Monday, January 14, 2008

Dispatch from Michigan: Neck and Neck   [Mark Hemingway]

I'm writing this from the Detroit airport, after spending the morning on McCain's Straight Talk Express bus traveling around western Michigan. I've been following him on the trail for the last two days now.

I'll have more on candidate McCain later — but first, a horse race assessment of tomorrow's primary based on my time out on the campaign trail.

Nobody seems to know anything about what the outcome will be. Just a few days ago polls of the state had McCain up by as much as six, and now Romney is up by about as much. After the fiasco in New Hampshire, no one seems willing to bet the farm on any poll, but there is the sense that Romney has gained some real traction in the state.

Romney has been hitting McCain hard over the state's economic woes. McCain has been stumping around the state offering up the blunt assessment that the midwest is no longer going to be a hub of stable, high-paying manufacturing jobs. He has been emphasizing the need to transition the economy stressing the need for job training and the like. Romney, on the other hand, has cast the state's economic predicament as a "personal" issue to him. He is trying to portray McCain's assessment of Michigan's economy as needlessly pessimistic and detached.

Romney is also arguing the federal government is not doing enough to help the auto industry enough. "Detroit can only thrive if Washington is an engaged partner, not a disinterested observer,” he said in a speech to the Detroit Economic Club this afternoon.

And to appeal to Michigan specifically, Romney has been attacking McCain for his longtime support of increased CAFE standards. The McCain campaign has responded to this with a video of Romney complaining about the lack of improvement in fuel efficiency standards from two years ago. It is essentially another flip-flop charge.

Flip-flop or not, Romney is saying the right things to appeal to Michiganders now. The timing of these attacks on McCain in the last days has been very good. They're grabbing headlines in the last few newscycles and it's hard to tell whether McCain will have any chance to respond.

Then there's the issue of turnout — there are no reliable turnout models for this election. McCain has been favored largely on the expectation that large numbers of independents and Democrats would turn out to vote for him, since the state has open primaries and because the only major candidate in the Democratic primary is Hillary Clinton. (Obama and Edwards decided not to run in the Michigan primary after the DNC penalized the state, depriving it of all its delegates.)

As NR's resident Michigander John Miller noted, expected snows and bad weather across the state might depress turnout tomorrow and that could have a significant impact on the election. It snowed overnight in Kalamazoo and was snowing heavily as I was driving out of western Michigan today. Low turnout would be bad for McCain.

As in prior contests, Romney has more money and a better organization in the state. In both Iowa and New Hampshire, with close polls, Romney's well-funded get-out-the-vote efforts were feared, but they fizzled. While the McCain campaign is certainly hoping lightning will strike three times, but the Romney campaign might have learned something by now from their mistakes. If Romney's GOTV effort is successful and turnout is low, Romney might be looking good.

On the other hand, McCain's rallies the past few days have been packed to the rafters. People in Michigan are clearly enthused about his candidacy. The competitive nature of the race in Michigan could mean big turnout, snow or shine.

And finally, nobody's sure what effect Huckabee will have on the election dynamic. He has national standing and the combined support of Evangelicals in the Western part of the state and Reagan Democrats in the Detroit subburbs who like his economic populism. He's polling around 18-20%. Nobody has any strong opinions on which of the two frontrunners Huckabee hurts or helps.

So there you have it, in a nutshell. Bundle up and buckle in, because Michigan could be very close.

01/14 06:42 PMShare