign swing with Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Kwame Kilpatrick and Willie Horton at his side.

McCain has choked off all the oxygen to down-ballot races here. Gone are the money, organization and rock star visits by Sarah Palin that state and local Republicans were desperately counting on to help them withstand the swelling Democratic tide.

Republicans thought they could finally pin the economy on Gov. Jennifer Granholm, but the Wall Street meltdown gave the guv a fresh coat of Teflon. It's a perfect storm and the GOP mood has swung from full-scale panic to unshakable depression.

Right now, the conservative estimate on state House losses is four. The doomsday scenario is 12, which would put the lower chamber at a lopsided 70-40 split in the Dems' favor.

The educational boards will swing even more Democratic, and many county, city and township bodies will be bluer after Nov. 4.

When a party fails as spectacularly as the Republicans are poised to, it's time for some soul-searching - which in politics usually means backstabbing and bloodbaths.

The wily maverick - who most of the blood-red party brass never cared much for anyway - will certainly garner his share of the blame. But John McCain won't be here to kick around.

The Michigan GOP's problems, of course, started long before this ridiculously long campaign. There are two crises facing Republicans post-Nov. 4: Who will lead them and where are they going?

In the short-term, this means yet another civil war between factions led by party chair Saul Anuzis and former National Committeeman Chuck Yob.

It's hard to say how that will turn out, but it will be a strain for Saul to shake off two disastrous election cycles in a row. Even though as a former Mitt Romney guy, he never had the inside track with the McCain clan and received no notice the nominee was skeddadling from Michigan.

There are many Republicans who wish a plague on both their houses, slamming Anuzis for meddling in policy matters like last year's budget crisis and Yob for having a political track record akin to perennial losers like my Chicago Cubs.

They just want a party that works. This is uncomfortable ground for people accustomed to the order, fraternalism and seniority that has had a vice grip on the GOP. Now they seem as splintered as Democrats, which have long operated like a loud, dysfunctional family.

The Republican Party here and nationally is fissuring amidst competing, incongruous interests brought together under Reagan - the country club set, moderates, the religious right, disgruntled blue collar Democrats, Wall Street, small business, rural dwellers and fiscal conservatives.

The split crystallized under the McCain-Palin ticket. There was little fire from the base or talk radio for McCain, who could never be forgiven for calling fundamentalists like Jerry Falwell "agents of intolerance." No matter how far to the right he veered, it was never good enough.

Palin was a godsend to the party faithful, but she turned off moderate McCainiacs, as well as a fatal number of independents. The result is no one's truly happy with the GOP ticket, as opposed to the Dems, who are both inspired by Obama and giddy to turn the page on George Bush.

Michigan Republicans have a better chance than their national counterparts to get it together. Granholm still remains unpopular, which bodes well for the 2010 governor's race, and the next wave of term-limited House retirements is set to sock Democrats far harder than the GOP. The party should pick up another Senate seat if state Sen. Mark Schauer captures the 7th District congressional slot.

But they'll need organization and a message. What's clear is that the party orthodoxy on abortion and taxes hasn't worked. Social issues have driven moderates from the party in droves. And it seems increasingly likely that no legislator will lose his seat for hiking taxes last year.

This is not 1980. That's something Republicans have to get over, stat. The get-government-off-my-back ethos has withered. Now it's bring back big government if you can save my 401(k).

That doesn't mean that conservatism is dead, nor should it be. But politics is never static, while parties tend to be. The Democrats finally had to become more pragmatic and rejigger themselves after their thumpings in the '80s and '90s and the day of reckoning has come for the GOP. The party needs fresh ideas on the fiscal crisis, health care and foreign policy.

Gerald Ford, Bill Milliken and Dwight Eisenhower offer obvious role models of centrist conservatism spliced with good government. And there was something safely reassuring about these leaders during troubled times.

All I know is if a modern Milliken gave it a stab in 2010, he'd have my vote in a heartbeat.

Grand Old Pummeling

Even if John McCain manages to pull this one out in a squeaker, that won't be enough to save the Michigan Republican Party.

That's because McCain's circus-like pullout from the Mitten State earlier this month instantly translated into a double-digit lead for Barack Obama. No one, even Mac's most diehard supporters, thinks a comeback here is possible, unless Obama does a suicidal Detroit campaign swing with Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Kwame Kilpatrick and Willie Horton at his side.

McCain has choked off all the oxygen to down-ballot races here. Gone are the money, organization and rock star visits by Sarah Palin that state and local Republicans were desperately counting on to help them withstand the swelling Democratic tide.

Republicans thought they could finally pin the economy on Gov. Jennifer Granholm, but the Wall Street meltdown gave the guv a fresh coat of Teflon. It's a perfect storm and the GOP mood has swung from full-scale panic to unshakable depression.

Right now, the conservative estimate on state House losses is four. The doomsday scenario is 12, which would put the lower chamber at a lopsided 70-40 split in the Dems' favor.

The educational boards will swing even more Democratic, and many county, city and township bodies will be bluer after Nov. 4.

When a party fails as spectacularly as the Republicans are poised to, it's time for some soul-searching - which in politics usually means backstabbing and bloodbaths.

The wily maverick - who most of the blood-red party brass never cared much for anyway - will certainly garner his share of the blame. But John McCain won't be here to kick around.

The Michigan GOP's problems, of course, started long before this ridiculously long campaign. There are two crises facing Republicans post-Nov. 4: Who will lead them and where are they going?

In the short-term, this means yet another civil war between factions led by party chair Saul Anuzis and former National Committeeman Chuck Yob.

It's hard to say how that will turn out, but it will be a strain for Saul to shake off two disastrous election cycles in a row. Even though as a former Mitt Romney guy, he never had the inside track with the McCain clan and received no notice the nominee was skeddadling from Michigan.

There are many Republicans who wish a plague on both their houses, slamming Anuzis for meddling in policy matters like last year's budget crisis and Yob for having a political track record akin to perennial losers like my Chicago Cubs.

They just want a party that works. This is uncomfortable ground for people accustomed to the order, fraternalism and seniority that has had a vice grip on the GOP. Now they seem as splintered as Democrats, which have long operated like a loud, dysfunctional family.

The Republican Party here and nationally is fissuring amidst competing, incongruous interests brought together under Reagan - the country club set, moderates, the religious right, disgruntled blue collar Democrats, Wall Street, small business, rural dwellers and fiscal conservatives.

The split crystallized under the McCain-Palin ticket. There was little fire from the base or talk radio for McCain, who could never be forgiven for calling fundamentalists like Jerry Falwell "agents of intolerance." No matter how far to the right he veered, it was never good enough.

Palin was a godsend to the party faithful, but she turned off moderate McCainiacs, as well as a fatal number of independents. The result is no one's truly happy with the GOP ticket, as opposed to the Dems, who are both inspired by Obama and giddy to turn the page on George Bush.

Michigan Republicans have a better chance than their national counterparts to get it together. Granholm still remains unpopular, which bodes well for the 2010 governor's race, and the next wave of term-limited House retirements is set to sock Democrats far harder than the GOP. The party should pick up another Senate seat if state Sen. Mark Schauer captures the 7th District congressional slot.

But they'll need organization and a message. What's clear is that the party orthodoxy on abortion and taxes hasn't worked. Social issues have driven moderates from the party in droves. And it seems increasingly likely that no legislator will lose his seat for hiking taxes last year.

This is not 1980. That's something Republicans have to get over, stat. The get-government-off-my-back ethos has withered. Now it's bring back big government if you can save my 401(k).

That doesn't mean that conservatism is dead, nor should it be. But politics is never static, while parties tend to be. The Democrats finally had to become more pragmatic and rejigger themselves after their thumpings in the '80s and '90s and the day of reckoning has come for the GOP. The party needs fresh ideas on the fiscal crisis, health care and foreign policy.

Gerald Ford, Bill Milliken and Dwight Eisenhower offer obvious role models of centrist conservatism spliced with good government. And there was something safely reassuring about these leaders during troubled times.

All I know is if a modern Milliken gave it a stab in 2010, he'd have my vote in a heartbeat.

Joe Sixpack snubs Sarah Palin

Doggone it, if it weren't for that George W. Bush, America would be head-over-heels for Sarah Palin.

They're both plain folks, who play up their folksy accents that are just as American as all get-out. Their unflinching, moral absolutist vision of the world is distilled into simple sound bites, unlike some snooty, professorial Harvard-types, Barack. They tap into our hopes and especially fears because they "don't blink" or ever "wave the white flag of surrender" to terrorists.

In this "American Idol" era, we're supposed to go for the guy we can chug a beer with or the gal we can giggle with over a skinny mocha latte.

But not this time.

Why? Been there, done that.

We've already rolled the dice on a president with a fatal allergy to intellectual curiosity, demanding only "yes" men who won't challenge his chillingly narrow view of the world. We tried likeable and down-home and wound up with war(s?) we cannot win, a $10 trillion debt and an economy that bears more than a casual resemblance to the one Herbert Hoover bequeathed to us in the 1930s.

So, ya know, we're kinda sayin' "thanks, but no thanks" to that sweet Sarah Palin.

As Joe Biden's mother might say, "God love her," but this ain't amateur hour, kiddies.

But this raises a more important question: How can we trust John McCain when he's willing to entrust the country he loves so deeply with someone so inexperienced and unintellectual?

That fancy-pants know-it-all Obama doesn't seem like such a bad guy to steer us through a financial meltdown no one seems to comprehend. As conservative icon Charles Krauthammer ruefully observes, the Democrat has a "first-class intellect and a first-class temperament. That will likely be enough to make him president."

He won't lurch from stunt to stunt, as McCain jarringly has for his entire campaign. And Obama doesn't need flash cards to solve the crisis, like Palin brought to her debate last week.

Afterward, the talking heads (those evil Eastern elites) were convinced Joe Sixpack would go as ga-ga for Palin as they did, because the pretty lady said "Joe Sixpack," "hockey mom" and the Reagan classic, "There you go again."

We didn't. Why? Americans are smarter than a fifth grader. We do value substance over style. The fact that she can only spout scant talking points on the bailout and doesn't grasp McCain's position on Pakistan bothers us. That's why every poll showed Biden wiped the floor with her.

Deflated conservatives still insist the self-proclaimed Sarahcuda is connecting with Main Street Americans. Dozens of polls say otherwise; she can't win over women or independents.

No matter. Her flinty winks literally sent hard-up right-wingers like Rich Lowry into a fit of embarrassing ecstasy, mooning over the "little starbursts" he felt through the teevee. Ahem.

Sarah should have been the perfect focus-grouped candidate, down to the effortless way she drops her g's and winks at you (only you). The GOP couldn't have built a better veep if they'd finagled some of that sci-fi-style cloning technology the pro-life loonies warn will take over Michigan if the pro-embryonic stem cell Proposal 2 passes.

Palin would have killed in the heyday of Newt Gingrich, as the apple-cheeked, high-heeled embodiment of gun-totin' rugged individualism. But now we're back to the era of big government, aided by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The country has changed, snapping back to the middle and even (gasp!) the left.

For too many years, we've plucked presidential candidates with criteria fit for a glitzy Hollywood biopic, not the leader of the free world. That was part of the problem with John Edwards, a coiffed empty suit whom desperate Democrats projected their hopes and dreams onto because he came in a slick, Southern-fried wrapper.

On the campaign trail, Palin brings the heat to a movement running cold. "This is not a man who sees America as you and I do - as the greatest force for good in the world," she drawls (rhetoric that incited one cultured fan to shout, "Kill him!")

She's warned us. Obama "pals around with terrorists" and will maniacally raise our taxes. We know blood will be on our hands.

And yet, a clear majority of us are planning to vote for him. She doesn't do it for us.

Palin will soon be relegated to irrelevance, perhaps the de facto leader of the far-right fringe of a party teetering on the brink of combustion. That's why David Brooks calls her brand of anti-intellectual populism a "fatal cancer to the Republican party."

I hope it eats the party alive so it reverts back to the civil spirit of Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt and Eisenhower. But instead of looking backward to '80s-style solutions, the young Turks will have to embrace a 21st century realism to the staggering problems ahead.

Palin can serve as a parable for the dangers of always choosing glib politics over good policy. She can invigorate the GOP, perhaps by destroying it as Democrats take both houses of Congress, the White House, most governor's mansions and more state and local seats across the country.

And for that, let's salute ya, Sister Sarah.

Grace after the fire

GRAND LEDGE -- Hillary Clinton is so over it.

The primary ping-pong, that is - the bitter battles with Barack, her husband's crimson face and wagging finger, the endless wrangling over every state, every superdelegate.

It all seemed to wash away as a Zen-like Hillary took to the stage Saturday and bestowed her message on the mostly female crowd of 1,000: Move on and vote Obama.

Maybe it's the distance. Maybe it was Friday's debate and the harrowing financial meltdown that hasn't fazed the kid from Chi-town one bit, while the impeccably experienced John McCain swan-dived into a full-scale panic. But Clinton seemed genuinely impressed with Obama in a way she never was when they engaged in hand-to-hand combat.

"I'm campaigning as hard as I can to make sure he's the next president," she announced with almost maternal pride. "I think last night people saw why."

Decked in a canary suit as sunny as her demeanor, Clinton radiated a laid-back warmth to a clearly smitten crowd. (There wasn't a PUMA (Party Unity My Ass) miscreant in sight). Instead of having to make the sale for herself in a pressure-cooker primary, she could relax and merrily dispatch McCain while pumping up Obama.

Losing such a brutal, close contest was devastating, no doubt. Many pundits believed she'd hole herself up with astringent aides Lanny Davis and Howard Wolfson, resurfacing to give aid and comfort to the GOP with unhelpful comments about Obama. ("He did admire Kwame Kilpatrick immensely, I know that.")

But Hillary's grace and enthusiasm has surprised even this cynical columnist, admittedly not her biggest fan. I don't know that Obama would have been able to pull off what she has if the roles were reversed.

Often sour and steely in her own race, Clinton has transformed herself into the happy warrior. This was supposed to be John McCain's role, instead reduced to a scowling septuagenarian lecturing baby Barack that "he just doesn't understand" anything, when it's his running mate who can't name a single newspaper she reads, another Supreme Court case besides Roe v. Wade or any of his maverick reforms ("I'll try to find you some and I'll bring 'em to ya.")

Is it real? Who knows? No one can say what's truly going on in someone's head. Maybe Clinton is giving a Cannes-worthy performance and will be punching her ballot for McCain on Nov. 4 anyway. She no doubt is looking ahead to 2012, just in case, as is one Mitt Romney.

But publicly, she is all-in in '08 and apparently has told Bill to get with the program, prompting him to (finally) say nice things about Obama while barnstorming Florida this week.

No one could have predicted what an effective surrogate Hillary has become for her former rival. Indeed, she's Obama's best defender, an emissary to women, although they're flocking back on the Barack bandwagon in droves since Sarah Palin has proven to be a national embarrassment.

Clinton's sheer depth on policy issues and effortless intellect underscores Palin's indignant incuriosity and startling cerebral shallowness, which even a skeptic like me underestimated. The McCain campaign clearly chose style over substance, but to flagrantly do so with someone a heartbeat away from the presidency is political malpractice.

But even on the surface, Clinton's down-home "I feel your pain" routine plays better than Palin's faux populism, since she's not really concerned with building "Joe Sixpack" up, as she refers to her constituency, but on cattily tearin' the elitist haters down. I believe we refer to that as goin' for the lowest common denominator.

What the 2008 election will ultimately mean for women is anyone's guess. I tend to believe that Clinton coming so close will motivate more women to jump into public life and push harder for a female president next time. That's one reason why so many women were initially drawn to the McCain-Palin ticket, before they came down with buyer's remorse.

But the failure of Palin could have the opposite effect. Some women who remember the Gerry Ferraro days tell me that Sarah's set up to be the fall gal when McCain goes down. She's the airhead hottie who never could be trusted with the launch codes, scuttling the chances of an honorable war hero who could have restored this country's glory.

Chicks, huh?

Forgive and forget, part II: Republican Joe Schwarz has broken his silence about the 7th District congressional race and endorsed state Sen. Mark Schauer, D-Battle Creek. This won't come as a shock to anyone who watched the bloody GOP primary two years ago when U.S. Rep. Tim Walberg, R-Tipton, and his Club for Growth overlords disemboweled him as a liberal, baby-killing freak.

But it did catch longtime pundit Bill Ballenger a little off guard.

"Schwarz and Schauer are supposed to be good buddies, though Schauer screwed him over a few times," he observes.

Like Mark recruiting the former congressman to run as a Dem, swearing he wouldn't run himself (oops)? Or neglecting to give him credit for keeping open the Battle Creek Air National Guard Base?

I hope Mr. Schauer manned up said he's sorry. Because Schwarz just did him a huge favor, at his own political peril.

All eyes shouldn't be on Michigan

"I want you to feel the pressure, because Michigan could be the Ohio of this election." - First lady Laura Bush pumping up state delegates at the Republican National Convention

Sorry to burst Mrs. Bush's bubble, but there's a slim chance this ungodly long presidential race will come down to the Great Lakes State.

I know, I know. The national pundits think Michigan's where it's at. We're a great story with the highest unemployment rate, a beautiful but unpopular Democratic governor and an African-American ex-mayor of our largest city heading to the slam.

And stereotypes? We got your stereotypes right here. There are bowling alleys galore to pensively interview those all-important blue-collar Macomb County voters, diehard deer hunters in the rustic U.P. to rhapsodize about Sarah Palin and patchouli-drenched students in the People's Republic of Ann Arbor to philosophize about Barack Obama.

Who am I to dissuade the national press corps from our exceptionalism? So let me sincerely roll out the welcome mat for Anderson Cooper, Joe Scarborough, Katie Couric and your posses. Please come revel in our Water Winter Wonderland and throw money at our hotels, restaurants and party stores - our Legislature will probably hand you a tax rebate. (Seriously, just ask the Hollywood set. We toss 'em away like candy).

As for Obama and John McCain, keep assaulting us with ads 24/7. Media companies are doing slightly better than Lehman Brothers and your assistance is greatly appreciated.

But the thing is, you'll be taking another girl home on election night. It's looking more like Colorado, Wisconsin, Virginia or even New Hampshire with her anorexic four electoral votes will tip the scales for that magic 270.

We were the belle of the ball for the bungled primary in January and those crazy Dems couldn't decide how to pick delegates for months. The fact that so many candidates boycotted us made us far more fun to figure out than Florida.

So the likelihood that Michigan will again be front and center Nov. 4 is small. There's always a chance, of course. Who could have predicted the camp-worthy pregnant chad thing eight years ago? Elections are a whacky business and a lot can happen in five weeks.

There could be another terrorist attack on American soil, for one thing. The housing crisis could continue to cramp the markets even with a $700 billion bailout. Or Kwame Kilpatrick could punch out a cop naked while shouting, "Long live Barack Obama!"

Now if McCain conquers Michigan, he'll be in prime position to win the Electoral College unless Obama steals Ohio or Florida out from him. But if McCain wins our economically mutilated state that's been reliably blue since 1992, I'll bet it's Johnny in a rout. He'll take Wisconsin, Minnesota and possibly Pennsylvania and keep his vulnerable western states.

Obama's turnout model of young and black voters will be declared a dismal failure and the Bradley effect will have reared its head.

That could certainly happen. But the McCain folks don't really think he'll bag the Mitten State, although they say publicly they have a "really good chance," as Mrs. Bush told the delegation at the RNC. Why not? They're happy to see Obama part with millions here. And they know it will be close, even though the Democrat leads in 11 of the last 13 post-convention polls.

But if McCain was truly serious about winning the Wolverine State, his veep would have been Mitt Romney, Bloomfield Hills' favorite son.

John Dunagan, President Bush's Michigan chair in '04, claims Palin will single-handedly flip the state red. His reasoning? We have 12 minor league hockey teams and the highest registration of snowmobiles in the country.

Um ... sure. Who can argue with empirical evidence like that?

Obama started at a disadvantage by not campaigning here for the primary. McCain has roots in Michigan dating back to his 2000 victory, although he lost badly this year to Romney. But Obama's ground game is far better - 40-plus offices, a massive voter registration effort and superior media operation.

Gov. Jennifer Granholm is Obama's biggest albatross here. In some polls, voters blame her more than Bush for the state's unparalleled economic woes. That could change with Wall Street's implosion, of course, but there's a reason she's not in the Democrat's stable of surrogates.

In the end, it comes down to the Detroit suburbs in vote-rich Oakland County, which has turned Democratic for the last two cycles. (Macomb was sooo '80s). Tensions in Detroit helped McCain post unusually high numbers here in a recent Time survey.

If Kwame was still the proud occupant of the Manoogian Mansion, I'd say that Michigan's traditional lack of racial transcendence, as Obama poetically puts it, would propel McCain to the White House. But Hizzoner's gone and he has no relationship with Obama to speak of.

I'm inclined to agree with former McCain adviser Mike Murphy, an old hand in John Engler's and Spence Abraham's campaigns, who thinks Oakland County is Obama country. Palin will appeal to the quirkily conservative Macomb crowd, but she's too much pitbull for Oakland's sunny soccer moms who aren't fond of guns but do like making their own uterine decisions.

Somewhere, Mitt Romney is shaking his head and plotting for 2012.

A party of whiners

Republicans have become wusses. Next thing you know, they'll want to cuddle.

I came of political age in the Newt Gingrich era, and the right-wingers I knew were bold and brash. They didn't talk about their feelings or make excuses. They swore on Adam Smith's soul that the world would be a better place with lower taxes, less regulation and a Deringer in every home.

Frankly, they were a lot more fun to hang out with that the liberals who screeched that calling grown women "girls" was a hate crime and believed the notorious Antioch College edict requiring students to ask permission before engaging in each new act of love ("May I bite your navel?") was sound public policy Congress should consider.

So I never thought I'd see that day when the GOP would become the poster child for Affirmative Action and political correctness.

What a letdown.

As Wall Street collapses into free-fall, violence amps up in Afghanistan and gas shoots up north of $4 again, whiny conservatives are carrying on about cosmetics.

If you have a pulse and occasionally click on cable news, you know that Barack Obama used the shopworn political phrase, "lipstick on a pig," last week.

Former acting Massachusetts Gov. Jane Swift shrieked Sexism, noting that because GOP veep pick Sarah Palin talks about slathering on lipstick, she must be the porker in question.

"Often times, you're responsible for your words even if they're misconstrued," sniffed Ms. Swift, who ironically was broomed by the GOP establishment to make way for Mitt Romney, whom I understand is male.

It was as if I was transported back in time to my too-serious, abstractly academic women's studies classes and our insufferable debates over whether the word "history" (get it, "history"?) was misogynistic. That was the point at which the resident Republican would sanely chime in with an, "Oh, please!"

But the humorless, hypersensitive train barreled on after "Saturday Night Live" skewered both Palin and Hillary Clinton. Fired Hewlett-Packard CEO and John McCain adviser Carly Fiorina panned Tina Fey's dead-on impression of the Alaska guv ("I can see Russia from my house!") as (what else?) Sexist.

In another ironic twist, the feisty Fiorina got the hook Wednesday after she declared Palin (and McCain, because she is not Sexist) didn't have the gonads to head a major corporation. But she hastily added they could run the good old U.S. of A. (What everyone seems too polite to say is that Carly couldn't run a company either, though she was rewarded with a $21 million golden parachute for trying).

Palin herself hasn't cried Sexism, since she avoids the evil elite media's meanie questions like the plague. Instead, she allows others to wallow in victim feminism for her.

Since when do Republicans, especially those who proudly compare themselves to pitbulls, dodge a fight, especially with weenies in the press?

Meanwhile, every conservative in America, down to uber-reactionary U.S. Rep. Tim Walberg of Tipton (who I believe is still undecided on women's suffrage), is repeating the talking points that Palin is supremely qualified because she has "executive experience."

Folks, let's just take a time-out for a second.

Can you really say that someone who was mayor of a town of 6,700 and governor for 20 months of a state with 670,000 souls (.02 percent of the U.S. population) should be a heart attack away from taking over as leader of the free world? Don't you think the VP should know the Bush Doctrine or have an elementary grasp of the financial markets?

Let's call this what it is: Affirmative Action run amok, shunting expertise or even basic competence in favor a focus-grouped new face who plays well on tee-vee. I know of no other politician who has so breathtakingly blown an interview as Palin did on ABC and survived. Obama would have been laughed off the national stage.

Don't Palinistas feel a wee bit silly attacking Charles Gibson as Sexist for doing his job? Don't they ever tire of defending St. Sarah because McCain chose her and the Maverick is infallible?

Joe Lieberman, McCain's almost veep, gave a rather Freudian answer when initially asked if Palin was qualified to be president.

"Well, let's assume the best," he laughed nervously. "John's in great shape."

The truth is, the GOP is a party in the throes of a full-blown identity crisis, forced to disown its once beloved and now wildly unpopular President Bush and his disastrous economic and foreign policy agendas. Gone is the swagger, the supreme confidence of the Contract with America signatories, replaced by defensive, desperate thought police bleating about the unfairness of it all.

They sound like ... Democrats.

Maybe right-wingers should admit that their merciless (and amusing) ridiculing of Barackstar, who parted the Rocky Mountains for a crowd of 84,000 adoring disciples, was jealousy, plain and simple.

"The presidential election isn't a popularity contest!" they'd dourly declare.

But as soon as superfine, superstar Sarah glided on stage, they suddenly had a reason to turn out in droves and scream, "Drill, baby, drill!"

Not that there would be any double entrendre there. That, my friends, would be Sexist.

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.

Palin: McCain's version of 'Trust me'

For years, Republicans have foamed at the mouth about Michigan's blonde bombshell governor, slamming her as woefully inexperienced and working in her "Dating Game" past whenever possible.

Now I've often shared their critiques of Jennifer Granholm in terms of policy and management style and I have it on pretty good authority that her senior staff despises my column. But that kind of patronizing tripe ignores her Harvard law degree (with honors), four years as attorney general, four years as a federal prosecutor and almost six years as governor.

Our governor has an almost unmatched intellect and is the state's most spellbinding speaker. Republicans will privately admit they wish they had anyone on their roster who could rival her. Senate Majority Leader Mike Bishop, R-Rochester, shakes in his boots around her to this day.

So when John McCain made his utterly ridiculous pick of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin to be a heartbeat away from his presidency, I found it fascinating how Granholm's hecklers (a bunch of middle-aged white guys, natch) suddenly turned into raving feminists.

There was a lot of happy talk about breaking the glass ceiling from boys who oppose the Equal Pay Act.

"(Palin) puts the voice of women on the center stage of American politics," declared state Sen. Cameron Brown, R-Fawn River Township, which should come as news to the 18 million people who voted for Hillary Clinton.

Of course Clinton has everything to do with McCain's impulsive, insulting choice that former McCain aide Mike Murphy trashed, sighing, "The greatness of McCain is no cynicism, and this is cynical." Evidently, Mighty Mac thinks we broads are so hard up to punch a ballot for someone with ovaries that we'll take just anyone, like spinsters over 40.

We're supposed to fall for a candidate who has to play up her eight years as the mayor of a town of 6,715 - where the Associated Press devastatingly remarked the "biggest civic worry is whether there will be enough snow for the Iditarod dog-mushing race" - and her time on the PTA to round out her resume.

Palin has spent almost two years in the governor's mansion. To put that in perspective, she leads the third least populated state with fewer folks than the 7th Congressional District.

No wonder she's elicited a collective groan from Alaska newspapers and many colleagues about her inexperience and incuriosity.

No matter. Her sculpted cheekbones and naughty high-heeled boots inspire a quivering Rush Limbaugh to declare her "a babe."

Point granted. But the simple fact is that if Palin were a bleeding-heart Democrat, there would be only two words to describe the nod: Affirmative Action.

It is a slap in the face to dedicated GOP Sens. Kay Bailey Hutchinson, Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins, just to name a few. Palin's foreign policy credentials are so thin, having only traveled to three countries, that first lady-in-waiting Cindy McCain tried to pump her up by pointing out that Alaska is close to Russia.

Oh, dear Lord.

Yet somehow Republicans manage to tout Palin's massive "executive experience" with a straight face, while still blasting Barack Obama's eight years as a leader in the state Legislature in one of the biggest states in the country and almost four years in the U.S. Senate, chairman of a Foreign Relations subcommittee.

Oh, but don't even think of questioning St. Sarah's credentials. She is a Mom, as U.S. Fred Upton, R-St. Joseph, noted in a statement - yes, with a capital "M." Um, OK, but does the GOP really want to play the parental fitness card when her 17-year-old is knocked up by a dude who looks like a bad boy reject from "The Hills"?

So if you dare ask about her ethics scandals, relationship with indicted U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens and readiness to be commander-in-chief on day one, be warned: You are Sexist. Even though when Hillary complained about her coverage in the primary, Sarah dismissed it as "whining."

It was a bewildered Palin who whimpered to CNBC a month ago, "I wish someone would tell me what the VP does."

But on Wednesday at the Republican National Convention, they replaced her with a new and improved Stepford Wife model to spew venom at that un-American Obama who looks down on the bitter folk.

Palin conveniently forgot to mention her extremist positions, like being anti-evolution, anti-abortion for victims of rape and incest and even against protecting polar bears from extinction. Maybe that's because most of us wouldn't view her as the mom down the street, but another out-of-touch fundamentalist windbag.

But what makes me saddest about this whole sorry affair is that it reveals an utter lack of judgment by McCain, whom I deeply admire. He calculated he needed to appease the base and try to capture the Clintonites by choosing someone he'd only interviewed once a few hours before offering her the job.

His entire campaign is built around us trusting him to do the right thing - even though most Americans disagree with him on most issues, from Iraq to the economy.

Sorry, John, I'm finding that hard to do these days.