The Bush Economy, Part 2

More than one month ago, on December 12, I put out a blog on the failings of the Bush economy.(See the archive.) In the past week the failures of his economic policies have been driving down the stock market, and have prompted the head of the Federal Reserve to call for an economic stimulus package as quickly as possible.  Bush's immediate response has been to call for an across the board tax cut. Now, recall that the foolish tax cuts of his first year in office helped to over-heat the economy, and recall that these overwhelmingly favored the very rich. The immediate problem is not that these same rich people need yet another tax cut, but that relief is needed specifically by the middle class. More specifically still, people who bought houses recently need help in paying their mortgages. Rather than give a tax cut to everyone, in other words, Bush should be focusing on those families who are on the brink of going under. If they default on mortgages, the ripple effects will further destabilize the entire economy. What to do?

First, Congress should step in and guarantee mortgages, helping banks and borrowers to renegotiate the terms of their debt. Neither banks nor borrowers gain anything if the mortgage market collapse. Rather than just give some money to everyone, including rich people who already have received a terrific tax cut, and then hope that the economy as a whole will be stimulated enough to help people with big mortgages, why not attack the problem directly?

Second, Bush should admit that the US cannot afford to keep spending $1 billion a day in Iraq. There were strong military and strategic arguments against going into that war in the first place, but they made no impression upon the true-believers who directed policy. Perhaps the Republicans will listen to an economic argument, especially in an election year.

Third, the Democrats should seize this opportunity to attack the Republicans for their mistaken foreign policy and their failed economic policy. During the last week in the Nevada Caucuses we have witnessed some rather pitiful in-fighting, especially from the Clinton side. It is time to tell the American people just how bad a President Bush has been. The Democrats have to attack the neo-conservative policies that have weakened the United States financially and hurt its international image. Obama must move beyond "feel good" unity and hope toward a more detailed vision of what will change and how. And Clinton should stop crowing about her vast experience and start to show the American people that she has the courage to confront the Republicans and hold them accountable for their mistakes. 

Unfortunately, I doubt that any of these things will occur. In an election year Congress is likely to be distracted, and the Democrats may not want to rescue the Republicans. They may calculate that the worse the economy gets, the less chance there is for McCain or Romney or whoever it turns out to be. Nor should one expect that Bush will retreat from Iraq. He will no doubt stubbornly "stay the course," just as Richard Nixon stubbornly stayed in Vietnam, convinced that a victory and vindication would eventually come. Even if Bush suddenly did change his mind, it will take more than a year to get the troops out in an orderly fashion, and that $1 billion a day will continue to hemorrhage out of the economy. Finally, it seems that the Clintons may lower the tone of the Democratic primaries. Bill Clinton in particular has become more aggressive toward Obama. In contrast, McCain and Huckabee on the whole seemed to be take the high road of civility in South Carolina.  (But note the latter has begun to embrace the Confederate flag!)

In short, while the economic woes of the US continue to worsen, there is no clear sign yet of intelligent policy or good leadership from Bush. Meanwhile, the Democrats may squander the opportunity to lead in an internal war of attrition. 

Clinton Gambles for Nevada Votes

Whenever I get to Nevada I feel as though I ought to be given a free hotel room. After all, the first governor of the Nevada Territory, at the time of the Civil War, was James Nye (1815-1876. See the photo on the right). I admit he was a distant relative, but they did name a county after him (population 32,000), and he was the first senator elected to represent Nevada when it became a state. We have some rather friendly remarks about James Nye from the pen of Mark Twain, whose brother was the governor's secretary. Twain declared,

The Government of the new Territory of Nevada was an interesting
menagerie. Governor Nye was an old and seasoned politician from New
York--politician, not statesman. He had white hair; he was in fine
physical condition; he had a winningly friendly face and deep lustrous
brown eyes that could talk as a native language the tongue of every
feeling, every passion, every emotion. His eyes could outtalk his
tongue, and this is saying a good deal, for he was a very remarkable
talker, both in private and on the stump. He was a shrewd man; he
generally saw through surfaces and perceived what was going on inside
without being suspected of having an eye on the matter.

In any case, since my family has been associated with Nevada for almost 150 years, I have always taken a little extra interest in its affairs, including the caucuses going on there later today.

First of all, despite being a large western state, Nevada's 1.9 million people are mostly urban, with Las Vegas and vicinity concentrating 1.3 million of them, followed by Reno and nearby Carson City. As Las Vegas and Reno have grown, they have become more like other American cities. They have universities and high schools, supermarkets and malls, suburban housing areas, and all the other features you might find in Omaha or Denver. The majority of the land areas in these cities bears little resemblance to the glamorous "strip" of gigantic casinos that figure so prominently on CSI or in films.

A politician need not visit 95% of the state to reach the majority of voters, but can focus almost entirely on these two urban areas. The racial composition of this largely urban population is not much like that in New Hampshire or Iowa. One fifth of the entire population is Hispanic, and polls indicate they lean toward Clinton. Obama can expect strong support from the Black population, but they are less numerous (7%).

Economically speaking, Nevada is not like the rest of the country, or much of anywhere else, because its economy has such a large element of gambling and tourism. The gambling revenues are so large that the tax paid on them covers most of the state's expenses. There is no state income tax in Nevada. So it has been a liability for Obama that in the past he has been critical of gambling. I happen to think he was right to say that gambling was not a good thing for poor people, taken all around. In his words, it can have a "devastating effect" on communities. As a state senator in Illinois, Obama did not always want to see gambling spread to more and more places. But Las Vegas is not the ideal place for a politician to get known as a critic of gambling, even if we do know that gambling in effect is a regressive tax that hits the poor harder than the rich.

The Clinton campaign has kindly made a point of letting Nevada know Obama's views, while Hillary has posed for photographs with casino owners. She has stressed her support of their operations. Meanwhile, Obama has the endorsement of the casino and restaurant workers, which makes for an interesting contrast. Who would have thought that the Hillary of New Hampshire who identified herself with mill workers could so quickly become a buddy of the high rollers? For her, gambling apparently is just good economic development, and she has been endorsed by leading figures at MGM Mirage and Harrah's. Clinton's new position potentially could mean she will support on-line gambling, which has large implications for the election as a whole. Gambling is a hot issue in California, where there are several referendums about it. Furthermore, John McCain is not friendly to on-line betting and gambling. So, is Hillary really intent on widening the reach of gambling? Is this what "change" means to her? Or is she just willing to use anything to get an advantage against Obama in Nevada? She has already run into trouble with the Methodist Church. She claims to be a good Methodist, but apparently the church has somewhat stricter views on gambling than she does. One suspects she will return to the church fold soon, perhaps as soon as the voting is over. Tomorrow is Sunday, after all.

Meanwhile, I am still hoping to get that free hotel room, though perhaps I will have to go to bone dry Nye County to get it.

Which Candidates Are Winning On-Line?

Which candidates are most popular on-line? The answer to this question is not surprising. The Democrats are far and away the more computer savvy, while Republicans are mired in the old economy. Just recall how many members of the Bush Administration are tightly linked to either the oil industry or the automobile companies. Bush and Cheney are oil men. Even Condi Rice is on the Board of Chevron and has an oil tanker named after her. This name was bestowed before she came into the Bush White House, suggesting added reasons for her engagement with Middle East politics.  So, the Republicans are part of that old economy shaped to the needs of Detroit and Texas, the economy which focused on General Motors and assumed that the more cars sold every year the better off we all were.

The Democrats have moved on into the digital world, especially Obama, who has forged strong ties with Google. If you want to test that proposition, have a look at Facebook. All the candidates are out there on Facebook, but only some of them have much credibility in that venue. On Facebook, as most people know, it is relatively easy to become "friends" with another person, just by posting them a message and getting a quick reply. Obama must have a full time staff person looking after his Facebook page, however, as he has amassed no less than 251,000 "friends." Even if it only took 15 seconds to reply to each of them, the time involved is stupendous, more than 1000 hours. Hillary, by comparison, is not as popular - as everyone knows - so she has only 75,000 "friends" on Facebook. 

That is a big difference, but consider that McCain, most popular with voters over 60, has only 26,000 friends, while Romney is slightly more so, with 29,000. If all the Republicans are relatively "friendless" compared to Obama, Huckabee reveals a slight edge, with more than 43.000. This should not surprise us, for the religious Right is often quite high tech. They love tele-evangelism, use powerpoint presentations in sermons, and mount sophisticated marketing operations. Even old Oral Roberts who used to heal people on TV through the laying on of hands, while shouting "Heal," made millions through telemarketing, including a dial-a-prayer operation. 

Facebook is largely populated by the young, and not by people over 30 like myself, most of whom were cajoled to join by their students or a young relative. One may reasonably conclude that these Facebook ratings show that political commentators are correct when they suggest that the Democrats, particularly Obama, are winning over the young. If the election were held on Facebook, then the two candidates would be Obama and Huckabee, the winners of the Iowa Caucuses. And Obama would win that confrontation easily.

I want to thank Bent Sørensen who drew my attention to the Facebook "friends" of the candidates. He also pointed out that one can express a stronger level of support by declaring that one is a "fan." This requires downloading an extra little program, but does not cost anything. Here again, Obama wins, with 6300 "fans" compared to 3564 for Hillary. The poor Republicans have so few fans I will not embarrass them by posting their numbers. 

There is another way to tackle this issue of popularity on-line, however, by moving outside the confines of Facebook and just "googling" the candidates. Type in "Hillary Clinton" and there are 59 million hits. Obama only has 3.3 million, less than John Edwards at 3.8 million. The Republicans weigh in with McCain at 5.2 million, Mitt Romney 2.3 million, Rudy Giuliana 1.25 million, and Huckabee 1.1 million. If Google is a reliable indicator, then the two candidates are likely to be Hillary Clinton and John McCain, who were the winners of the New Hampshire Primary.

Curiously, one gets a similar result from Rasmussen Marketing.com, which has an on-line trading system that rates candidates and issues. It functions as a kind of handicapping system, suggesting the chances of each candidate getting his or her party's nomination. It turns out that as of today, Rasmussen Marketing gives Clinton a 57% chance of getting the Democratic nomination, with Obama at 41%.  McCain has a big lead among the Republicans, with 39%, while Romney (20%) and Giuliani (19.5%) trail behind. Huckabee is given little chance, with only 13.5%

In conclusion, we have three indicators - Facebook, hits on Google and Rassmusen Marketing. If you put them all together, Hillary and McCain seem to have the strongest likelihood of winning the nominations. It seems that Facebook is only a reliable index to the youth vote, not the electorate as a whole. But, as baseball fans like to say,  it ain't over yet.

The Michigan Results

Romney has won in Michigan, with 39% of the votes, and so he keeps his hopes alive. McCain had 30%, Huckabee only 16%. It was a convincing victory. Romney was the strongest candidate in all age groups except for those over 60, who went for McCain. Romney also beat Huckabee among both Protestants and Catholics. Meanwhile, McCain carried the Republicans who never go to church, with 39% of that little constituency. Furthermore, as noted in an earlier blog here, Huckabee did extremely poorly among the Catholics, getting less than 10% of their votes. And these are the very conservative, Republican Catholics, who represented about 30% of the vote. Huckabee would have even less appeal to the larger group of Democratic Catholics. In short, Michigan's results suggest that Huckabee may have been a one-win wonder in Iowa, who now must redeem himself in South Carolina next week, if he is to look viable. 

McCain, on the other hand, did respectably in Michigan, which after all is Romney's former home state. It is hard to beat an opponent who can bring his old schoolteacher and classmates up on stage. Nevertheless, if we probe these results further, it turns out that voters who think the economy is on the right track and who are generally satisfied voted for Romney. The unhappy voters were more likely to be for McCain, whether they were upset by Bush in particular, the poor Iraq results, or the economy.  McCain also was relatively successful with Independents and Democrats, some of whom crossed over to vote for him. Finally, McCain defeated Romney in urban areas (40% to 31%), which is obviously important in the coming contests for New York and California.  So while he lost, McCain showed that he can appeal across party lines, and remains in a good position for the contest in South Carolina.  In terms of money, however, Romney has $60 million to McCain's $31 million, a difference which could begin to be a real problem for McCain by February. 

There are also three footnotes to these Republican results. The first is the strange failure of Giuliani to put up any fight at all, as he dropped to just 3%. Perhaps if neither Romney nor McCain can win an advantage soon, this strategy will yet be vindicated, but it looks like a long shot. Only slightly better was Fred Thompson's 4% showing. He seems unable to ignite his campaign, and one suspects that he is staying in the race in order to have a shot at being the vice-presidential nominee. Indeed, perhaps that is Giuliani's idea as well. If he can show he is strong in Florida, he becomes an attractive VP who can deliver that vital swing state and help carry New York. Finally, there is Paul's fascinating maverick candidacy. He describes himself as an old-fashioned strict constructionist of the Constitution. He is so far to the right that he emerges on the left on some issues, notably Iraq, where he advocates withdrawal. If you have not seen him in the debates, pay more attention, for the Texas congressman has some vocal supporters, as he calls for balancing the budget, an end to military adventurism abroad, and a return to the foreign policy of Thomas Jefferson. I strongly doubt that he is seeking the vice-presidential nomination, and he is smart enough to know that he is but an articulate gadfly. If nothing else, he shows how boring Fred Thompson is by comparison.

Meanwhile, Hillary won, running unopposed, and will get zero delegates, because the Democratic Party is punishing Michigan for advancing its primary date, as discussed a few days ago here. A notable 43% did not support her in the absence of other candidates. The real action was out in Nevada, where delegates can be won or lost, and where a debate took place yesterday. It apparently was a particularly friendly affair, as the three main candidates made a point of not attacking one another. After some un-pleasantries earlier in the week over the relative contributions of Martin Luther King and Lyndon Johnson, it seems that Clinton and Obama have returned to their senses. Arguing about events that took place 40 years ago, and bringing up race, were just not going to sell either candidate to the electorate.

One final aspect of the Michigan vote needs to be emphasized. Fully 46% of those exit-polled admitted that they did not make up their minds until this week. Indeed, more than 30% made up their minds during the last three days. As in Iowa and New Hampshire, this remains a fickle electorate, one that can be swayed by small events or media images right up to the end. The last minute shifts on the whole favored Romney. McCain outpolled him (32% to 28%) among those who had decided more than one month ago, but Romney garnered 41% of the voters who decided on the last day, as they neared the ballot box. McCain only got a quarter of these votes, and that represents much of the margin of difference between them.

Fluidity in the "YouTube Campaign"

More than any presidential race that I can recall, this one reveals voters who are uncertain about whom they will ultimately support. Look at any of the more detailed polls, and you find that half or more of any candidate's support is "soft." So many people have not really made their minds yet, that relatively small events may have a big impact on the final result. Hillary's tearing up is only one example of what we can expect will be a series of signature moments when the electorate gets a new perception of a candidate. One such moment, showed an older woman ask McCain, "How do we stop the bitch?" She can only be referring to Clinton, and the entire (Republican) room erupts into laughter, McCain included. He never directly answers the question, but his facial expression reveals some sympathy for the query combined with the realization that he had best treat the incident as humorously as possible. But the question and the crowd response speak volumes about the Republicans.

Another moment, concerning Romney, also was caught on camera and made available on YouTube. In this short sequence, Romney approaches a young man in a wheelchair. No doubt the candidate is expecting to score some points by displaying compassion. But the encounter goes badly for Romney. As the camera rolls, he learns that the young man suffers from an incurable condition, and that the only thing that can ease his pain is marijuana. Romney is against drugs of all forms being legalized under any circumstances, and immediately points out that there is a synthetic form of marijuana available as a pill. This he supports, if prescribed by a physician. But the young man says that the such pills make him ill, and that only smoking marijuana works for him. Romney begins to back away, as the young man asks whether, if elected, Romney would put him in jail for smoking it. Romney does not hesitate to say that he does not endorse such use, turns his back on the man and begins to look for a more congenial conversation. But whoever is holding the camera stops him, and asks if he is literally going to turn his back on the young man. Will he not speak with him? Romney curtly replies that he has already spoken to him and given him an answer.

The whole episode takes less time to see than it does to describe. It makes me dislike Romney who appears slick, self-assured, insensitive, rigid, cold, and "deeply superficial" - by which I mean superficial all the way down, through and through. Now conceivably this was not a characteristic moment. Maybe Romney normally is a really nice guy. But the footage seemed to me a confirmation of what I have sensed about the man all along.

Such YouTube coverage may become a crucial element in this campaign, helping the public to get beyond the spin and the crafted TV commercials. I certainly hope so. But we will also have to be wary of assuming that YouTube videos are themselves completely unvarnished slices of reality. They can be manipulated and edited, too.

The important point is that in 2008 we are experiencing the conjunction of two events that might not have coincided. The first is the wide open race on both sides, with no heir apparent in either party. This basically has not happened in the memory of the electorate. The second is the advent of YouTube, which is so new that it did not play a role in any previous campaign. As we move through the rest of the primaries, look for more of these moments digitally captured and rebroadcast via the Internet. We seem to be witnessing the birth of a major force in the electoral process. Just as radio became important in the 1930s and television in the 1950s, reshaping the political landscape in the process, the Internet may provide a new kind of electoral battleground. In this new form of public space, the ordinary person has more opportunities to be heard, via Blogs and digital imagery. This makes possible new forms of negative advertising, and new kinds of "reality TV" straight from the campaign trail.

Perhaps that is why Barack Obama has visited the Google headquarters at least twice. He can see that the politics of the future will be more interactive and less from the top down. During his second visit Obama gave a rousing address to a standing-room-only crowd, in which he showed himself quite savvy on the issues that concerned such entrepreneurs. Obama's appearance at Google, too, is available on YouTube - which Google owns.

Obama also has a sophisticated on-line fund-raising operation, which has gathered thousands of email addresses from supporters and provided him with infusions of new cash. His homepage is not only well-designed, it generates campaign money for up-coming contests. Obama makes it easy for contributors to match gifts, to provide the names and emails of other likely contributors, and to follow the progress of each mini-fund drive. And contributors have opportunities to chat on-line to one another, too.

Overall, both Obama and Clinton appear more computer literate than either McCain or Huckabee. That ought to position them well to operate in the new world of Internet campaigns, with its unscripted (or semi-scripted) moments on YouTube. This may be crucial in reaching the still undecided electorate. Stay tuned.

Voting Patterns May Favor Clinton and McCain

Forty years ago I worked briefly for the Eugene McCarthy campaign in New Hampshire. That was a heady experience, because the primary became, in effect, a referendum on the Vietnam War. And McCarthy did something no one had thought possible. He embarrassed a sitting President, who won with 49%, by getting more than 42% of the vote. This was hardly an expected result in a conservative state. It was only possible because of massive support from college students and other young people. It did not hurt McCarthy that he had a good education in Catholic universities, so he could appeal to that constituency as well.

Working in the campaign made me acutely aware of the differences between voters. The problem for any candidate is, "How can I appeal to as many groups as possible?" The usual practice is to come up with a general campaign slogan, such as "New Deal," "Fair Deal," "New Frontier" or, this year, simply, "Change," and then develop a variety of specific proposals, which the candidate trots out or barely mentions, depending on the particular audience being addressed. Yet, in the end, each candidate appeals more to some social classes, religious faiths, or racial groups than to others. Some appeal more to men than women, or vice-versa. If only men could vote, then Bill Clinton would never have been president.  What can we learn about the major candidates' constituencies, based on Iowa and New Hampshire? 

Who voted for Obama instead of Clinton? For Huckabee or McCain?  Iowa and New Hampshire voting behavior suggests some patterns to think about. Consider that Hillary's New Hampshire victory essentially was won in small industrial towns, where she got twice the support Obama did. She is also emerging as a working-class candidate who speaks to bread and butter issues. Since the American economy is fading at the moment, with falling house prices and higher unemployment, this aspect of Hillary's appeal bears watching. Another area of strength for her is in terms of religion. The Catholics clearly preferred Hillary (44%) to Obama (27%), with Protestants more evenly divided. In New Hampshire, these Catholics are mostly French-Canadian and Irish. Will Obama find a way to reach out to such voters? Will he have more success with Catholics that have other ethnic backgrounds? He will have to re-think his basic message a bit if he wants to appeal to the less educated and to the working-class. To put this in a more positive way, Obama outpolled Clinton among college students, the better educated, and the wealthy. Among those who have gone to graduate school, he defeated her soundly, 46% to 27%. But could he win a Presidential election primarily based on that kind of support? Perhaps, for Obama seems to attract votes from people with higher incomes, many of them Independents. Among voters earning more than $50,000 a year, Obama had a margin over Clinton of 43% to 27%. 

These kinds of preferences are not written in stone, and candidates can modify their speechs and presentations to woo voters whom they failed to attract early on. For example, Hillary discovered in Iowa that the young were flocking to Obama by a radio of 2 to 1, while she was busy targeting women over 45. To improve in this area, in New Hampshire Hillary began surrounding herself on stage with young people. That may seem a rather minimal change, but it seems to have helped her. 

Overall, one can see that while the total vote for Obama and Clinton was close, support varied greatly within specific groups. Men strongly preferred him, but women brought her the victory. Clinton may be a bit better positioned, with strong support from Catholics, women, and the working class. But Obama will presumably adjust his campaign messages in an attempt to reach more of these voters, all of whom traditionally have been more Democratic than Republican. If he fails to do this, he will have troubles down the road that may undercut the boost he can expect to get from Black voters, who were scarcely present in Iowa or New Hampshire.

On the Republican side, for the last three decades religion has been a particularly important influence on voters. New Hampshire Catholics taken as a whole are rather conservative, and in 2004 gave more support to Bush (52%) than to Kerry (47%). In theory, Huckabee could do as well as Bush. In practice, he did far worse. Huckabee received most of his support from Evangelical Protestants, while in New Hampshire only 8% of the Republican-voting Catholics selected him. McCain literally got five times more Catholic votes, suggesting that he is far more electable in a national contest. More to the point, in the Michigan Primary next week there are three Catholic voters for every two Evangelicals. Furthermore, if one looks at Protestants as a whole, McCain has roughly the same appeal as Huckabee.  In short, Huckabee's born-again Baptist religion ultimately may be a limitation, not a strength. Nevertheless, the latest Michigan polls show Huckabee and McCain in a dead heat along with Romney, with all three getting about 20% of the vote. 

Michigan Primary

Michigan is much different than Iowa or New Hampshire: it is more like the rest of the United States. In that sense, the Michigan Primary could function as a reality check. How might these candidates fare in an industrial, multicultural state? Unfortunately, the Michigan Primary will not function this way, because when it was moved to an earlier date, this was against party rules. Both parties have punished Michigan by taking away delegates to the national nominating conventions. The Republicans took away half, the Democrats took away every one of the delegates. As a result, Obama, Edwards and Richardson have taken their names off the ballot, while Clinton did not. So, on the Democratic side, there is no contest, though voters may choose to vote "uncommitted." In a curious way, the vote then turns out to be a referendum on Hillary. Her or "uncommitted"?

 

In the first two contests, the candidates could reasonably expect to come into personal contact with a good deal of the electorate. On a good day in Iowa or New Hampshire, they might be seen and heard by 15,000 people or more, and multiply that number by the days they spent in the state, and it compares rather well with the turnout in Iowa and New Hampshire. Fully half of the voters in each state got a first-hand impression of the candidates, and anyone who wanted to do so certainly has the opportunity. A friend of mine in New Hampshire wrote me that he and his wife managed to see Obama three times, Clinton, Richardson, and Edwards twice each, plus McCain and Giuliani.  He decided for Obama, saying, "When we first saw him, a year ago at a book signing event, I was underimpressed. But he grew into his candidacy. His Welcome Back to New Hampshire rally the morning after the Iowa caucus was rocking - and actually very moving." 

The voters in the first two states are the lucky ones, because they can really study the candidates and talk about them based on direct contact. Michigan is another matter, and more typical of the campaign for the presidency from now on. To begin with, there is the sheer scale of the State. Michigan is six times larger than New Hampshire, though about the same size as Iowa. More to the point, Michigan has 10 million inhabitants, more than twice as many as Iowa and New Hampshire put together, and they are not going to get many chances to see the candidates in the six days between primaries, no matter how intensive the campaigning. This means that the candidates will have to use the media to reach the voter, and that fact favors candidates with deep pockets.

Since there is no Democratic contest, we should focus on the Republican side. Huckabee and McCain do not have much money, and they will need to calculate carefully how to use the scarce resources. Huckabee will presumably be mobilizing the churches, as he did in Iowa, and McCain can count on support from veterans organizations. By comparison, Romney has more, and apparently plans to spend heavily.

Not only does Michigan demand more money to run a campaign, but it has a more varied electorate. More than 800,000 people in Michigan do not speak English in their homes, including many of the 400,000 Hispanics. Iowa and New Hampshire basically do not have Black people, which makes Obama's success there almost astonishing. Michigan's 1.4 million African-Americans traditionally vote overwhelmingly for the Democratic Party. Had there been a three-way contest with Edwards and Clinton, Obama presumably would have received far more than a third of the Black vote. Even more intriguing, Michigan also has a sizable Arab population, more than 400,000 in the Detroit metropolitan area. Dearborn, where Henry Ford once built his largest factory, today is 30% Arab. It seems reasonable to think that because of his cultural background, Obama would have appealed to such voters. But because the Michigan Primary is meaningless for the Democrats, we will never know how Obama might have done. However, the Arab voter is not necessarily a Democrat. The Arab population is better educated and more highly paid than the Michigan average, and half typically vote for the Republicans. This group may choose Romney, rather than the Bible-thumping Huckabee or militant McCain.  

The Republicans will battle it out in a state whose economy has been struggling for decades. Detroit is the headquarters for General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler, and as they have lost market share to Japanese and European firms, jobs have been disappearing. This is a blue-collar state, where only one adult in four has a BA (in New Hampshire it was one in three), and where the number of jobs has shrunk 7% during the Bush years, at a time when the country as a whole has created more than 2 million jobs. Given these local hard times, the populism that Edwards brought into the campaign and that other candidates have picked up, should play well in Michigan. That ought to favor Huckabee and McCain more than Romney. Note also that while Detroit dominates Michigan, it has a large rural area as well, and an entire penninsula, Upper Michigan, that has no large cities. This population is less multicultural and more conservative, and it will be interesting to see how Huckabee and McCain do in these areas. Romney's father was once governor of Michigan (and an unsuccessful Presidential candidate), and the resonance of the name, plus old family connections, can only help his faltering campaign. Indeed, the news today is that Romney has pulled his advertising off the air in South Carolina to focus all his energies in Michigan. This seems to be a recognition of the fact that if he cannot win there, his campaign may be over.

The Michigan Primary could have been the dramatic third act of an electoral drama, pitting the Clinton machine with its strong ties to the labor unions against the Obama wave. Instead, it will be a sort of referendum on Clinton by herself, and if half the Democrats are "undecided" that is a kind of defeat for her. At least on the Republican side there is still a contest, and a very interesting one, between Huckabee, McCain, and Romney, who each have around 20% in the average of all polls, with Giuliani running at about 10% and assorted others garnering a few votes, too. If one looks back over the polls for a year, McCain had a high point of 30% back in March of last year, before his finances collapsed and his campaign seemed hopeless. After falling as low as 10%, his numbers are rising rapidly now. Romney peaked at 26% at the same time that McCain waned. But Romney has been fading a bit ever since then, even before his losses in Iowa and New Hampshire. Giuliani once had 28% in Michigan, but he has been falling to his present 10%. Huckabee, in contrast, has not suffered any relapses. Starting at 0% in June of 2007, his numbers have continually risen to his present tie with Romney and McCain.  If the electorate in Michigan is as volatile as that in New Hampshire, the next week should be very interesting.