The GOP kisses the Rust Belt goodbye

Do the Republicans ever plan to win Michigan again? How about Ohio, Illinois or even Indiana?

Before the gang of GOP senators killed the $14 billion bridge loan for Chrysler and General Motors last week, they unleashed an ugly Southern snobbery about us Rust Belt rubes. And they just might have strangled their chances in here for years to come.

Let's not forget the GOP just lost the entire region to the man who will become the first African-American president, save for West Virginia. The Republicans only have one governorship here, in Indiana. Evidently, U.S. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell & Co. want to finish the job.

So they decided to bludgeon the Big Three while they were down and suffocate the United Auto Workers while they were at it.

Maybe they sincerely believe the domestic autos will be better off in bankruptcy. Maybe they expected President Bush to come to the rescue all along. Maybe they really think Honda and Toyota plants in their states would blossom if the domestics died, even though company executives warned they'd suffer because many of their suppliers would go under.

Maybe they were genuinely offended by the idea of the government messing with capitalism, although that didn't stop many of them from dumping $700 billion in the laps of Wall Street investment bankers.

But a leaked memo from the Senate GOP reveals it was all about politics and payback to the unions: "Republicans should stand firm and take their first shot against organized labor, instead of taking their first blow from it."

So much for principle. It's nice to know that our friends from Dixie were willing to play Russian roulette with 3 million jobs, spark a depression in the Midwest and cost taxpayers four times as much money as we'd be out with the bridge loan. Why not? Serves the evil UAW right.

Look, the loan is unpopular nationally, so this may be a good tactic. But it is insanely poor strategy if Republicans want to stay competitive in the Rust Belt and its pool of 151 electoral votes.

You can't just write off a region and expect to be a national party. That's why Barack Obama competed hard in the South and West. It paid off when he piled up an electoral landslide and padded Democrats' margins in Congress.

Michigan Republican Party Chair Saul Anuzis gets this. His main appeal in his quest to head the Republican National Committee is that he's only guy who knows how to get Reagan Democrats back.

Presumably, it's not by stripping them of jobs and sneering that it's their fault.

Midwest Democrats will retaliate in kind for the Big Three and are chomping at the bit to finish off Republicans in 2010 and beyond.

Gov. Jennifer Granholm is already on the attack, blasting senators willing to risk a depression as "un-American" and questioning their loyalty to foreign companies at the expense of U.S. workers. It's a crude rhetorical flourish on steroids, but it's enough to earn a megaphone on "Meet the Press." That kind of red-blooded American chest-beating puts her on the offensive and makes Republicans spluttering to defend their taupe Toyota Camrys look like girly-men.

Translation: Democrats strong and patriotic. Republicans weak and love foreigners. Shamelessly jingoistic, sure, but it effectively flips the post-9/11 conventional wisdom on its head.

Meanwhile, just where are the Republicans? Yes, the entire Michigan delegation voted for the $14 billion, save for U.S. Rep. Tim Walberg, R-Tipton, who claims he was recovering from surgery. But why have GOP leaders been avoiding TV cameras like the plague? You can't keep Granholm; Sen. Carl Levin, D-Detroit; or Rep. Sandy Levin, D-Royal Oak, off the news.

The notable exception is U.S. Rep. Fred Upton, R-St. Joseph, co-chair of the Congressional Auto Caucus, but he's largely preferred to operate behind the scenes.

Most have opted for silent support as the Big Three teeter at the abyss. You can point to a blog post by U.S. Rep. Candice Miller, R-Harrison Township, here, or an op-ed by Attorney General Mike Cox there, but there's no real face of the GOP during this crisis.

This would seem to be the perfect time for one state Senate Majority Leader Mike Bishop, R-Rochester, to grab the spotlight, as he'd like Cox's job and could use some positive press. Indeed, the White House has pushed him to do it. But despite backing the Big Three, he seems paralyzed about taking the lead, almost as much as he is about setting an agenda in the Legislature.

The result is a power vacuum, with Granholm often battling Mitt Romney in the national media. Republicans, do you really want the guy who doesn't care if Detroit dies, who last lived in Michigan when polyester pants were groovy, as your mouthpiece? Come on. He's not even going to merit an invite to your county Lincoln Day dinner.

This is a chance for Republicans to remake their image after two straight electoral thumpings. What's good for Michigan could be very good for the GOP -- but no one seems to have gotten that memo.

The GOP plays to the base

The Republican Party has always relished looking backward.

That accounts for its earnest obsession with naming everything from streets to schools after Ronald Reagan.

As the GOP flails about after their Nov. 4 drubbing, there's a lot of puffery about rebuilding for the future, which folks agree basically means going on Facebook and Twitter more.

But the party is still stuck in the past. Case in point: Michigan GOP chair and national party honcho hopeful Saul Anuzis' gauzy Republican blueprint can be summed up with the bumper-sticker philosophy of, "What Would Reagan Do?"

What Republicans desperately want to do is crank back the clock to 1980. But while their party is static, politics and the populace are not. There are 75 million more of us now, with minorities accounting for much of that growth. Whereas Americans blamed the '70s economic malaise on the era of big government, today we're grousing that the feds weren't minding the store while our 401(k)s shriveled.

In the last few weeks, some Republicans have gone even further. They've sought to rocket the Wayback Machine to 1962 or even 1929, bizarrely longing for the glory days of Herbert Hoover and Jim Crow.

It started with the proposed $14 billion bridge loan for Chrysler and General Motors. Dick Cheney invoked the scourge of the GOP, declaring it would be "Herbert Hoover time" if Senate Republicans nixed it. Minority Leader Mitch McConnell blew up the deal anyway, leaving the White House to reluctantly come through with the funds.

But the soon-to-be top Republican isn't done yet. McConnell has vowed to put the brakes on any fiscal stimulus package proposed by Barack Obama, even though a clear majority of Americans backs it, as opposed to the auto loan. This is precisely the tight-fisted philosophy championed by Hoover that plunged America even deeper into Great Depression.

Oh, and it also caused the 31st president to be laughed out of office and ushered in 20 straight years of Democratic rule.

There's a reason why few Republicans have attempted to rehabilitate the reputation of the stocky free-market stalwart decades later. Why McConnell & Co. would want to follow in the footsteps of such a dismal failure is mind-bending.

It's worth noting that conservative and liberal economists today are remarkably united behind the federal government pumping billions into the parched economy. Obama also has pledged to keep his promise to cut taxes for the middle class, which should make Republicans (and their constituents) happy, but alas, no. They still seem miffed that they've stopped winning elections on the issue.

If Republicans have a better plan to jump-start the economy, let's hear it. But opposing the stimulus just because a Democrat proposed it doesn't fly in these desperate times. And that kind of crass politicking usually doesn't pay off.

Just ask outgoing state House Minority Craig DeRoche, whose legacy after clawing against any compromise on Michigan's budget last year is losing nine seats.

Then there's Chip Saltsman, a jovial, jowly guy with a penchant for sending CDs featuring that hot new classic, "Barack the Magic Negro."

Just another member of the tin-foil hat brigade who shoots off those chain e-mails that Obama won't be inaugurated because there's *PROOF* he's not a U.S. citizen, right?

Yeah, only Saltsman's no nut job. The former head of the Tennessee GOP now wants to run the Republican National Committee. So he decided there was no better way to court RNC members than with the gift of a goofy racist ditty. Seriously.

Both Anuzis and current RNC Chair Mike Duncan did the logical and honorable thing by condemning Saltsman. But the dustup hasn't wounded the Chipster one bit.

As Maine GOP Chair Mark Ellis snorted, "When I found out what this was about I had to ask, 'Boy, what's the big deal here?' because there wasn't any."

I'm not one to normally get bent out of shape over the politically incorrect uproar du jour. People say and do stupid things; it's human nature. Apologize and move on. But Saltsman hasn't done that, of course, and it's really the aftermath that's significant in this case.

Republican strategists are now saying that it's Duncan and Anuzis who have hurt their own chance by speaking out. Saltsman evidently has received a warm reception from RNC members by ripping his opponents for playing to the national media, not the base.

Let's pause for a minute here. A flagrantly bigoted (and juvenilely unfunny) song doesn't offend the GOP base (how apropos), but denouncing it does.

What century are we living in, again?

This incident confirms the worst stereotypes of the Republican Party as a mean-spirited, racist relic tone-deaf to modern America. This is not the sort of publicity any group needs, especially one that has taken big thumpings two elections in a row.

The fact that many leaders don't see this as a problem guarantees that the GOP will be wandering in the wilderness for awhile.

If Republicans wanted to continue living in the past, they probably should have stuck to churning out those commemorative Reagan dimes.

The GOP kisses the Rust Belt goodbye

Do the Republicans ever plan to win Michigan again? How about Ohio, Illinois or even Indiana?

Before the gang of GOP senators killed the $14 billion bridge loan for Chrysler and General Motors last week, they unleashed an ugly Southern snobbery about us Rust Belt rubes. And they just might have strangled their chances in here for years to come.

Let's not forget the GOP just lost the entire region to the man who will become the first African-American president, save for West Virginia. The Republicans only have one governorship here, in Indiana. Evidently, U.S. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell & Co. want to finish the job.

So they decided to bludgeon the Big Three while they were down and suffocate the United Auto Workers while they were at it.

Maybe they sincerely believe the domestic autos will be better off in bankruptcy. Maybe they expected President Bush to come to the rescue all along. Maybe they really think Honda and Toyota plants in their states would blossom if the domestics died, even though company executives warned they'd suffer because many of their suppliers would go under.

Maybe they were genuinely offended by the idea of the government messing with capitalism, although that didn't stop many of them from dumping $700 billion in the laps of Wall Street investment bankers.

But a leaked memo from the Senate GOP reveals it was all about politics and payback to the unions: "Republicans should stand firm and take their first shot against organized labor, instead of taking their first blow from it."

So much for principle. It's nice to know that our friends from Dixie were willing to play Russian roulette with 3 million jobs, spark a depression in the Midwest and cost taxpayers four times as much money as we'd be out with the bridge loan. Why not? Serves the evil UAW right.

Look, the loan is unpopular nationally, so this may be a good tactic. But it is insanely poor strategy if Republicans want to stay competitive in the Rust Belt and its pool of 151 electoral votes.

You can't just write off a region and expect to be a national party. That's why Barack Obama competed hard in the South and West. It paid off when he piled up an electoral landslide and padded Democrats' margins in Congress.

Michigan Republican Party Chair Saul Anuzis gets this. His main appeal in his quest to head the Republican National Committee is that he's only guy who knows how to get Reagan Democrats back.

Presumably, it's not by stripping them of jobs and sneering that it's their fault.

Midwest Democrats will retaliate in kind for the Big Three and are chomping at the bit to finish off Republicans in 2010 and beyond.

Gov. Jennifer Granholm is already on the attack, blasting senators willing to risk a depression as "un-American" and questioning their loyalty to foreign companies at the expense of U.S. workers. It's a crude rhetorical flourish on steroids, but it's enough to earn a megaphone on "Meet the Press." That kind of red-blooded American chest-beating puts her on the offensive and makes Republicans spluttering to defend their taupe Toyota Camrys look like girly-men.

Translation: Democrats strong and patriotic. Republicans weak and love foreigners. Shamelessly jingoistic, sure, but it effectively flips the post-9/11 conventional wisdom on its head.

Meanwhile, just where are the Republicans? Yes, the entire Michigan delegation voted for the $14 billion, save for U.S. Rep. Tim Walberg, R-Tipton, who claims he was recovering from surgery. But why have GOP leaders been avoiding TV cameras like the plague? You can't keep Granholm; Sen. Carl Levin, D-Detroit; or Rep. Sandy Levin, D-Royal Oak, off the news.

The notable exception is U.S. Rep. Fred Upton, R-St. Joseph, co-chair of the Congressional Auto Caucus, but he's largely preferred to operate behind the scenes.

Most have opted for silent support as the Big Three teeter at the abyss. You can point to a blog post by U.S. Rep. Candice Miller, R-Harrison Township, here, or an op-ed by Attorney General Mike Cox there, but there's no real face of the GOP during this crisis.

This would seem to be the perfect time for one state Senate Majority Leader Mike Bishop, R-Rochester, to grab the spotlight, as he'd like Cox's job and could use some positive press. Indeed, the White House has pushed him to do it. But despite backing the Big Three, he seems paralyzed about taking the lead, almost as much as he is about setting an agenda in the Legislature.

The result is a power vacuum, with Granholm often battling Mitt Romney in the national media. Republicans, do you really want the guy who doesn't care if Detroit dies, who last lived in Michigan when polyester pants were groovy, as your mouthpiece? Come on. He's not even going to merit an invite to your county Lincoln Day dinner.

This is a chance for Republicans to remake their image after two straight electoral thumpings. What's good for Michigan could be very good for the GOP -- but no one seems to have gotten that memo.

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.

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.

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.

Fixing Michigan’s primary problem

Oh, sweet irony. We coulda been a contender.

Michigan’s much-vaunted Jan. 15 primary has ultimately proved useless. So much for power-drunk party hucksters insisting Michigan show those spoiled brats in Iowa and New Hampshire how to really pick a president.

California fittingly will have sealed up the Republican nomination - once again trumping Michigan, which has long hemorrhaged talent and influence to the Golden State.

And slow and steady Ohio on March 4 – or even once-obscure contests in Kentucky and Oregon in May – will have super-sized impact on picking the Democratic nominee.

Stop for a second and imagine the media frenzy in the Mitten State right now if we’d just kept our Feb. 12 contest on the calendar.

We would be ground zero, boasting the biggest primary after Super Tuesday.

For the GOP, Michigan would be hailed as the salvation of Mitt Romney. If he won his home state (his 23rd by last count, as his electoral strategy seems to rest on buying estates in every state) the race would be declared wide open by the talk radio hordes.

Erudite philosophers Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter would rejoice the party wasn’t over yet, thanks to their prescience (of course) and the glorious Great Lakes State.

For the Dems, it would be a decisive battle between the Clinton machine (oiled by Gov. Jennifer Granholm) and the grassroots Barack Obama effort. Whoever could take the lion’s share of our 128-delegate gift basket would emerge the frontrunner.

Michigan’s early primary was erected as Hillary Clinton’s firewall, but it would have been far handier now that she’s broke, dead-even in delegates and facing an electoral map favoring Obama.

So how did Michigan plunge to its default position of irrelevance to the rest of the nation?

Last year, we ponied up more than $10 million for an early primary when we could least afford it, given a $2 billion deficit. But party bigwigs promised if we hold it, they will come.

We all know how that turned out on the D side. There were no rap sessions with a teary Hillary or hope revivals starring Obama. John Edwards never showed up for photo ops at mill closings. Only the leprechaun-like Dennis Kucinich held rallies dotted by those yearning for a glimpse of his glamazon, 20-something wife.

The Dems blew it, thanks to Sen. Carl Levin and Democratic National Committeewoman Debbie Dingell. The DNC jerked all our delegates, followed by Obama and Edwards bowing out.

Senate Democrats could have fixed the mess but demanded a bevy of election reforms in return, which the majority Republicans rejected.

So Hillary won the beauty contest 55 to 40 percent over “uncommitted” or ABC – Anyone But Clinton. But her deficit in the youth vote and staggering loss in Detroit spell trouble here in the general election.

Whichever Dem prevails will have to do serious repair work, having unwittingly left the door open for the moderate McCain. Good move.

The only way to undo some damage is hold a party-funded caucus in a play to win half our delegates back.

Republicans fared better, drawing belated ads and candidate stops as state GOP Chair Saul Anuzis promised. But the primary became a yawning gimme for Romney with only half the Republican delegates at stake.

“Michigan is a good bellwether state,” proclaimed a giddy Anuzis (who still says with as straight face that he doesn’t back the Mittster). “If you can win in Michigan, you can win everywhere.”

Not quite.

The primary allowed party honchos and legislators to bask in the Cult of Mitt for one shining night, partying down like Ronald Reagan had been reincarnated at the Southfield Embassy Suites. It was the zenith of Romney’s run - and then the rude awakening came in South Carolina, Florida and finally California.

So where did our primary hustle get us? Optimists would say Michigan - with its shuttered factories and worst unemployment rate - crystallized the souring economy as the top political issue.

That’s one takeaway from the clichéd CNN interviews of unemployed autoworkers at a smoky Macomb County bowling alley.

Here’s the other: Michigan must be the most pathetic place on earth to do business next to, say, Burma. Why would companies want to set up shop in our decrepit state?

As Oakland County Executive L. Brooks Patterson, the patron saint of Michigan economic development, watched the nonstop negative coverage, he probably thought long and hard about retiring.

In the end, the economy is the primary problem we face. No matter how hard the governor hopes, President Bush isn’t going to send us a fat check now that he’s seen our plight on tee-vee.

No, it’s up to us. And I’m guessing we could have found far better investments for that 10 million bucks.

A battle of a lifetime

By Susan J. Demas
Jackson Citizen Patriot

Church bells clanged in Battle Creek, trumpeting the turning point in America’s triumph over Hitler in World War II.

D-Day, June 6, 1944.

First grade teacher Roma Cook sat sobbing at her desk. That’s a sight one student never forgot as he stitched up soldiers in the lonely thrush of Vietnam and thwarted a communist coup in Indonesia in the 1960s.

“All the traffic stopped,” the now 68-year-old U.S. congressman recalled. “Miss Cook was crying her eyes out … she must have had hundreds of students serving in the war at the time.

“We still talk about it.”

He was 6 then. His name is Joe Schwarz.

Tim Walberg wasn’t even a glint in his steelworker father’s eye back then.

But 13 years later in 1957, the future Michigan lawmaker had an epiphany of his own, squirming in the pine pews of the First Baptist Church outside Chicago.

The Rev. Loren Anderson took to the pulpit, cracked the bible and unexpectedly opened his young parishioner’s eyes.

“He said, ‘There are no grandchildren in heaven’,” recalled Walberg, now 55 and living in Tipton. “Just because you’re from a Christian family, it’s not good enough.

“At that point I knew I couldn’t barter with God and had to take the chance of salvation that Christ gives.”

That day, his future as a passionate preacher, anti-abortion activist and evangelical fundraiser was sealed.

Walberg became a born-again Christian. He was 6.

The battleground

Flash forward to the heat-soaked days of August 2006.

Armed with his pedigree as a surgeon, state senator and CIA spy, the centrist Schwarz is wrapping up what is by most accounts a successful stint as a freshman congressman.

Walberg - a religious right icon with a reputation for never having met a tax cut he didn’t like as a legislator - is hurdling back into the political fray.

The two men, whose paths seemingly would never have crossed, are locked in a fiery clash for their political lives in the 7th Congressional District GOP primary Tuesday.

But it’s bigger than that. It’s bigger than Michigan.

Short of Sen. Joe Lieberman’s fight in the Connecticut Democratic primary, analysts are calling the $3 million race the most critical in the country.

Even President Bush is watching this one, having given his blessing to Schwarz.

“It’s a battle for the heart and soul of what a Republican looks like in this district and in the nation,” said Jeff Williams, vice president of Lansing-based Public Sector Consultants.

Right now Schwarz is public enemy No. 1 for one band of right-wingers. Pat Toomey, president of the free-market lobby Club for Growth, said they’re hunting the rookie lawmaker this election season because he’s a RINO – Republican in Name Only.

The Washington-based group, which the Federal Election Commission is suing, has pumped more than $1 million into Walberg’s mission by bundling cash and airing ads lambasting Schwarz as “outrageously liberal.”

In turn, Schwarz has brandished the big guns of the GOP, hyping his endorsements by former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, former Michigan Gov. John Engler and House Speaker Dennis Hastert.

It’s all made the race too close to call.

In the seven-county district of about 650,000 people, rural Branch, Hillsdale and Lenawee are likely to fall for Walberg. Eaton, Calhoun and Washtenaw are considered Schwarz strongholds.

That leaves Jackson County, which cast one-quarter of the ballots in the 2004 primary. The party leadership remains split.

“Jackson is the heart of the matter,” said Bill Ballenger, editor of “Inside Michigan Politics.”

Quiet confidence

Walberg looks every inch a preacher, from his rod-straight hair glowing with gray to his polished loafers and immaculate navy suits.

But behind the pastoral exterior lies a motorcycle fiend who tools around on his 2002 Harley-Davidson Road King, professing to be like “Elmer Gantry. I like exciting things.”

Walberg pauses, stressing he’s not lusty or corrupt like the fictional reverend – just a fierce competitor.

He’s been waiting for this race. Praying for it. Starting on Aug. 3, 2004, when Schwarz beat Walberg and four other conservative contenders in the primary to replace U.S. Rep. Nick Smith, R-Addison.

Proud of his nickname of “Mr. Congeniality” in a16-year run in the statehouse, Walberg was the only candidate who refused to endorse Schwarz last time. He said it was a matter of conscience; he couldn’t boost an abortion rights nominee who stood against a federal amendment banning gay marriage.

“It’s about the issues,” Walberg said. “And Joe Schwarz is a liberal.”

That’s won over voters like Sue Hudson, 53, who said gay marriage and abortion are the lynchpin of the campaign.

“Some issues are non-negotiable with me,” said Hudson, a school paraprofessional from Coldwater. “You could always count on the Republican Party to stand strong, but Schwarz sold us out.”

Walberg harkens back to his college days at Chicago’s Moody Bible Institute, a traditional island in a sea of sex, drugs and rock ‘n roll. The violent protests at the 1968 Democratic National Convention made him cringe since he championed the Vietnam War, though he obtained a student deferment in 1970 and never served.

“There was chaos everywhere,” Walberg recalled.

That all changed in the 1980s under Ronald Reagan, the man Walberg modeled his political career after. He’s fond of quoting the former president, who was actually quoting Winston Churchill:

“Some men change principle for party. And some men change party for principle.”

While red-meat social issues fire up the base, Walberg said smaller government is his “No. 1 priority.” He wants to make Bush’s tax cuts permanent, repeal the prescription drug benefit Medicare Part D and replace income taxes with a national sales levy of 23 percent.

Walberg has raised about $650,000 - impressive for a challenger, but still less than half of Schwarz’s war chest.

Still, the pastor says he’s “very confident” he’ll avenge his defeat two years ago. What he won’t say is whether he’ll back Schwarz if he falls short again.

Bristled Walberg: “The key question here is, ‘Will Joe Schwarz support me in the general election’?”

Venerable veteran

Schwarz was soaring in Blackhawk helicopter over Fallujah in April, face-to-face with the man whose life he tried to save five decades earlier.

That was back when Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., was a prisoner of war in the infamous Hanoi Hilton, and Schwarz was a young CIA spy sent to bust him out. The mission failed, but the two veterans struck up a deep friendship years later.

After checking in with U.S. troops fighting in Hilla and Ramadi, the pair dined with King Abdullah in Jordan to plot long-term Middle East policy.

Schwarz saw his national profile rocket after maneuvering McCain’s stunning upset over Bush in the 2000 Michigan presidential primary.

“We didn’t do too bad,” Schwarz said, grinning.

That helped spur the native Michigander’s own maverick run for Congress in 2004. Then and now, Schwarz has won a big boost from McCain hitting the stump for him.

The $1.5 million clogging his campaign coffers- mostly from political action committees – also has helped his cause.

With his professorial bifocals and plainspoken pitch, Schwarz is a man as comfortable quoting Rudyard Kipling as he is rooting in the bleachers for his beloved University of Michigan football team.

“Go Blue,” he’s known to chortle to kids on the campaign trail donning a U-M shirt.

Like McCain, the doc says exactly what’s on his mind. The health care system? “Broken.” North Korea dictator Kim Jong-Il? “A whack job.” Abortion? “Not an issue.”

Calling himself a “classic conservative,” Schwarz supports the president’s tax cuts, tougher immigration measures and wiping out the estate tax.

Yet Schwarz contends Walberg has turned the race into a sideshow of “God, guns and gays.” The congressman points out he is a Roman Catholic personally opposed to abortion, has the National Rifle Association’s endorsement and voted as a state senator to ban gay marriage.

He hammers at campaign themes of creating jobs, bolstering national security and cutting health care costs. That’s struck a chord with voters like Roger Warren, 66.

“Joe knows about national security and border security, having served himself,” said the Vandercook Lake retiree. “He doesn’t put all his eggs in one basket like Walberg.”

Ballenger and other pundits say the incumbent should have scored easy political points by veering right on social issues. But Schwarz said that’s not his style. This is:

“Make up your mind, listen to your conscience, use your experience and never pander.”

Day of reckoning

What will the GOP look like Wednesday? Will it hit the note of “one big tent” as in the 1990s? Or will it swerve further rightward?

That’s the bigger question for voters than simply punching the ballot for either Schwarz or Walberg.

That’s not good news for Saul Anuzis, state Republican chairman, who doesn’t want to see his party deeply divided before red-hot governor and U.S. Senate races this fall.

“It’s not a good use of our resources and efforts to go against another good Republican,” said Anuzis, who endorsed Schwarz despite ideological differences.

Schwarz takes the broad view that the GOP will persevere – and so will he. He notes the party survived severe growing pains post-Civil War and in the 1960s.

Not surprising for a man who still talks of D-Day, whose prize possession is a signed set of Samuel E. Morison’s 15-volume “History of United States Naval Operations in World War II.”

“I am a gentleman of a certain age. Age is all about perspective,” Schwarz said. “It’s the difference of practical experience over ideology. Which is what this campaign is about in many ways, isn’t it?”

For Walberg, the race is a crusade for what the GOP stands for. He’s as sure of this as he was when he took Christ into his heart at a Chicago church almost a half-century ago.

In the final days, he whispers to himself the words that guide his campaign, Acts 20:24:

“But these things don't count; nor do I hold my life dear to myself, so that I may finish my race with joy, and the ministry which I received from the Lord Jesus, to fully testify to the Good News of the grace of God.”