McCain, Palin must address economy to win state of Michigan, some say
freep.com
GOP does little to fill in blanks
BY TODD SPANGLER
DETROIT FREE PRESS WASHINGTON STAFF
September 7, 2008
WASHINGTON -- If this year's presidential election turns on the economy, the Republicans are in big trouble -- and they seem to know it.
Amid the touting of John McCain's credentials to keep the nation safe and excitement over vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin at last week's Republican National Convention, there was a glaring absence of talk about the faltering economy, the jobless rate in states like Michigan and the wave of home foreclosures sweeping the nation.
Contrast that with what the Democrats and their nominee Barack Obama did at their convention in Denver the week before: Michigan's governor hosted a town hall meeting on the economy and at least three people from Michigan -- all union members -- talked from the main stage about the challenges they and their families are facing.
On the Republican side? McCain mentioned a Farmington Hills family in his speech and touched on his plans for creating jobs -- but, overall, his speech was more about bipartisanship (in sharp contrast to the partisan vitriol in many GOP speeches) and duty to country than fixing the economy.
"I was shocked that McCain didn't have anything of substance on the economy," said Joe DiSano, a political consultant in Lansing. "Voters are smart enough to know that tax cuts aren't the only solution."
Poll after poll has shown that Americans -- and Michiganders even more so -- say the economy is their top election-year issue.
But will it decide how people vote? Gordon Marble, 55, of Otisville in Genesee County typically votes Democratic. He is a UAW member and a GM/Delphi retiree -- by stereotype, he would be voting for Obama.
But he's undecided, and he says a lot of people -- him included -- question whether someone with Obama's relative inexperience on the national stage "can do all he's claiming he can do for the economy."
It will be up to Obama's forces marshaling in states like Michigan to overcome those worries. On Monday, Obama visits Flint before he is to return to metro Detroit -- Farmington Hills specifically -- trying to do just that.
Top election-year-issue
No one should be surprised that the economy could be a losing issue for the GOP this year. When the economy turns, the party in power -- that is, the party whose candidate won the White House -- typically gets more of the credit or blame.
But if Michigan is really going to be in play -- and the Republicans are seriously suggesting it can be with their numerous appearances and lots of money being spent on TV ads -- it begs the question how it can be won without the economy being more specifically addressed.
Certainly, the Democrats see it is as a key issue, not just in Michigan but across the industrial Midwest. Democrats, for instance, believe they can win Ohio, a key in Republican George W. Bush's 2004 victory.
On Friday, the Labor Department announced a 6.1% national jobless rate in August -- the highest in five years. That report also noted the loss of 39,000 auto jobs in the months -- the largest single-month decline on record -- and Obama immediately used it to blast Bush's policies and, by extension, McCain.
McCain, like Obama, has ideas about improving the economy, and some of those include proposals he shares with Obama -- like cutting taxes on middle-class families and supporting loan guarantees for automakers to refit plants. But labor sees McCain and his free market, open trade mantra as potentially hurting American jobs; Obama has promised to protect those jobs and rewrite the tax code to promote job growth and retention.
McCain is more of a supply-sider like his political idol, former President Ronald Reagan, firmly believing that taxes on the wealthy and corporations trims investments that lead to jobs. In Sterling Heights, McCain talked about government getting out of the way to help the economy.
As compelling as those ideas are to some, however, there is little evidence it's working in a manufacturing-based economy like Michigan's.
"I agree that the GOP still has to fill in some blanks as the substance of its proposals on the economy, but they had numerous opportunities to do so, and they deliberately didn't," said Bill Ballenger, publisher of the Lansing-based newsletter Inside Michigan Politics.
Whether they fill in that so-called knowledge gap that Ballenger sees remains to be seen, but what's clear to him is that the Democrats are playing the safe, traditional election-year strategy, appearing convinced they have the upper hand.
McCain and the Republicans, on the other hand, are taking the riskier approach, bringing someone like the relatively unknown staunch conservative Palin -- the first female Republican vice presidential nominee -- to whip up enthusiasm and energize the base.
And others, too, if Marble is any indication. Praising Palin after seeing her speech last Wednesday as "a straight-shooter," he said, "I like that gal."
Perhaps, then, the GOP's strategy will be enough -- combined with concerns about Obama's experience, attacks that he'll raise taxes and the yet-to-be-determined effect of his being the first-ever black nominee of a major U.S. political party -- to pull Michigan and some other battleground states for McCain, despite the Democrats' apparent edge on the economy.
Convention bounce missing
Every four years, nominees and their opponents look for the bounce in the polls following their conventions.
Like many things about this year, that has been distinctively different in 2008.
Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia Center for Politics, explained: "McCain squashed Obama's bounce with the Palin announcement the day after. The new unemployment numbers have squashed McCain's bounce the day after" the GOP convention.
"Even with the energy and tax issues, there is simply no way for the economy to help McCain," Sabato said. "Bad economic news and Bush's unpopularity is almost entirely responsible for Obama's edge."
How big the edge is and whether it lasts is the question.
As for the conventions, they attracted attention, but some people stayed away.
Melissa Peters, 38, of Hudsonville is an independent leaning toward McCain but hasn't decided.
"It's all talk," she said of the conventions. "They just tell you what you want to hear." |
