The Battle for Michigan
By Amy Sullivan/Royal Oak
The New Battlegrounds Oakland County, Mich.
To get a fix on just how thoroughly the slumping economy has clobbered the state of Michigan, consider first some traditional indicators: Nearly 300,000 manufacturing jobs have disappeared in the past decade. Ford just posted the worst quarterly loss in its 105-year history, and GM announced it was closing or converting plants. More than 1 of every 20 mortgages is in or near foreclosure, and at 8.5%, Michigan's unemployment rate is the highest in the nation.
But to fully grasp why the economy is the first, last and only issue on the minds of Michigan voters this year, one fact reveals all: two months after the Detroit Red Wings won the Stanley Cup, there is no waiting list for season tickets.
Michigan has gone Democratic in every presidential election cycle since 1988--but it could surprise this time around. While Democrats usually benefit when economic concerns dominate an election, Barack Obama is running only a few points ahead of John McCain in statewide polls, a margin neither side considers safe. Adding to Obama's challenges is the fact that several of the state's Democratic leaders are wildly unpopular, under indictment or both.
The battle for Michigan is coming down to leafy, affluent Oakland County, a once solidly Republican bastion that has grown more Democratic in recent years. Oakland is one of the new battlegrounds of 2008--a handful of counties in must-win swing states that weren't pivotal a decade ago but are where the election will be lost or won this year. Though nearby Macomb County gave rise to Reagan Democrats nearly 30 years ago, it is the more upscale Oakland that holds the key to Michigan now.
Directly northwest of Detroit, Oakland County is the center of wealth in Michigan--it's where Eminem moved after he made his millions--and has escaped the worst of the prolonged slump. When the Pistons relocated from Detroit, they chose Auburn Hills for their new home. Mitt Romney grew up in Bloomfield Hills (which may move him up the list of likely McCain running mates) and attended Cranbrook, the county's toniest private school. Madonna (but not her accent) hails from Rochester Hills.
Despite its wealth, Oakland is feeling pain from the economic downturn. The most recent round of auto-industry cuts has walloped white collar engineers and researchers who call Oakland County home. Take a drive through the hardest-hit neighborhoods, and you'll see blocks on which one-third or more of the houses have a FOR SALE sign planted in their front yard. The mix of layoffs and a depressed real estate market has forced some highly trained workers to take jobs in other states and leave their families behind in unsold homes.
On paper, Oakland should be McCain territory. His politics don't emphasize the kind of social conservatism that has driven many of the county's Republican voters away from the GOP in recent years. And he's a known quantity--independents and Democrats cast votes for him in the 2000 GOP primary to spite then governor John Engler, who had promised to deliver the state for George W. Bush. "A lot of people still have an affinity for John McCain," says Oakland University political scientist "David Dulio. "They voted for him once, and he might be able to take advantage of that."
But this year McCain's approach to the economy may be squandering that reservoir of goodwill. During a primary-campaign stopover, he offered a straight-talk diagnosis: "Some jobs that have left Michigan are not coming back." He has since tried to massage the message, but that task was made more difficult during a visit with GM workers, which McCain spent explaining why one of his closest advisers had just dismissed concerns about the economy as a "mental recession."
Obama has potholes of his own to fill. Michiganders didn't take kindly to being made the villain in Obama's oft told tale of how he had the courage to go to Detroit and say the auto industry needed to raise fuel-efficiency standards. It was an obvious way to establish his reputation as a "different kind of politician." But it didn't help his relative weakness among blue collar voters. Now Obama has to run up a healthy margin among Oakland's affluent independents and Republicans, who have been crossing over to vote Democratic in recent elections. David Woodward, the county Democratic chairman, says many potential Obama supporters "are really moderate Republicans. They're pro-choice. Their hairstylists are gay. They don't get worked up about teaching evolution."
The other challenge Obama faces in Oakland is Michigan's tainted Democratic brand. Democratic governor Jennifer Granholm has an approval rating of only 20%. And in Detroit, which lies just on the other side of 8 Mile Road, Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick faces a long litany of legal and ethical woes stemming from his affair with a co-worker. Kilpatrick had to post a $7,500 bond to remain out of jail and take a court-ordered drug test. Republicans hope a weakened Democratic machine in Detroit will hamper Obama's effort in the fall. "Obama will have to go in himself and build his own machine," predicts GOP state-party chair Saul Anuzis. It's a fairly safe bet that the nation's first black presidential nominee will turn out the vote in the country's most predominantly black city. But the danger for Obama is that years of scandalous headlines about a young black man in power in Detroit will have a much subtler impact on the way suburban voters view Obama's candidacy. As longtime Democrat David Bonior notes, "Often there's a reaction against Detroit in Oakland County."
That may explain why Obama and his wife have visited the state five times since he clinched the Democratic nomination and have made more stops in Oakland County than in any other part of the state. McCain has been to Michigan six times since mid-March, stopping in Oakland once. By mid-July, the two campaigns had spent at least $5.6 million on television advertising in the state. And as the economy has worsened this summer, both candidates have talked of shifting Michigan to a greener economy and developing biofuels and electric cars in lieu of SUVS and trucks. The Big Three are slowly moving in that direction, which could benefit engineers and researchers who live in Oakland, even if it means additional lost positions for line workers in Macomb and Wayne counties.
What is certain is that Obama's 4-point lead in recent statewide polls means little in a state with a tradition of making last-minute decisions. Both Obama and McCain are digging in early to persuade the state's struggling voters to take a chance on them in November. Until they decide, voters can agree on one cause to root for this fall. Billboards around the metro area advertise Lions season tickets for the recession-rate bargain price of $230.