President Barack Obama had little trouble winning Michigan in 2008, with his dominance in Wayne County and Detroit ensuring a double-digit drubbing of Sen. John McCain, who bailed out of the state a month before the election.
But this year? Republicans have no intention of giving Obama a pass
through the Great Lakes State.
Four years ago, as the Democratic candidate, Obama had every advantage,
including fund-raising and a corps of highly visible surrogates, who offered
camera-ready appearances on his behalf and money and volunteers from their
political machines.
Think Gov. Jennifer Granholm, Wayne County Executive Robert Ficano and a
new, if temporary, mayor of Detroit, Ken Cockrel Jr.
But this year, fund-raising is beginning to show parity with conservative
super political action committees leveling the playing field for Republican
presidential candidate Mitt Romney, a Michigan native who intends to contest
the state all the way to Nov. 6. The PACs have spent more than $5 million on
anti-Obama ads in Michigan since Romney won the state's Feb. 28 GOP primary,
while the PAC with ties to the Obama campaign has done only a small cable
television buy.
And the prospective surrogates for Obama this time around? Granholm's
gone, Ficano's politically toxic and Detroit Mayor Dave Bing is neck-deep in
the city's financial crisis.
Granholm is now a teacher and political talk show host in California.
Ficano is so enmeshed in a corruption scandal surrounding his administration
that neither he nor his substantial campaign coffers will be anywhere near
Obama before the election. And Bing, who has little if any political
organization, has more immediate issues than the presidential election.
All three have had close ties with the Obama campaign machine. Consider a
recent Washington Post database of visitors to the White House. Granholm was
there a dozen times in the last three years, Ficano visited twice and Bing has
been there seven times since Obama took office on Jan. 21, 2009. But neither
Granholm nor Ficano have been back in more than a year while Bing was there
with the U.S. Conference of Mayors in March. When Obama visited Michigan the
last three times, none were invited to the main events.
Bing and Ficano, who declined to comment for this report, did get to
greet Obama at Metro Airport in Romulus when he came for Labor Day last year,
but both were kept away from his main labor-sponsored speech to appease
unions.
"Traditionally, the Detroit and Wayne County political operations have
provided enough people to allow the presidential campaigns to not have to
worry about Wayne County and Detroit," said political consultant Eric Foster.
"It's going to be a very challenging situation for them this year."
The vote in Detroit and Wayne County is too essential to ignore. In 2008,
Detroit voters gave Obama a 97%-3% victory, while Wayne County overall
supported Obama 74%-25%.
This year, the race between Obama and Romney is close on a national
level, with Obama leading by an average of just more than 2 percentage points
in the last five national polls. But Michigan is a different story. The latest
poll of 500 Michigan voters done by Public Policy Polling last weekend showed
Obama with a commanding 53%-39% lead.
Lacking a visible leader at the top, the Obama campaign has reactivated
much of its 2008 campaign infrastructure, including political veteran Lavora
Barnes as Michigan campaign director, senior adviser Amy Chapman and the
legions of volunteers who got out the Obama vote four years ago.
The campaign points out that the 2008 effort in Michigan didn't really
get up and running until after Obama had sewn up the Democratic nomination in
June.
"But we've been here since then and have never really left. Our
infrastructure is much deeper and broader than in 2008," said Matt McGrath,
Michigan campaign spokesman.
"The Democrats are going all in for organization" while Republicans focus
on raising money, said Rich Robinson, executive director of the Michigan
Campaign Finance Network, which tracks campaign spending.
"It's two entirely different philosophies of campaigning," he said. "And
that will be the question of this election: Which philosophy works?"
The Obama campaign also is recruiting different surrogates this time
around, like the tight-knit community of Detroit ministers, Wayne County
Sheriff Benny Napoleon and state Senate Minority Leader Gretchen Whitmer,
D-East Lansing.
"Certainly, the landscape has changed since 2008, but it doesn't change
the fact that there is a lot of support for the president in Michigan," said
Whitmer. "We've got (Sen. Carl) Levin, the congressional delegation and a lot
of Michigan Democrats who will be hitting the stump."
Napoleon said his decades of experience with the political machines in
metro Detroit have prepared him. He already has set up two meetings with the
national campaign, organized labor and the city's ministers.
"I have a lot of capital in this community, and the campaign recognizes
that. We can put together a coalition of significant Democratic players," he
said.
Political consultant Ed Sarpolus added that even though Michigan's
influential labor community is largely concentrating on its own ballot
initiative, which will protect collective bargaining rights, just their
presence in this election cycle will help Obama.
"What Obama needs is what labor needs in November: votes," Sarpolus said.
"So they'll help each other."
But Foster warned that Republicans, especially the super PACs, will have
a field day trying to tie Obama to the troubles of Democrats in Detroit and
Wayne County.
"Picture the ads. It will have Coleman (Young), Kwame (Kilpatrick), (Ed)
McNamara, Ficano and Obama," he said. "Then they'll have a question mark and
ask, 'Is this what Democrats do when they are in charge?' "
