McCain, Dems and globo warmers vs. Michigan

Daniel Howes:

During a campaign stop in Waterford Township, Republican presidential contender John McCain said: "I'm here to look you in the eye and tell you that we are a nation that doesn't leave our people behind."

Really? I don't know where to start.

Here's the Arizona senator instrumental in turning GOP attitudes in Washington against Detroit's automakers, who allied himself with that close friend of Motown -- Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass. -- to push for sharp increases in federal fuel economy rules. They lost that battle, but last month won a war that will cost cash-strapped automakers billions and billions.

Who, exactly, in that crowd is worried about leaving behind Michigan, which has more unemployed citizens (370,000) than Iowa sent to its caucuses (334,000) last week?

You want a fat slice of America, its domestic problems distilled, come to the Big Mitten. We've got them all -- highest unemployment, lowest job creation, imploding public finances, steadily declining home values, rising foreclosures, a dysfunctional governor and Legislature, the poorest major city in America and a major job-providing sector wrestling with a massive domestic restructuring and global expansion at the same time.

Yet the folks from the party that allegedly stands for business are not showing much interest in what ails Michigan or the business that drives it because we a) mostly vote Democrat for the presidency and b) aren't a growth story for their party and c) have too many unions in too many places to bother, chief being the United Auto Workers.

Tuesday's primary may sharpen the race for the Republican nomination, but you get a sense that those who would be president don't have much to offer besides rejiggering job training (McCain), leveling the playing field (Mitt Romney) and cutting federal taxes (all of them). Heck, Mike Huckabee and Ron Paul want to abolish the IRS altogether (yeah, right).

What about the Democrats? Their rhetoric says they're "ready" and stand for "hope" and "change." They're for the working man, the little people, the other America, the work-a-day folks. That's a lot of Michigan, suffering through a seemingly endless one-state recession now threatening to go national.

But the Dems, amazingly, aren't here. That says as much about their tin political ears, inept state party leaders and assumptions that Michigan will stay Blue in November no matter what (can you say "Reagan Democrats?") as it does about the sincerity of their worldview and the place of an industrial state and its working folks in it.

...

Michigan is a mess. A big part of its problems is the unions that have made the major industry uncompetitive. This is compounded by the unions backing of Democrats who have made the state uncompetitive. Clearly McCain can't honestly call the auto business "my friend" as he is want to do. It is also clear that Michigan and its unions do not want to hear what they need to do to turn around their employers business.