A precipitous withdrawl?

Today it was announced that John McCain is pulling his ads and campaign staff from Michigan and canceling a campaign event planned for next week in Plymouth, essentially giving up hope of winning the state's 17 electoral votes. Until recently many people saw Michigan as an important swing state where McCain had a chance to play offense, given his 2 primary victories in 2000 and 2008, and force the Democratic candidate to defend a "blue" state that John Kerry won in 2004. Both campaigns have blanketed the state's airwaves and made repeated campaign appearances. Obama especially seems to have focused heavily on the state, coming here to receive the important endorsement of John Edwards and then returning to get the endorsement of Al Gore.

According to Five Thirty Eight, the polling average in Michigan is Obama +4.9. New polls have shown Obama with a double digit lead, increasing what had been a fairly consistent lead, except for the bounce McCain received with the announcement of his VP selection and the GOP convention. With the economy coming into play as the major campaign issue, McCain had no chance to win in the state most affected by the failed philosophy of trickle down economics which supports tax cuts for the wealthy and falling wages for workers along with the disastrous effects of globalization which promotes trading high paying American jobs for cheap products made overseas.

Obviously, many Tuesday morning quarterbacks will wonder what nominating Mitt Romney might have done for the campaign campaign. However, I think it's safe to say Romney wouldn't have guaranteed a McCain win in Michigan and certainly wouldn't have garnered the enthusiasm among the right wing base of the Republican Party like the Palin pick was designed to do. However, he may have been able to handle the media and campaign independently of McCain who has been forced to stick close to Palin, thus reducing in half the number of campaign stops the ticket can make in swing states.

Parade politics provokes applause

Watching the annual Hastings Summerfest parade was just a bit more interesting this year for watchers of politics and the pols who use such events to campaign. Considering that Barry County has so few contested races after the August primary election (this year it seems even less than usual), I often forget such events are normally a good place for a politician to reach large crowds of people prior to the November election. Most of the time the politicians who show up seem to do it more out of public relations than a need to truly campaign and pick up extra votes since they're unopposed or might as well be. This year's parade had the expected local politicians handing out candy and campaign literature, including our State Representative, the two major party candidates for county Drain Commissioner, the Democratic candidate running against Vern Ehlers for the U.S. House seat and a surprise...

As usual, the parade kicked off with the American Legion color guard. The crowd of families and on-lookers seated in lawn chairs and on the sidewalks and curbs rose to greet the flag and gave an enthusiastic ovation. Just as the clapping had started to die down another round of marchers in military gear received some applause. Then the parade began in earnest with the Hastings High School marching band, which also received some polite applause- I half wondered if it was partly due to rampant rumors that due to a band director's schedule conflict and budget cuts which eliminated a second director position, that the band would be unable to attend the parade. Many other floats and marchers drifted by, my mind wandering more to mundane things like why there always seem to be such long stretches in between parade entries and how hot the people marching must get, a worry mostly focused on some of the older participants and those like the Society for Creative Anachronism crowd that rode in full medieval dress, including one in a suit of armor. Not to mention the smell of food provided a distraction from the lunch-time event.

Mostly, I watched for a couple friends riding in the parade and a niece that would be part of the procession. Many people in the crowd sat quietly the rest of the time, usually only broken when they shouted at someone they knew on a float or to attract the attention of the people throwing candy and Mardi Gras beads to the crowd of on-lookers. Now, the parade had settled into a routine of local churches, civic groups, charities and businesses along with local politicians. The only bits of applause coming for those entrants which were somehow connected to military or patriotic themes.

I brightened up a little when I saw the brave and foolhardy souls campaigning for a Democratic Presidential candidate in Barry County- one doesn't usually see much campaigning for President in these parts outside an occasional bumper sticker, lawn sign or letter to the editor but there was something like 5-10 people marching in support of Barack Obama. I'd heard a contingent would be there to march for Obama so that wasn't a surprise. What surprised me was how the crowd reacted. Normally, when local politicians campaign at such events they are greeted with a sort of polite indifference, most of the litter left after the parade seems to be the cheap photocopied flyers handed by local politicians. Unless a politician is a well-liked, local good old boy, most people tend to see the stumping politicians the way one always sees flies hovering around the rear ends of animals in the summer.

At least half of the crowd, it seemed to me, began to applaud the Obama campaign folks walking by. I even looked around to make sure it wasn't some trick being played on my ears or to see if there was another parade entrant sparking the applause. The crowd's greeting for the local Obama campaign was warm and enthusiastic and was matched perhaps only by the greeting given the stars and stripes at the beginning of the parade.

Now, I know some will read this and pretend as if I'm arguing for an Obama win in Barry County or in the electoral college based on a smattering of applause, though I think it does mean he has a better shot than the chattering class punditry would have you believe (it is obvious to me that the corporate media types need a close election to keep ratings high as elections have become a huge money-maker for the media in an age where people are turning away from traditional media outlets and network TV ratings continue to slide- there's a reason why, despite battleground state polling indicating Obama ahead the media relies more on national polling to show a "tied" race despite Presidential elections being decided in the Electoral College).

The fact that half the people on the street applauded the appearance of the Obama supporters has to be considered a sign of optimism for those who grumble that Democrats seemingly can't win here. I wonder also if that applause wasn't just a "show of hands" from those planning to vote for the candidate being represented but also a sign of approval for the fact that they are bothering at all. Despite being Republican territory in a state very friendly to McCain's previous national campaign, no one bothered to represent the McCain campaign, which also means I couldn't gauge the audience reaction, to compare and contrast.

What I'm actually trying to say is how impressed I am overall in Obama's shoot-the-moon 50-state strategy which has abandoned the often failed Ohio-Pennsylvania-Florida strategy that gave the White House to the GOP from 2000 to the present. Obama has invested a considerable amount of money and effort in new voter registration and opening field offices in remote locations in state which Democrats have failed to contest for a generation. In other words, as someone who follows campaign strategy like some study historical battle tactics, I'm impressed by Obama's embrace and understanding of reaching out to people who have long been ignored by traditional campaigns. And no wonder the media is thoroughly unimpressed- while traditional Presidential campaigns have basically been an air war fought in the millions of dollars of prime time TV advertising, Obama has turned his campaign into a modern Special Ops style campaign which is choosing its targets wisely instead of just going for Shock and Awe and getting outspent by the better financed and more well organized Republican attack machine.

From text messaging to YouTube videos, the Obama campaign is embracing all the tools of the 21st century to reach voters directly instead of allowing the gate keepers with the big media conglomerates to continue to dominate our political discourse. Part of the Republican domination of the last 20 years was built on their strength in direct mail campaigning, one of Bush advisor Karl Rove's claims to fame. Now we see the next phase and it's fascinating to see it play out on a local level.

The fact the Obama campaign has a field organizer in Barry County, not to mention at least one splinter group taking off their local chunk of geography to concentrate on, and that Obama's campaign has increased enthusiasm among people to bother organizing what has been seen for too long as a hopeless effort in Barry County, means that this campaign has already scored a victory for anyone who is troubled by the one-party domination of the area. It helps too that in some ways, the domination of the GOP in Barry County has been over-hyped. A perfect example being in the 2006 Governor's race when Jennifer Granholm took 13 of 26 precincts in Barry County and lost the county by less than 800 votes to almost-local boy Dick DeVos. While it will still be a tough fight, especially if Senator McCain picks almost-local boy Mitt Romney to join the ticket in the VP slot, the fact that the Obama campaign is shaking up status quo politics and conventional wisdom, bringing the fight to Barry County makes me applaud. They may not win, but at least they're fighting....

Not as unpopular as they would have you believe

According to the newest Epic MRA poll of Michigan voters, Barack Obama leads John McCain. The more interesting bit of news is how much better he matches up against McCain than Hillary Clinton would.

Obama, the frontrunner for the Democratic nomination, leads McCain 43 percent to 41 percent, according to the survey by Lansing polling firm EPIC-MRA. Obama's lead is well within the poll's error margin of 4 percentage points, however. McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee, holds a 46-37 edge over Clinton.


Obama's numbers look even better when you realize he has yet to fully campaign in the state while McCain has done so twice. It's reasonable to assume his numbers could come up by campaigning here just as they have in virtually every state during the primary season.

So much for the notion that Michigan voters would hold it against him that he followed the rules in the state's primary. The Clinton campaign has waged a bitter fight for the state's delegates which many felt could potentially alienate Obama from voters, thus denying him a fairly reliable large midwestern state. Clinton has tried to use her "win" here in an effort to sway remaining primary voters and Democratic Party superdelegates by creating a mythical narrative that only she can win the big swing states many see as key to an electoral victory in November. Not only was the argument wrong because it ignores many other small states that could tip the scales which Obama has ran well in, but now it's clear that it is also incorrect to assume her "win" meant anything more than it's easy to win a beauty contest when you're the only one vying for the crown.


In other polling data, even though it's being spun as bad news, Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm is not nearly as unpopular as the state's media wants to think she is. 45% hold a favorable view of the term-limited Governor, while just over 50% viewed her unfavorably (the President's unfavorable ratings are 10 points higher).

I'd say that all in all this isn't bad news for Granholm who has taken the brunt of round after round of budget battles with belligerent opponents who can't accept defeat at the ballot box as a sign that the public is not with them in their quest to restrict investments in state infrastructure and education, as well as getting the blame for the economic downturn which was caused by the failure of the Big 3 to nurse itself away from production lines raking in vast profits making gas-guzzling SUVs before the price of oil rose and dried up their profits, leading to massive job layoffs in a state already hit with the effects of trade deals without sufficient worker and environmental protections to level the playing field.

If the state's Republicans want to talk about the "unpopular" Governor then we should help them remember how few Americans still trust or support the President's failed policies and inept leadership and remind your fellow citizens that the Republican Party thinks that what we really need is more of the same.

Mock Election

As most of you know, the states of Michigan and Florida were stripped of their presidential primary delegates when both states broke national party rules and scheduled primary elections before they were allowed to do so. I don't know how or why it is that some people still fail to realize that this mess will only be sorted out once the party has a nominee. Michigan and Florida will not be allowed to decide the nominee for the party, despite news reports that seek to fan the flames of controversy where there isn't even a spark of outrage amongst the actual electorate who realized a long time ago that the Michigan and Florida primaries were a sham whose results can not contribute to deciding a winner. The matter will be resolved when a candidate gains enough outstanding delegates, wins the nomination and orders the delegate of Michigan and Florida to be re-instated only when it no longer matters in a ceremonial gesture of goodwill. Anyone who says otherwise is a liar or a fool.

I personally know way too many Democratic Party members who declined to participate in the mock election for it to stand. In many cases people didn't vote because their preferred candidate had removed their name from the ballot in support of DNC rules. All the candidates agreed not to campaign here at the request of the DNC, making it nothing more than a beauty contest. Simply put, an election in which many of the major candidates names are not even the ballot and none of them campaign here fails the test of being a legitimate election. All the campaigns knew the ground rules and agreed to them.

It sure seems that many of the people who don't seem to get this are the state party officials who created this mess by playing a game of chicken with the Democratic National Committee which refused to blink. Despite repeated assurances that Michigan's delegates from the primary would not count and despite the fact that Michigan voters went to the polls understanding they were likely only casting a "beauty contest" ballot, some still want to create turmoil and gain an unfair advantage for their candidate. In many cases, the state party officials are even threatening that Michigan's voters will somehow be "disenfranchised" by the DNC and may not vote for the Democratic nominee in November. I hate to get all technical here, but that's poppycock.

If Michigan voters were disenfranchised, it was by their own state legislature and Governor who clearly and knowingly broke national party rules when scheduling the primary and ignored repeated DNC warnings that doing so would mean having the state stripped of all its delegates at the national convention. Now, this may have been too harsh a penalty, but it was known ahead of time. Michigan officials had plenty of chances to do what other states have done and have a ceremonial primary with no delegates at stake and then hold a later caucus with binding results.

The ironic thing in all of this is that with the contest still yet to be decided, Michigan could even have moved back its primary and been the major player it sought to be by violating DNC rules and kicking off this fight. Instead of a meaningful contest all we got was a mock election, and Michigan lawmakers and party officials have no one to blame but themselves.

Primary post-mortem

It sure was nice to see that Barry County Commissioner Jeff VanNortwick survived the recall attempt. As many of you surely know VanNortwick was singled out for voting for the TOST ordinance requested by the local health department despite being but one of seven commissioners to vote for it. As many of you also know, VanNortwick beat local Farm Bureau member Tom Wing by a handful of votes and has been a vocal critic of industrial farm pollution. It doesn't take a genius to see why VanNortwick faced recall while the other 7 commissioners who approved TOST got a pass. Many saw his narrow victory over Wing in the GOP primary as evidence of his political weakness yet VanNortwick managed to beat down the recall effort by focusing his energy on a positive grassroots effort that emphasized connecting with neighbors, relatives and friends, going door to door and practicing old fashioned retail politics. It didn't hurt his efforts that the recall campaign never offered anything besides criticism of TOST- one vote- to try to subvert the electoral process and the voters of Baltimore, Johnstown and Assyria Townships soundly rejected it.

While many people see serial recall-instigator George Hubka as the biggest loser in the failed recall effort, I would have to say that Barry County Democratic Party Chair Barb Cichy has a claim to that title in that at least at one time she had the respect of many people who now question her recent actions. Cichy, once a vocal critic of the failures and cronyism of the Southwest Barry Sewer Authority, seemed to be hell-bent on taking out a protector of the environment who happened to be on the ballot with an (R) next to his name. The Democratic Party should offer up a legitimate candidate and support them instead of trying assist this Quixotic effort. The party's political capital and energy would be better spent building up instead of tearing down. Cichy was also an opponent of the Charlton Park millage which was certainly at least understandable, but her free and easy way with numbers and facts in that campaign and the recall effort are not, and neither is her aligning herself and her party with some of Barry County's most suspect characters in the process. It doesn't further the interests of the party or the citizens of Barry County.

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The big winner in the Michigan primary Tuesday night was Mitt Romney, whose mostly self-financed campaign had done well in early states but except for a shallow victory in Wyoming had yet to notch a win that would impress the Beltway insiders. Romney, son of 3-term Michigan Governor George Romney, had the name and the cash to make a stand in Michigan and pulled out a rather decisive victory over John McCain who had taken the state in 2000 and supposedly had momentum which now seems all but lost as they head to South Carolina which derailed McCain's 2000 effort and could do so once again. The nail in McCain's coffin in Michigan was more than likely his blunt and cold assessment of lost manufacturing jobs while Romney pandered and promised the moon, in the eyes of many in the media at least.

Meanwhile, the big loser at the state level was the Democratic Party and the voters. Because of Michigan's decision to move up in the schedule, the state was penalized by the national parties. While the Republican National Committee chose to make Michigan pay by taking away half its delegates, the Democratic National Committee meted out a harsher sentence and stripped the state of all its delegates and threatened candidates with punishment is they campaigned here which resulted in 2 of the 3 Democratic contenders removing their names from the ballot and thus not even making it an interesting diversion. While the country and the Republican candidates talked about the state's issues (which was the intent of those in the state who forced the change), the Democratic candidates were nowhere to be found. What followed was an absurd one-sided discussion which mostly focused on the same George Bush voodoo economics that hasn't worked and never will- and certainly not the cure for what ails us. The argument went mostly unchallenged in the political debate played out via news reports, commercials, etc.

If the national Democratic Party thinks it only punished Mark Brewer and Debbie Dingell then they're simply wrong. Even if they think they only hurt the Democratic activists in the state who might not get the best hotel rooms in Denver for the national convention, they're mistaken. The DNC's overzealous punishment has hurt the party's chances to hold on to Michigan and hurt the country by giving the Republican Party nearly a week of exclusive access to the airwaves and the public consciousness. Then again, Michigan voters probably had less exposure to the recent attempts to drag down the Democratic debate in South Carolina so perhaps the Democrats weren't hurt here so bad after all.

My primary concern

So last time I discussed issues regarding the coming Presidential primary on the Republican side of the ticket and promised to look at the Democratic ballot. However, the race on the Democratic side just isn’t as interesting as the chaotic free-for-all on the Republican side (which seems a reversal in how the 2 parties normally operate). Frankly, the Michigan Democratic Presidential primary ballot looks like swiss cheese as it’s missing 2 or the top 3 contenders for the nomination who needed to vow to Iowans that their votes were more important than yours lest the oh-so-serious voters of Iowa hold it against them and stop their campaigns. For too long, the premier position of the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primaries have ensured that our Presidential campaigns are focused heavily on promises of ever-greater subsidies for corn farmers in Iowa and anti-tax pledges to the wealthy elite in the Granite State and not enough on rust belt concerns like the loss of manufacturing jobs.

As the overwhelming favorite, Senator Hillary Clinton didn’t have as much to lose as the campaigns of Barack Obama and John Edwards and so her campaign chose to remain on the ballot in Michigan while her top 2 competitors asked to have their names removed. In any case, the Michigan Democratic primary results are pretty much nothing more than a beauty contest with no real binding results. In remains to be seen how much the media decides the results are worth (my guess is that it depends on what they've already decided the story will be and whether Michigan's results play into that narrative). It’s a shame seeing as how Edwards’ heavy union support and Obama’s obvious appeal to the many black voters in the Detroit area and independent voters in the “middle” of the state could both be seen as paths to winning the state’s delegates and could have propelled either or both onto the national ticket and helped make Michigan a true player in the march to decide the national party’s nominees.

If you think I sound like I’m less than enthused about Clinton’s candidacy it’s not because I’m against her gaining the nomination, it’s more that I’m traditionally for the most populist candidate as well as usually rooting for the underdog (the two go hand in hand in modern American politics, for reasons I address below), and against the media coronation that seemed to be taking place earlier in the year. Clinton could only be a step up from the blundering and corrupt fool we have in the Oval Office right now- except that the media obsession and irrational hatred of the Clintons lingers. I would have concern that this could prove to be a distraction from governing as it was when President Clinton was launching attacks against al Qaeda in response to their growing threat but all the media wanted to talk about was the missile in the President’s pants. Conveniently, they imitated the right wing’s cries of “wag the dog” but then after September 11, 2001 wailed that Clinton hadn't done enough. I digress, but only to show how the media creates a narrative that isn’t necessarily true but becomes truth through repetition, a lie told often enough...

We’ve seen the media create an “inevitable” campaign (on the Democratic side with Hillary, on the Republican side first with McCain, then Giuliani, then Thomspon, then Romney and now back to McCain- anything to stop Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee who’s embrace of theocracy isn’t as disturbing to the media as his economic populism is) only to jump on some minor issue to beat up the leader with and create a horse race because more ratings and more money can be earned from a hotly-contested battle. It’s a long-standing theory of mine that the media will ALWAYS try to create a contest even where there is none because the closer the race, the more advertising money the campaigns will spend with the TV networks and thus they make more money. They also do their best to ensure the “marquee match ups” the same way boxing promoters maneuver their fighters into fights with the biggest purse (in boxing this is done by having your fighter beat up lots of losers to falsely inflate their record to seem more impressive- in politics it's often achieved by raising lots of money as early as possible in the race). It is this quest for the biggest, most expensive battle that has the media trying to coronate Hillary Clinton and only “select” Republican candidates with ties to the Wall Street financiers who helped George W. Bush swamp John McCain in 2000. McCain was best known for his stance in trying to get big money out of the political process- an issue he mostly ignores now.

Another disgusting aspect of this is that the media will often push out voices that don’t align with their profit-making motive. Witness the media silence regarding the fact that Iowa is, despite their best efforts, a tight 3-way race where the John Edwards stands a serious chance of winning or at least finishing in a tight cluster with the other 2 front runners. Edwards has run the most populist campaign in recent memory and speaks out strong and loudly against entrenched corporate interests which threaten to overwhelm our democracy if left unchecked (if it’s not already too late). Edwards was on the ticket in 2004 and has spent a fair amount of time campaigning in Iowa and yet the media treats him as an also ran- it is fair to argue that because of those factors he’s not treated seriously because despite these advantages he’s still in a dead heat but that would require ignoring the obvious appeal of the former First Lady and Senator from New York is running against perhaps the most charismatic Democratic politician since Senator Clinton’s husband left office. The media black out of Edwards is no doubt because the main message of his campaign is that big money (you know, the people who buy ads on network television) has too much power while the citizens don’t have enough. The last thing the traditional media wants to see is a citizenry in control of the political system- no more deregulation, stronger worker protections, FAIR trade, etc. In other words, they cover politics while looking out for their bottom line. Frankly, the mainstream corporate media has become an obstacle in the fight for the citizens of this country to take their democracy back and their coverage of politics proves it.

Despite all the crying and gnashing of teeth at Fox News that Democrats are “too scared” to debate on their network (in fact, it was not the party bosses but the Democratic activists who forced the move as they have cataloged far too many examples of Fox News’ obvious bias in their reporting, including time after time placing a Democrat “D” next to the name of a disgraced Republican, that the network is run by Republican political operatives, most of its pundits are paid by right wing think tanks and is known to have been the first network to wrongly call the 2000 election for candidate Bush) and that this is a sign they only cater to their own base, the network has announced that they will exclude Republican candidate Ron Paul from their New Hampshire debate. Paul recently set the record for one-day on-line campaign fund raising for a presidential candidate. However, Paul’s campaign is outside the parameters the media wants to see and thus they do everything they can to shut out his voice. I strongly disagree with many of Paul’s positions but I would strongly advocate for these positions to be openly debated instead of being shut out completely. Paul has polled consistently better than many of the media darling such as Fred Thompson in the state of New Hampshire and yet Paul is excluded and ignored.

We’ve seen this before when the debate system set up by the 2 major parties shut out 2rd party voices such as Ralph Nader who once again was a loud voice opposed to media deregulation and consolidation and of the influence of corporate America over our political system and the resulting erosion of our freedoms and our rights. The media pretends polls are what matters when polls often only are a reflection of what the media is reporting. It’s a vicious circle in which the media gets to create the winners and losers by what they report and what they exclude and often the winners are the ones that, unsurprisingly, have the positions most in line with the CEOs and shareholders of the giant media conglomerates. Everywhere I go, people are angry and upset at how broken the system is and yet the media does everything it can to ensure that the winners are the ones who most guarantee the least amount of change. I think we’re past the time in American politics where anything short of millions of people of streets can effect much change, and we saw before the idiotic invasion of Iraq that our corporate media will even do its best to ignore and dismiss that.

So, in other words, it doesn’t matter who actually wins or loses in Iowa or even New Hampshire, let alone Michigan. What matters most is what a small group who attend each other’s cocktail parties in the upscale suburbs of Washington D.C., the “chattering class” if you will, decide. They will set up the expectations and they will decide how well the candidates performed against their false expectations and they will control the debates and manufacture a win for their side. No matter what, We The People lose.

For years, people in the other 48 states have decried the influence of two small, mostly white states in our political process which helps to further restrict the national debate by controlling which candidates are even seen as viable in a national election. The time has come to break the system and I applaud those in Michigan who stood up and did their best despite the fact that it backfired and now Michigan and Florida voters have lost the ability to fully participate in the system. Since we never really got a say in the process until it was mostly decided we really haven’t lost much, if anything.

I’d like to think in the next four years we’ll have figured out a better process- though we seem headed for a series of randomly selected, alternating regional primaries which may or may not be an improvement. However, given the fact that the entrenched interests are making serious money off the system as it exists now, the only way things change is if they change in a way that makes the Presidential election an even bigger revenue stream for the big media powers.

There is a slight outside chance that the people can have an influence larger than the media and select candidates willing to step up, listen to the people, lead, and change the corrupt system in place. WE can be the fly in the ointment. It is that small hope that keeps me pressing on. In 2004, the compressed primary season paved the way for a surprise showing for both John Kerry and John Edwards in Iowa (fueled by a desperate Gephardt campaign attacking Howard Dean which helped create the opening- something which could well happen in the GOP field this time, most likely for John McCain as Romney and Huckabee slug it out) that propelled them onto the national ticket. With an even more compressed selection process in place this time, I fear the possibilities are even greater than an early win will prove to be decisive and that only one or two states will get any real say (fueled by the media insistence that any other candidates step down only serves to speed us toward the general election which equals money for the big media companies). There’s a slim chance that an “outsider” candidate could win big early and use the condensed schedule to propel themselves to a surprising victory, but I wouldn’t bet on that happening. In fact, that's my primary concern...